It's several weeks since I posted in another thread that my usual supplier was finally carrying the new harmonized cables. Judging by the comments from others, I think this must have been about the last area of the country to see them!

It appears that resistance is futile (except in Ohm's Law [Linked Image]) and today I had to come back from the supply house with my first ever purchase of cable in the new colors (a reel of 3-core 1.5mm SWA).

The new colors pose a query in situations where a 3-core armored cable is to be used for a single-phase feed with one conductor acting as a supplemental earth to the armor.

With the traditional 3-core red/yellow/blue, I always applied black tape or sleeving to the blue for use as the neutral, and green/yellow ID to the yellow for the earth. I wouldn't mind betting that's the way most of us in the U.K. did it.

But have any of you adopted a preferred convention for the new cables?

Assuming brown is left as-is for the single phase line, which way round would you re-identify the remaining conductors for use a neutral and earth?

1. Black -> Blue; Gray -> Green/yellow;

or

2. Black -> Green/yellow; Gray -> Blue.