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I sent in a picture of some work that one of our maintenance guys had done. He was real proud that he had used Brwon Orange Yellow for three 480 volt pumps. When we took the pumps out last year we found that he had run all of the brown to one pump, all of the orang to the second pump and all of the yellow to the third pump. This was also the same guy that ran three white wires out of a 3 phase breaker. We actually fried a machine here because the new crew was hooking it up and assumed the white had no volts to it. After it fried they checked the white wire and it had 70 volts on it.

These are reasons to never ever assume that the color means something. Always check first.
Don(resqcapt19)

The surprise came not from when we actually went to put the fixtures in BUT after I checked the voltage. Anyone worth their salt checks before installing.
In this case it was a state bid job, the contractor i work for was told what the voltages were.

Hey, at least they're not Brown, Ornage, Yellow!

[This message has been edited by 4thYearApprentice (edited 07-13-2002).]

The way I understand it, Brown Orange and Yellow would have been perfectly acceptable. Code only specifies that Orange be used for the high leg on a Delta (if there is one) but there is no requirement for the BOY color scheme to be reserved for 480V.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

In Houston the colors for 480 volt are brown, purple, yellow, and 208 volt are black, red, blue. For a high leg set up just change the red to and orange.

1-3-5-7...touch that wire, you'll be in heaven....or maybe not,
Doc

But touching the black is really O.K.,
So long as I'm here in old England today!

What are them large cables joined to the
right of the pan unit?.
They have insulating boots on the ends
of them.
Green wires are actually used in some parts of Northern Africa, as Phase Wires, so
I am told.

I seem to vaguely recall seeing a reference to green being a phase color in an old Dutch system.

I've never been able to confirm it, but if that was the case then that might account for its use in former Dutch colonies in Africa.


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 08-14-2002).]

Used to work at a research facility where, from about 1957 to early/mid 1960s had a standard 480V 3w color code was black/yellow/green with bare for equipment ground. It had all been reidentified brown/yellow/purple, but the oldtimers would cringe seeing young punks install insulated-green cable for equipment grounding{!} I looked, but never found any 4-conductor SO cord on 480V circuits to see how green was used there.