ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Phase Identification

..Can anyone please give me the article # in "The Book", that addresses what colors the different phases are to be marked..I know that for 120/240v.3phase, the colors are black,red,and blue,and white for the neutral,...and for 277/480v. 3phase,it's yellow, orange,and brown..but is the neutral white, or gray??? and where does it have these color codings listed,I looked all over Art.200,...maybe I missed it..???

AR

The NEC does not specify the colors for 480/277 or 208/120 "hots".

If what you are replacing had colors for the sake of keeping things easy to work on I would keep them the same.

White or gray are both acceptable for the Neutrals.

Bob

Hey be careful with the marking and installation of parallel cables.

Before energizing this job put a continuity meter on it and check for cross phased or grounded conductors.

Big Boom from cross phased parallel cables on service entrance conductors.

..I got ya Iwire, well,when the utilty inspector came by, he saw that the old lines were marked ..Red,Black,and Blue,and he said I had to change it cuz those colors denote a 120/240v.system,and the system was really 265/460..Yeah,we're gonna "tone" everything out before cutting in..I'm still gonna say a prayer and cover my eyes tho'

Interesting, it could be a local amendment, a utility requirement or the inspector could just be out of his head.

Joe service conductors are not a multiwire branch circuit and the colors are not specified.

How is that article you posted relevant to this installation?

Bob

Bob:

If my message came second, there would have been no question in your mind.

The first question didn't mention that they were service entrance conductors!

I only posted it because I wanted to add some information!

There is an interesting thread on this subject on Mike Holt,s forum. Go here

It looks like, if you have a situation where you have multi conductors of different voltages in the same raceway, wireway, etc., the nuetral would have to be marked white along with a marking on it to show it's from that system. I never had a situation where I had to do this, but to identify the nuetral on the 480v system, I wonder if white tape along with small wraps of brown, orange, and yellow also on the nuetral conductor would satisfy 200.6D. This would need to be done only if the nuetrals are mixed for whatever reason. Normally we keep boxes, wireways, separate.
Happy New Year

I'll second Bob's comment. Ask the utility inspector for the document that prescribes the color scheme, explaining that you'll need it again for future jobs, and explaining that the NEC doesn't spec the color.

My local PoCo has had a tendancy to loose my mailing information, thus leaving me the task of finding out what I missed, generally after I've built something.

Edit for sp.

[This message has been edited by ElectricAL (edited 01-02-2004).]