Just out of interest - here's how Ireland's ETCI has interpreted the EU colour codes into Irish codes.

Also, curious as to how DC's done elsewhere..

Earth, protective, bonding - Green+Yellow
Neutral - Blue
Phase 1 - Brown
Phase 2 - Black
Phase 3 - Grey
PEN Conductor : Green + yellow with blue at the terminations or, blue with green+yellow at the terminations.

DC Positive - Red
DC Negative - Black
DC middle wire - Blue

What happened with the colour LIGHT BLUE for neutral ?

That was supposed to be the correct new colour for a neutral conductor.
I recall discussing it in another thread.

OK, I'll bite,
Would someone like to tell me how people that design and make electrical panels with PLC's and other Low voltage devices are supposed to internally wire a panel.
I'm talking 12, 24 and 48V AC.
I think you guys know my thoughts already on the constant changes being made to wiring colours.
New Zealand used the British standard for wiring control panels up until 1992, in factories at least.
In '92, all that went out the window, now factories that I've been part of, have added on bits and pieces with "new colour codes".
Phase is purple and the Neutral Black w/White stripe.
I wish someone would make up their mind, this is confusing us all to hell!.
But on the same side of the coin, I've also made a point of labelling the panel with a decal stating the colour codes used throughout the installation.
As for the chosen EU colours, they couldn't be a worse combination IMHO, at least with R-Y-B you had some idea of the colours in poor light, it seems like some clown that has never done a days work as an Electrician dreamed that idea up.
Just my $0.02 worth.

This is the new system in Ireland? How come you still have red in there?

The old system for D.C. here (since 1966) is:

Positive "outer" = red
Negative "outer" = blue
Middle wire = black

The association of blue with D.C. negative has been around for a long time across fields well outside the IEE's scope, e.g. the distribution equipment for the traction supply on the London Underground (neither pole solidly grounded) is coded red=positive, blue=negative, and blue has long been used as the identifying color for -50V busbars in telephone exchanges.

Under the new system the IEE lists the following (Mike, you'd better get yourself a drink and sit down before you read this!):

Positive = brown
Negative = gray
Middle = blue

For a 2-wire circuit, the grounded conductor should be blue with brown or gray as appropriate for positive or negative "hot" line. If neither pole is grounded, then brown & gray should be used for positive & negative respectively.




http://www.iee.org/Publish/WireRegs/IEE_Harmonized_colours.pdf




Whatever happened to LIGHT blue?

Well seems we've at least got the IEE middle wire :P

DC projects are pretty narrow and specialised these days though. I can't really see that many instances where normal contractors would come across DC feeds, other than SELV stuff.

Railway traction's pretty specialised.

The 13th edition (1955) IEE standard specified white for the negative of a 3-wire D.C. circuit (i.e. what was at that time the second phase on A.C.). Positive was red and middle wire black, the same as the 14th edition standard.

It also specified that the outer -- of either polarity -- of a 2-wire circuit derived from a 3-wire system should be red. That was the situation which existed in houses fed from D.C. mains in the 1950s. Half the houses in the street would have a grounded black negative with red at +240V (ish) to ground; the other half would have grounded black positive with red at -240V to ground.

Unlike the UK, DC supplies for residential use were rare here. ESB was established and nationalised in 1927 and rapidly standardised on 220/380V 50Hz LV supply.
The only systems that would have been DC were independent town supplies, they were very quickly merged into ESB.

DC colours possibly never played much of a role in electrical contractors' day-to-day work here. Where as in the UK, they were around for much longer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_Supply_Board#Standards Gives the details

Going somewhat off the original topic but I noticed this in the Wikipedia entry:



BS546 is still commonly used in theatre applications here. What possible safety reasons are there so long as the circuits feeding them are properly protected?

Using BS4343/IEC309 for all stage lighting connections seems horrendously cumbersome given their bulk.

Primarily that they're not designed as industrial plugs and are only specified for residential or light commercial use.

1) They can sit half-in/half out if pulled on as they've no locks. Also, they can come loose if the cables are pulled.
2) They are prone to breakage if they're abused or crushed.
3) Does stage lighting have RCD protection?
4) They cant be used in outdoor rigs.

The CEEform plugs aren't that bulky to be honest and they're not that visible in stage rigging.
They are legally required here now though. If you put anything else in you're in breech of health and safety regulations.

There's an example of a dimmer pack



Small stuff can use IEC connectors.

BS546 is simply not supported as an official standard here anymore, so you can't realistically use it on anything anymore.

I've never found the plugs particularly bulky. They don't have to be completely blue either.

I really can't see that much problem with BS546.



True, IEC309s latch together, but just how much of a problem is this in a typical lighting rig? Once the cables are run connected they're not generally subject to the same sort of rigors as, say, building site connections.



The same could be said for BS1363, and they're allowed in commercial use. The Duraplug style BS546 connectors are generally quite rugged enough for stage lighting use.



Probably not unless it's a TT supply, but what does that have to do with the connector types?



True, but neither can many of the light fittings they're used with here. What's the problem with using BS4343/IEC309 where necessary and BS546 for other applications?



That strikes me as being completely over the top.

When I was involved with amateur theatre (quite a few years ago now) we used a mixture of 5 and 15A BS546. 5A was adequate for 1kW spots/floods and a bank of 5A outlets certainly use up much less space than a bank of a similar number of IEC309s.

I understand though that professional theatre applications have moved toward using 15A for all connections in recent years and are phasing out use of 5A. There are still plenty in service though.

Paul,

The major issue here is down to health and safety requirements and insurance.

Basically, rigging on a stage, or in a studio is now considered an area with mechanical hazards. So, all the equipment must be fitted with a recognised and approved connector that can cope in such an environment.

BS546 is no longer legally recognised in the regs here, IS401:1986 or IS401/A:1986 (BS1363) is and S EN 60309:1999 are. As are the IEC standards for IEC connectors etc.

I don't know about the UK, but in Ireland there were an unusual number of fires and electrical accidents in theatre installations. The health and safety people and insurers cracked down on it.

One of the major problems was the use of the standard, brittle version of BS546 rather than the rubber tough plug. Using IS EN 60309:1999 / CEEform eliminated this problem completely.

To be perfectly honest, having worked with this stuff in reality. I find the CEEform plugs perfectly practical in rigging. They're robust, and can't be pulled out accidently. Accidental pulling on cables is not at all unusual in a studio environment and it can lead to lights going off etc.

They're also available in black, so they're pretty much invisible in rigging. And pre-wired bars are easily available with CeeForm outlets and inlets.

It really hasn't been much of a problem. Overall, most people seem to prefer them as they can take quite a lot of pulling around, banging, falling from heights, having heavy equipment hit them etc..

I would agree though, all of this ultra-safe stuff is going a little over the top. But some of these industries brought the spotlight, if you'll pardon the pun, upon themselves through a history of installations done on a shoe string, equipment that was worn out and sloppy wiring and electrical safety practices.

That being said, anywhere there's a professional sparks working all the time the standards are usually very high.

So what happens if a British/Northern Irish outfit travels down to the Republic? Presumably they are banned from using their BS546 extensions and panels?

There's an electrical section on this forum, in which different aspects of theatre connections often arise:

http://www.blue-room.org.uk


Hmmm.... I haven't checked that site for a while. There used to be a power/electrical section, but it seems to have disappeared for some reason.

Besides... did BS546 plugs ever have sheathed pins? If not I can see why they've been outlawed for stage use.

I only worked with smallish stage equipment here, that's connected with Schuko plugs/IEC to Schuko cords and usually fed from a nearby 16A CEE socket.

Not originally, but they've been available for the last few years. The commonly used (in the theatre) Duraplug (MK) doesn't have sheathed pins though.

To be honest, I think this sleeved-pin issue is something else which is being blown out of proportion as well, especially when one considers the possibility of much easier contact on something like a lampholder. You have an opening almost an inch wide with live pins easily accessible to even large fingers.

I don't know... personally I think the risk of accidentally touching partially inserted plug pins is much greater than reaching into a lamp holder. I still have lots of old ungrounded round face plugs and caught myself several times very close to touching the live pins (mostly when I get lazy and try to plug in/unplug stuff single handed).
Especially when sockets are fairly tight you have to use force and get used to pressing one or more fingers against the cae plate and pull out the plug with the others... and that can get you pretty close to live metal!

I have some pretty early BS546 plugs that did have sleeved pins - a red sleeve on the live and black on the neutral. I think they were made by GEC sometime in the 1940s or 1950s, I also have a Crabtree one with sleeving too, from around the same time. Obviously they were ahead of their time and didn't catch on, possibly due to the small extra cost. I'll see if I can get some pictures and have them posted.

Come to think of it, I believe I've seen some old BS546 plugs like that too. Pretty rare though.

Going back to D.C. wire identification, are any of our Stateside members following this thread?

What would you use for 3-wire D.C. systems? The N.E.C. would require white or gray for the grounded middle wire, so with 3+Gnd. Romex presumably you'd then use red for positive, black for negative. But what about conduit wiring? The same, or maybe blue for negative?

What if a 120/208V system in the same building was already using black/red/blue/ white?

Paul,
I still see new MK BS546 plugs without line pin sheaths. What's the deal there ? Is it actually in the BS546 revised spec or not?

Seems we're supposed to cut off / replace any older BS1363 plugs that don't have sheathed pins. Quite a rarity at this stage, hardly ever see them anymore, even on older appliances they seem to have been changed.

I'm not certain, but I don't think so. I have to confess that I don't follow all these standards revisions that closely, but as these plugs are still listed in catalogs as "BS546:1950" I would suspect that BS546 has never actually seen any revisions since 1950.

The standard MK BS546 5A (and 15A) plugs have hardly changed in decades. Old plug on the left, a new one purchased within the last year or so on the right:





The old plug bears the catalog no. MK1025 inside, the new one is MK1025A. Other than minor variations in the plating and the cord grip material, you can see that they're almost identical.

Both are marked "5A BSS546" on the base. The only other marking differences are that the new plug has "250V" stamped under the earth pin and the old one doesn't; the new plug has the earth symbol as well as "E" against the earth terminal inside; and the old plug says "Made in England" on the base whereas the new one just has a bar there and no indication of country of manufacture.

A rummage through my box has also revealed MK plugs which must be from somewhere in between these two: The "250V" and earth symbol markings are present, but they still say "Made in England."



What, for all appliances no matter what? That's come into force here for businesses selling second-hand appliances here, although you'll still find older plugs in shops which haven't yet had the "pleasure" of a Trading Standards raid.

To be honest, when it comes to BS1363 I'd rather have a well made 40-year-old MK plug without sheathed pins than one of the cheap-and-nasty modern versions with them.

Well, it falls under health and safety at work here.

The sheathed-pin issue has arisen just on regular BS1363 plugs here in offices, theatres, schools, etc. in the past. Some people seem to have been given the impression that all plugs must be replaced by the newer sleeved versions, but there's no such requirement.