old colours

[great68]

Sorry steps its not being used throughout europe. Hagers Rcbo's still have a black cable as neutral are you going to put a danger notice on there new consumer units.Batty

I mark mine with blue sleeving. The earth lead should also be marked accordingly.

What happened to cream for functional earth ?

 

[batty]

I mark mine with blue sleeving. The earth lead should also be marked accordingly.What happened to cream for functional earth ?

Its now white on most Rcbo's.

Batty

 

[PBC_1966]

[quote name='Andy

 

[spinlondon]

The NICEIC are trying to de-neutralise the Black, so their recommendation is to use grey for the Neutral.

With items like emergency lights and bathroom fans, this recommendation seems even more approriate, as these items will often have terminals marked L1, L2 and N.

 

[Lurch]

I hate this subject, I used, and still do use, black for neutral. I found out that the NICEIC were wanting you to use grey for neutral, but as long as it is sleeved it doesn;t matter. Any colour in any cable can be anything, as long as it is sleeved. I can;t see how anyone could end up in court over whether they're using grey or black, some arguments really do goo off track somewhat!

 

[electro]

i thought there are no regs on what coulder do what on 3 core i usaly use black as stapper, brown as perminant and grey as switch live. l1 l2 l3 does not make sense to me. well it does but dont no why people say it. easer just to use colours.

every one is dirrernt l1 could b brown but thn another spark might use l1 as grey???

 

[electro]

i was not talking bout 3 phase. he said what leg do u use for nutral in 3pahse it blue ina 3 core cable there is no blue. so i use black.

 

[septiclecky]

and u also anserd me qustion very well. as u said a kithing fitter may use grey so there we go, no one uses the same colours. my point exatly cheers

Can we have this in English please not text talkX(

 

[kme]

Agreed the text talk is becoming all too common in some posts.

Gawd, dragging up some of the old discussions here..........

Right! As spin says, NIC and others attempting to de-neutralise black - however the recommendations for cable colours are in the BRB.

I did have a post on this at the time, as Kidde and other smoke alarm mfrs were suggesting grey be used for interconnect. I had a good discussion with my area engineer over this, as it ran contrary to 7671.

I now use grey sleeved blue for N, and black (unsleeved) for I/C on smokies, or sleeved brown for timer fans etc.

L1, L2, L3 IMO have no bearing on this discussion. They`re set in stone already, as far as I`m concerned.

KME

 

[Risteard]

I must be missing something here.

Surely L1/L2/L3 is relevant to three-phase.

As for using whatever colour, the regulations require them to be sleeved in the correct colour anyway, so I really can't understand what confusion could possibly arise from the use of either of the remaining cores for the neutral conductor.

 

[Mr Smith]

Agreed the text talk is becoming all too common in some posts.

mr smith would have to agree

text talk gives mr smith a headache

L1, L2, L3 IMO have no bearing on this discussion. They`re set in stone already, as far as I`m concerned.

KME

Surely L1/L2/L3 is relevant to three-phase.

although not a practising electrician

mr smith thinks that mr toe

who was the original poster

said

what colour did you use for neutral in the old colours when using a 3core cable

does this not mean that he was not discussing three phases

As for using whatever colour, the regulations require them to be sleeved in the correct colour anyway, so I really can't understand what confusion could possibly arise from the use of either of the remaining cores for the neutral conductor.

mr smith unfortunately considers himself unqualified to respond

mr smith has replied to this thread due to boredom at work

i have no patients to see

mr smith

 

[electro]

I must be missing something here.Surely L1/L2/L3 is relevant to three-phase.

As for using whatever colour, the regulations require them to be sleeved in the correct colour anyway, so I really can't understand what confusion could possibly arise from the use of either of the remaining cores for the neutral conductor.

sorry about text talk...

i know they need to be sleeved so there for its does not matter what colour you use. think is my point. the colours used can be any of the 3.

as it goes for 3phase i jnow the line conductors are brown black grey. with blue as a nutral.

he asked what colours do people use to act as a nutral.

 

[electro]

and no 3 core cable is used for lighting 3phase is 3 single cores!!! i may be wrong but i thought he was talking about 1.5mm 3core cable.

 

[Risteard]

I know what he was talking about, that's why I was saying L1/L2/L3 is not relevant to a single-phase circuit.

 

[Lurch]

L1, L2 and L3 isn't neccesarily relevant to this exact thread as such, but the 3 colours of the 3 core and earth are the 3 phase colours so it is partly relevant. Not sure what's going on though exactly, but whilst L1, L2 and L3 aren;t directly related to the thread, I can;t see how it causes confusion.

 

[a1]

mr smith would have to agreetext talk gives mr smith a headache

Me too Mr Smith.

mr smith has replied to this thread due to boredom at worki have no patients to see

mr smith

 

[PBC_1966]

I really don't see the relevance of L1, L2, L3 either when the cable isn't being used for three phases. Just because matching these designations results in red/yellow/blue mapping to brown/black/gray doesn't automatically mean that gray has to take the place of blue when it's being reidentified by sleeving.

But on a wider note, I've often wondered why 6243Y cable is manufactured with the three phase colors in the first place. How much of it ever ends up being used for a 3-phase delta connection? It's mostly used in single-phase residential and light commercial work.

So why red/yellow/blue? If following IEE Regs./BS7671, then when used for 2-way switches both the yellow & blue will need to be sleeved red, and when used for a timer fan, feeding two lights etc. the blue will normally be sleeved black for a neutral and the yellow sleeved red anyway.

Why did manufacturers never simply make it as red/yellow/black or red/blue/black? (Which would translate as brown/black/blue or brown/gray/blue now.)

 

[Lurch]

I think it's supply and demand, pretty sure you can get 6243Y in other colours, but no-one stocks it so it costs an absolute fortune. The 6243Y with colours matching the 3 phase colours has been adopted as the norm as it's a cable colour code that matches something, even though it never gets used for that purpose.

 

[Andy™]

Why did manufacturers never simply make it as red/yellow/black or red/blue/black? (Which would translate as brown/black/blue or brown/gray/blue now.)

even if it was red/yellow/black, the yellow would still have to be sleeved (along with the grey in the new colours)

 

[PBC_1966]

But with red/yellow/blue there will always be two conductors which need to be sleeved; at least with red/yellow/black only one would need sleeving where a neutral was employed.

Only a small point I know, but just something which has often been a niggling little question in the back of my mind. American Romex comes as black/white/red in the 3-core version (2-core being black/white - white is neutral).