in what world is this the neutral?

Status
Not open for further replies.

brantmacga

Señor Member
Location
Georgia
Occupation
Former Child
i had an interesting conversation today.

stood watching a group of linemen making connections in a transformer on a job today;

they were questioning amongst themselves which pair of the 500's was the neutral; once they had a consensus answer, they decided to double check with me.



service is 120/208y; we had our phase colors as black, red, blue, and white.


their deduction was that the one with no colored tape was the neutral. i was so confused by the question i had to stand there and think about it for a minute. :confused:
 

480sparky

Senior Member
Location
Iowegia
Most linemen have never seen an NEC, let alone understand the color codes required by it. They usually go by the NESC.

'Round here, the three phase colors are red, white and blue.
 

brantmacga

Señor Member
Location
Georgia
Occupation
Former Child
Most linemen have never seen an NEC, let alone understand the color codes required by it. They usually go by the NESC.

'Round here, the three phase colors are red, white and blue.

they use white for an ungrounded conductor?


i couldn't image i was the only guy to ever use black/red/blue for ungrounded in this particular town.
 

masterinbama

Senior Member
They sure do. One of my best customers is a screen printer that makes reflective signs. The local POCO ordered a bunch of signs that had either RWB or BWR on them. They nail these to poles that have switches or intersection taps to indicate phasing. It's a pretty simple system , look at the sign look up that's what your rotation is from where you are standing.
 

jumper

Senior Member
The Navy also uses white as a phase color. I found this here.

Table 320-3-1 COLOR CODING ON THREE-PHASE AC SYSTEMS
Cable Type Phase or Polarity Color Code

4 Conductor
A Black
B White
C Red
Neutral Green

3 Conductor
A Black
B White
C Red
 

cadpoint

Senior Member
Location
Durham, NC
So what happened to brown-orange-yellow?
Well that our line side, not their load side colors. :)

Last big job where I was around those guys the joke was their ground was our neutral.

Duke power is now running a marked ground on their new installs.
(did I get that right) :)

Like - as stated by jumper

4 Conductor
A Black
B White
C Red
Neutral Green (but I recall it was a yellow strip - but it been away)

208Y/ 1200 Amps
 

mtfallsmikey

Senior Member
Well that our line side, not their load side colors. :)

Last big job where I was around those guys the joke was their ground was our neutral.

Duke power is now running a marked ground on their new installs.
(did I get that right) :)

Like - as stated by jumper

4 Conductor
A Black
B White
C Red
Neutral Green (but I recall it was a yellow strip - but it been away)

208Y/ 1200 Amps

At the old job, B-O-Y was used for all "street" power Black-R-Blue was for "filtered" power. Some green wire looked bluish when looking thru the hot work face shield (tinted yellow), so we switched to grn/yel.tracer for gnd.
 

Minuteman

Senior Member
Remodeling a church after a fire. New 1600 amp 120/208 Y MDP in the basement with a transformer vault on the other side of the concrete wall. My Black, Red, Blue, and White were allready in the vault. Was about to head for lunch. Utility guys were down in the vault. I climbed down and asked them if they need anything and noticed my wires.

They had Red, White, Blue as phases and Black as the neutral. "Just like on my rotation meter", he says.
 

Open Neutral

Senior Member
Location
Inside the Beltway
Occupation
Engineer
Fellow EE helped a buddy on his new house. Last owner was retired USN Chief Petty Officer, Electrician. Friend got zapped because white was hot, black ground, everywhere in house.


Passed a PEPCO crew pulling in cable to 2 story apt building. Cable was R W G. Asked and was told "Don't you know our song? Green is ground the world around.... except at PEPCO..." I was dumbfounded.

"The nice thing about standards in this business is we have so many to choose from."
Prof. Andrew S. Tanenbaum
 

SG-1

Senior Member
We have some old test equipment made by Westinghouse Electric in their East Pittsburg Works in the 1950s. The color code is:

Black - A-Phase
Red - B-Phase
Green - C-Phase
White - Neutral
 

iwire

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Massachusetts
And this thread demonstrates why you should never trust a color. Test and verify.

A number of people have expressed surprise at the power company workers use of white. Well they do not use the NEC, do we know all the rules in the NESC?

The line side of this breaker is supplied by service conductors.

Mixed139-1.jpg
 

brantmacga

Señor Member
Location
Georgia
Occupation
Former Child
Fellow EE helped a buddy on his new house. Last owner was retired USN Chief Petty Officer, Electrician. Friend got zapped because white was hot, black ground, everywhere in house. . . . . . .

I ran into the same issue once; i didn't get shocked, but the homeowner had rewired the house using black as the neutral. he worked for an industrial battery manufacturer; all he knew was black is the negative.
 

brantmacga

Señor Member
Location
Georgia
Occupation
Former Child
And this thread demonstrates why you should never trust a color. Test and verify.

A number of people have expressed surprise at the power company workers use of white. Well they do not use the NEC, do we know all the rules in the NESC?

I realize the poco has a different set of standards, but since we as the EC's are being inspected, i would expect them to be familiar with the colors we have to use as we cannot use the white as an ungrounded conductor and pass inspection.


i stayed late waiting on them to power up the service; good thing i did.

this was an addition to the poco's office, so it wouldn't have been unthinkable for one of them to turn on the main to check out their new offices.
 

Minuteman

Senior Member
My point too Brant! I don't care what their colors are. My Conductors were marked to indicate grounded and ungrounded. Surely it wasn't their first time to see 120/208Y marked that way. Had they closed the primary with the Black and White reversed at their equipment, it would have been their problem not mine. It could have been bad.
 

brantmacga

Señor Member
Location
Georgia
Occupation
Former Child
something else i didn't mention;

if they had connected the white to a phase, it would've energized the grounding system, including all of my cabinets and the plumbing.

this sounds like an issue that really needs to be addressed by power companies, NESC be damned.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top