Colors

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kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
I agree with the black-red-blue on the 3-phase color code but why would you have to color code a 1-phase service? It would be 2 blacks and a white unless you wanted to identify one of the phase conductors to distinguish it from the other in which case I would tape it red. (I.e. Look at SE cable when you strip off the jacket).

Black tape on already black wire is a waste of tape. The wire is black from the getgo so no tape required. This would be your black conductor in a Black, Red, Blue system
All goes back to whatever the method of identification is though. If black tape is supposed to mean something in the ID scheme and no tape means something else - you could conceivably have both a black conductor with no tape and a black conductor with black tape. Might not be a great ID scheme but you could have same dilemma with red tape and a red conductor as well, might want to try to select tape color that isn't same as a conductor color if possible for the ID scheme.
 

Carultch

Senior Member
Location
Massachusetts
Black tape on already black wire is a waste of tape. The wire is black from the getgo so no tape required. This would be your black conductor in a Black, Red, Blue system

I'm suggesting a method of using the number of tape stripes on the wire, to represent the number of phases in the system.

So one tape stripe means single phase, and three tape stripes means three phase. I suppose you'd need brown tape on black wire, for the first phase in each case, whose conventional color is black.

The reason I don't use brown-orange-yellow for the 120/208 three phase, is that those three colors identify to me, that it is of a voltage variety that is greater than 250 volts.
 

roger

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Fl
Occupation
Retired Electrician
The reason I don't use brown-orange-yellow for the 120/208 three phase, is that those three colors identify to me, that it is of a voltage variety that is greater than 250 volts.
And the only thing that confusion would do is cause the person(s) to be more cautious.

Really I don't have a problem with any method, even if someone might want to use Pink, Purple, and Gray. :blink:

Roger
 

George Stolz

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Windsor, CO NEC: 2017
Occupation
Service Manager
My problem is that I want to use black, red, blue and white for everything, and have some method that conveniently identifies the 1% of the job that is going to be connected to the single phase system.

I'm thinking of printing tags for the 1? conductors. It would amount to about 20 terminations, at a guess.
 

roger

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Fl
Occupation
Retired Electrician
George, since that's the case just order enough Black, Red, and White all with stripes for the single phase and post it at your service equipment. You can use what's left over for another job somewhere.

Roger
 
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