Color code 480v

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dm9289

Industrial Maintenance Electrician
Location
Pennsylvania
Occupation
Industrial process repair/ maintenance Electrician
I traditionally used brown orange yellow green for 480v motors.
Today I had a visitor from another facility and he was freaked out that an existing 480 used black blue red green.
I told him those colors are commonly used but the only real rule was no green gray white plus a few different stripe combos on ungrounded.
I searched various areas but could find no info on required colors on ungrounded conductors except the mentioned neutral and ground rules.
If there is a color listing/ requirement can anyone tell me where?
 
The only place you will find B O Y is in 517.160

Roger
 
480sparky said:
The NEC hasn't specified any general color rules for various phase/voltage combos since the 1975 [210-5(c)].
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Thank you that’s what I thought I looked thru many sections and came up with nothing
 
480sparky said:
The NEC hasn't specified any general color rules for various phase/voltage combos since the 1975 [210-5(c)].
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Thank you very much I was driving myself crazy looking thru the book.
I took a series of classes and I believe it was mentioned their also that this was a common misconception
 
dm9289 said:
Thank you very much I was driving myself crazy looking thru the book.
I took a series of classes and I believe it was mentioned their also that this was a common misconception
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What's even more confusing is using grey as an ungrounded ('hot') was once legal.
 
dm9289 said:
Thank you that’s what I thought I looked thru many sections and came up with nothing
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Note that 480sparky said "general rules", as stated earlier Brown Orange Yellow is a required color code for 517.160 and there are mandated colors for heating and some other specific applications.

Roger
 
480sparky said:
What's even more confusing is using grey as an ungrounded ('hot') was once legal.
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Yes, what was not allowed was the use of Natural Gray, which was the neutral. Natural gray went away as no one knew what it was (Likely the e color used on very old rubber insulation)
 
NEC did away with mandated colors as too many looked at red wire and assumed it was 120V. Prior to the 2005 NEC, green was required for the EGC, but not prohibited for an ungrounded conductor.
 
tom baker said:
Yes, what was not allowed was the use of Natural Gray, which was the neutral. Natural gray went away as no one knew what it was (Likely the e color used on very old rubber insulation)
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"Natural gray' is a very very very light gray. Unless next to an actual white conductor, you'd think it was white. Natural gray was removed from the NEC recently as no one has made it since the 60s.
 
For many years the "standard" practice here was B-O-Y but many of the industrial plants had 480 & 240/120 3 phase. 110.15 & 210.5 required orange on the high-leg. Although others means of identification were allowed, some local ordinances changed 480 standard to Brown-Purple-Yellow
 
Remember that if voltage and phase identification is required and it is done by color code, the code used must be posted somewhere, probably at the panels involved or at the service(s).

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GoldDigger said:
Remember that if voltage and phase identification is required and it is done by color code, the code used must be posted somewhere, probably at the panels involved or at the service(s).

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
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Yes and a reminder that if you have two nominal voltage systems, they have to be identified by phase and system voltage class at all termination, connection and splice points. Existing systems do not have to be reidentifed. The identification can be posted or readily available
 
Only reserved colors for general use is white, gray and green/green with yellow stripe.

If you only have one voltage system on premises you do not even need to identify individual phase conductors separately.

Industry sort of has an unofficial standard of BOYG for 480/277 and BRBW for 208/120.
 
kwired said:
Only reserved colors for general use is white, gray and green/green with yellow stripe.

If you only have one voltage system on premises you do not even need to identify individual phase conductors separately.

Industry sort of has an unofficial standard of BOYG for 480/277 and BRBW for 208/120.
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What colors would you specify, when the voltage is something other than 277/480V, 120/208V, or 120/240V? Such as a 600V system? Text labels at terminations instead of colors?
 
Carultch said:
What colors would you specify, when the voltage is something other than 277/480V, 120/208V, or 120/240V? Such as a 600V system? Text labels at terminations instead of colors?
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It's not that you can only use a specific color for one system. You can use Blk/Rd/Blu/Wh for 12/208-240 and 480/277 in the same building if you wanted to.

Marking them as such at each pull point, termination etc would be problematic, but the NEC doesn't care about that.
 
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