Color coding three phase branch circuits

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Imagine you had a fancy wire cart that color coded the wire as you were unspooling it. The only thing you store are spools of white wire. You can generate any color, along with coding stripes and printed numbers.

You could have crazy fancy coding...and then someone would require the coding, and then you would be in hell every time something got changed :)
 
T+Pro for direction. Make sure your motor connections are all the same. BK,RD,BL...1,2,3. Ck the first motor for direction and go. We pull multiple branch circuits of BRB, BOY, etc in one raceway often enough. Each group is marked again with coding tape or simple wraps of tape.
 
electrofelon said:
Seems almost easier with each boat all equal color though. Ok so say I have pulled my three boats, 12 conductors. Now I need to cut or pull out say phase A of the red boat. Obviously its one of the three reds. With the traditional way, it would be one of the three blacks. With my way I could just pick a red, and ring it out later but at least it's the correct boat which is most important.
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You've got no argument from me. I especially agree that no system is perfect. Cow summed up what I was thinking about regular MWBCs and kwired described what I've done for multiple motors and it works great.
 
electrofelon said:
Has anyone had any luck with equipment wiring being consistent as far as rotation goes? I haven't.
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Nope. We just got done hooking up nine exhaust fans and kept everything consistent ABC,123, the whole way. Fired then up and six went one direction and three went the other because that's the way they came from the factory.
 
As a maintenance guy at a hospital I would hate your idea. Good way to have excessive neutral current. Finding out that a black, red, and blue are all the same phase would tick me off. I could see it leading to bad things as people do tend to assume things.
 
Back when I did some office wiring, we would get striped wire and use for the second boat. Made make up really quick. 2 boats in one 3/4 conduit with 6 hots, 2 neutrals and an EGC
 
In most of the installations I have seen, each circuit has either BK/RD/BU/WH or BR/OR/YL/GY with each group taped or zipped together for reference. The panels appear neat & organized and the maintenance electricians can identify the source relatively easily.
 
ActionDave said:
Nope. We just got done hooking up nine exhaust fans and kept everything consistent ABC,123, the whole way. Fired then up and six went one direction and three went the other because that's the way they came from the factory.
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I have seen many electricians do this for multiple motors and ask me to have my guys change the wiring at the pole or XF because the motor they checked turned backwards. I told them I will if they check every motor and they ALL turn backwards..
I haven’t had to change one yet...
 
electrofelon said:
Has anyone had any luck with equipment wiring being consistent as far as rotation goes? I haven't.
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Pretty much because most installers color code as Left = A, center = B, and Right = C, because this is what the code says to do for 'bus bars'.

However the need to swap and roll phases can lead to problems, if color codes are followed as being sacrosanct.
Many don't take phase rotation into account until they get to a motor (I really like seeing the BOY code on line side of the starter, with OBY on the load side).
Also there is the issue of having different sources, like in an ATS, were there the are two different A phases even though rotation is the same.
 
I used to go as far as pipe into the panels, left side odd, right side even.
Top to bottom, left to right, front to back, indexed things to print north, used the resister color code.
Main thing is to be constant.
 
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