jmellc
Senior Member
- Location
- Durham, NC
- Occupation
- Facility Maintenance Tech. Licensed Electrician
I may have discussed this before, can't recall.
I have a love/hate relationship with tray cable. Very convenient in many ways and faster than conduit/wire pulling. But wire colors are screwed up from the start. Most 3 wire cable is black, red, blue. Nearly all runs require a ground, so one should be green or bare. A few with more wires do have a bare ground but not many. So, any 120 volt run has to be color coded on 2 wires. My preferred way for a long time was to use the one matching circuit color, then code the other 2 as needed. I liked it but it did mean coding different colors different times. Plus, no 2 people did it the same. I have come to think the better way is always use black for line, code red/white for neutral and blue/green for ground. 208 would be black/red for circuit, code blue/green for ground. I go to panels and see all colors having been coded differently. Can be real confusing tracking a neutral or ground in many cases. In cables with more wires, I often see orange coded for green.
I don't know what manufacturers are thinking. 3 wire cable should be black, white, green. 4 wire should be black, red, white, green, etc. Should follow same color patterns as Romex IMHO.
I have a love/hate relationship with tray cable. Very convenient in many ways and faster than conduit/wire pulling. But wire colors are screwed up from the start. Most 3 wire cable is black, red, blue. Nearly all runs require a ground, so one should be green or bare. A few with more wires do have a bare ground but not many. So, any 120 volt run has to be color coded on 2 wires. My preferred way for a long time was to use the one matching circuit color, then code the other 2 as needed. I liked it but it did mean coding different colors different times. Plus, no 2 people did it the same. I have come to think the better way is always use black for line, code red/white for neutral and blue/green for ground. 208 would be black/red for circuit, code blue/green for ground. I go to panels and see all colors having been coded differently. Can be real confusing tracking a neutral or ground in many cases. In cables with more wires, I often see orange coded for green.
I don't know what manufacturers are thinking. 3 wire cable should be black, white, green. 4 wire should be black, red, white, green, etc. Should follow same color patterns as Romex IMHO.
