Be fair - grey is a fairly neutral colour.
Mains Smoke Alarm
- Thread starter oldguy
- Start date
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and there could be 50 shades of it.......
Of course your right bAS, but I was talking about a unlikely hypothetical situation where a DIY'er might cut into a cable without accessing either end of the terminations.
Probably
Likely is to
, due to manufacturing tolerances in making the insulation's dye.Sponsored Links
May I venture to suggest that anyone who is likely to cut blindy into a cable without verifying that it's the cable he wants and that it's dead (unless shutting off the entire installation) is probably not going to be too familiar with the nuances of whether black or grey is the "preferred" color with the new cable anyway?
It's used for neutral over here, along with the more common white.
To summarise my earllier point
Red was replaced with brown
Yellow was replaced with black
Blue was replaced with grey.
So if we were were all using the blue for something, it's more than logical to now use the grey.
Just look at the structure of any 3 core+E cable. The sequence the wires are arranded are
Red
Yellow
Bare earth
Blue
or
Brown
Black
Bare earth
Grey
There was lots of literature and colour code charts about when the harmonised cable came out.
So, in conclusion, there is nothing to suggest a harmonised black is the best colour to use as a neutral in a 3 core+E cable, so only silly people would choose to do this.
Red was replaced with brown
Yellow was replaced with black
Blue was replaced with grey.
So if we were were all using the blue for something, it's more than logical to now use the grey.
Just look at the structure of any 3 core+E cable. The sequence the wires are arranded are
Red
Yellow
Bare earth
Blue
or
Brown
Black
Bare earth
Grey
There was lots of literature and colour code charts about when the harmonised cable came out.
So, in conclusion, there is nothing to suggest a harmonised black is the best colour to use as a neutral in a 3 core+E cable, so only silly people would choose to do this.
For identifying the three phases in a three-phase system, yes. But we're not talking about three phases. We're talking about two lives of a single-phase system, one of which is switched, plus a neutral. Under both the old and the new scheme you end up with two conductors which are the wrong color without reidentifying them at the terminations.
P.S. Although it was much rarer than red/yellow/blue, there were some manufacturers who made triple & earth in red/yellow/black form at one time. Has any manufacturer yet made it with brown/black/blue or brown/grey/blue?
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What happens when you get a screw between Brown and Black your way?
The two lives or conductors would short.
Same as when you get a screw between red and yellow my way.
In the case of these two lives being shorted by a screw the protective device would not operate and the screw would remain live.
This would also be the case within a regular two way switch cable, consisting of three line conductors and one earth.
This would also be the case within a regular two way switch cable, consisting of three line conductors and one earth.
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Question: How would you use a new brown/black/grey cable to run a 3-wire d.c. circuit?
By first obtaining some blue sleeving.
And on which wire of the brown/black/grey cable would you be likely to place it?
Black.
As would most people, I would think. It would seem somewhat perverse to do otherwise when you already have two out of the three wires the right color for the application.
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