Purple as 3rd line/phase conductor!?

[PBC_1966]

Purple is used for switched wires in France along with orange.

Purple is also sometimes used for switched lines here. In some areas it's the norm for one phase of a 277/480V system, either by local code or convention (277/480V is most often either brown/orange/yellow or brown/purple/yellow).

Just to be different, the local electrical code in the City of San Francisco specifies purple for the high-leg of a 4-wire delta system (the NEC recommendation since 1971 has been orange).

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Maybe we should have the same per-city regs here. The the benighted Londoners could have the idiotic rule about non-flammable CUs, and the rest of the country could get on with their lives.

 

[Jackrae]

Still can't see what was wrong with red, yellow, blue. "Euro-Standardisation" simply to satisfy desk-jocky bureaucrats really is grasping the wrong end of the stick.

 

[PBC_1966]

Maybe we should have the same per-city regs here. The the benighted Londoners could have the idiotic rule about non-flammable CUs, and the rest of the country could get on with their lives.

Sort of like some of the comments over here about Chicago with it's "everything must be in conduit" rule.

Still can't see what was wrong with red, yellow, blue. "Euro-Standardisation" simply to satisfy desk-jocky bureaucrats really is grasping the wrong end of the stick.

For sure. Britain should have just told them: "We have a perfectly good system and we're not changing it."

But it's worth remembering that for some reason the U.K. went through several changes in the past as well. Why was red/white/blue changed to red/yellow/blue, for example? I wonder if it might have had something to do with the increasing importation of equipment from overseas in the 1960's which might use white for something else, but I don't think I've ever seen the "official" explanation. And before red/white/blue there was red/blue/green, then sometime back in the 1920's green was neutral.

 

[PBC_1966]

So what was the point of changing a perfectly good system - and introducing complications of colors "switching sides" at the same time - just so that the same color code can be used throughout Europe? (EU, EEA, CENELEC, whatever.)

 

[Iggifer]

I personally prefer Brown, Black & Grey, but I'm too young for Red/Yellow/Blue, and I understand why people are not keen.

Interesting that a lot of companies still use Red & Black for test leads on meters, not Brown & Blue

 

[PBC_1966]

Interesting that a lot of companies still use Red & Black for test leads on meters, not Brown & Blue

Red & black have been the traditional colors of leads on test meters pretty much since red & black became the accepted general colors for d.c. positive & negative. They're not really related to mains wiring colors specifically; it just so happens that the British colors were the same.

 

[Iggifer]

Ahh makes sense. A few companies have moved to brown and blue to make it easy

Have so little to do with DC the thought didn't even cross my mind

 

[PBC_1966]

Ahh makes sense. A few companies have moved to brown and blue to make it easy

I'm assuming that's for mains-specific meters such as loop testers? I can't imagine general-purpose test meters ever moving away from red & black, at least not in the English-speaking world (I did have a couple of Russian multimeters years ago which came with black & white test leads, so I assume that was their standard, at least in the U.S.S.R. days when the meters were made).

 

[Iggifer]

Ahh makes sense. A few companies have moved to brown and blue to make it easy

I'm assuming that's for mains-specific meters such as loop testers? I can't imagine general-purpose test meters ever moving away from red & black, at least not in the English-speaking world (I did have a couple of Russian multimeters years ago which came with black & white test leads, so I assume that was their standard, at least in the U.S.S.R. days when the meters were made).

Yea more MFTs than 'Multimeters'

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Still can't see what was wrong with red, yellow, blue. "Euro-Standardisation" simply to satisfy desk-jocky bureaucrats really is grasping the wrong end of the stick.

What is your understanding of why the change was made?

And what do you mean by "Euro-Standardisation"?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Britain should have just told them: "We have a perfectly good system and we're not changing it."

It doesn't work like that, nor should it.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I wonder if there is any point asking if the Mod(s) responsible can have the human decency to explain why one side of an argument, and one set of opinions, is allowed to be posted here, but the other side, and the challenging/questioning of those opinions is not, even though those other posts break no rules?

 

[JohnW2]

I wonder if there is any point asking if the Mod(s) responsible can have the human decency to explain why one side of an argument, and one set of opinions, is allowed to be posted here, but the other side, and the challenging/questioning of those opinions is not, even though those other posts break no rules?

I obviously can't know, but if messages have been removed, I would presume that was probably because of the language used, not, per se, because they were challenging/questioning opinions.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

You might presume that.

You'd be wrong, though.