Euro colour shenanigans.

Seasoned electrical professionals will be familiar with the use of a three core wire armour cable as a single phase feed with a good earth by virtue of using one of the cores as an earth with suitable identification. Traditionally in the UK we would use the colours as follows:-

red = live
blue = neutral
yellow = earth (with suitable identification)

This is common practise where the armour is simply not good enough to act as an earth alone. (Don't argue Frank, it's officially recognised practise in the industry.)

Now let's try this with the new Euro colours.....

The phase colours in a three core wire armour are as follows:-

Brown = phase 1
Black = phase 2
Grey = phase 3

Now which of these cores would you use if you were using this cable as a wired earth single phase supply? Most of us would use them as follows:-

Brown = live  (it's the standard single phase live colour)
Black = neutral  (it's the old neutral colour)
Grey = earth (with suitable identification)

Apparently the official line is that we're not to use the colours like that. The officially recognised use of these cables for a single phase supply is as follows:-

Brown = live
Grey = neutral
Black = earth.

Why? Because they want to get away from the old "black is neutral" way of thinking.

--
Clive Mitchell
http://www.bigclive.com
.

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