Electrical Wire Color Coding Used By Electricians

Have you ever wondered why electrical wires and circuits have so many colors? What does it all mean? Let's dig in.

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#electrician #electrical #electricity

The primary reason for electrical color coding is to identify all of the different conductors in a circuit. Every conductor in a circuit has a relationship to every other conductor, based on its voltage. Without the ability to know which conductor has what voltage relative to another conductor, a lot of bad things can happen.

An example of this is the green conductor and the black conductor. Each has it's own meaning, which is why each has it's own color. All grounding conductors (conductors meant to bond all metal parts together near electrical equipment) need to be identified so we know that these conductors should not have current on them. They should also have the same voltage as the grounded (neutral) conductor. The black conductor, however, has a much different potential (voltage) than the green and the white conductors. The black is an ungrounded conductor that is intended to always have current on it while under load.

Knowing the difference between these conductors is crucial when wiring an electrical system. Other colors can mean similar things, however the voltage class may be different. For example, working on a 480 volt 3-phase system you may see the colors brown, yellow, and purple - whereas a 208 volt 3-phase system may use black, red, and blue for it's ungrounded conductors.

Keep in mind that voltage is a relationship between two things. Voltage is not something that occurs on one conductor. So having different conductors each taped to identify what it is, allows us, electricians, to know what part of the circuit we're working with, but also what conductors have what voltage in relation to others.

#wirecolors #electrical #voltage
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[danfreiday]

Hey dude, I've been an electrician for 40 years, I've been in all 3 world's, residential, industrial, and commercial, you are absolutely spot on, yes it's a little boring, but very informative, and you speak with simplicity, love it !! Dont even start with knob and tube, lol

[adambicanic]

From my experience... **RELYING ON COLOR CODING OF WIRES IS A FOOLS ERRAND**. Maybe not while youre installing, but most definitely when youre troubleshooting or fixing other peoples work and fkups. Best to more or less ignore them and work your way through a system checking voltages and sounding out wires as you go along. Just my personal opinion...

[dandj]

Basically correct and useful video, but please note four comments: 1) In the final summary, he said the orange wire in a three-phase 240-volt delta system is 240 volts to ground. It is 208 volts, as he said earlier. 2) He said you should never see voltage between the green and white conductors. That is true at the main service entrance panel but NOT at sub-panels. Since the neutral carries unbalanced current, it will have a voltage drop and you will read a small voltage between the neutral and ground at sub-panels, as well as at outlets and fixtures connected line to neutral. 3) Many "low voltage" three-phase systems are grounded at the electrical center point of the three-phase system, not at the center of two of the phases with a wild leg for the third phase. In these very common systems, (called three-phase WYE) the voltage between any pair of phases is 208 volts, and the voltage to neutral of any phase is 120 volts. 240-volts is not available. Many underground systems in cities are this type, and single-phase services are two phases of the 120/208-volt system, and neutral current can be as much as the full load on the phase conductors for all but loads supplied at 208 volts. 4) Here in Connecticut, 480-volt systems are Brown, Orange, Yellow, or "BOY". DMC PE-CT/MA

[sabriath]

"Know, but verify" is pretty important....even if you understand the standards, you should always double check to make sure those standards were adhered to in whatever equipment you work with.

[ethanlamoureux]

As an audio technician, I need to mention that speakers are wired for low voltage AC signal, and as such, there is no positive or negative, and a speaker doesn’t care which way it is connected. The only reason there are different colored wires for speakers is because whenever you have more than one speaker you need to have them wired in phase, so they all push or pull at the same time. Reversing the wires on one speaker will put it 180° out of phase with the other speaker(s) and cause its sound to partly cancel the sound from the other speaker(s).

[cameronremlinger]

I just looked at your website for the first time and I was completely impressed by the depth you go into for each tab. Genuinely great work as always. You were the reason I got the confidence to quit my job and start my career as an electrician. Thank you for everything you've put out and will continue to put out. Very much appreciated.

[blh]

thanks for the enlightenment I have received! for the last 25+ years I've owned/operated 1hp15hp woodworking machinery and I've had to wire my own building(s) for machinery from 1ph to 3ph via a rotary converter. I was "taught" that the two incoming 1ph hots were red/black. Once the hot went through the 3ph rotary converter, I had 3 hots with one of these legs 208/240. This line was colored blue and never used for anything but 3ph motors and the legs for the motor controllers were always red/black, never blue(boom+frying the mag contactor) Motor turning the wrong way, reverse red/black, NEVER blue. Orange was always for compressors and always home runs. I've never been called out on it but I think that once the inspector saw a rotary converter and additional panel, they were out of their league. Lucky or not, it works and NO ONE ever touches my panels/wiring. When I move, wire and receptacles come with me. Conduit stays on the walls for the next guy. Thanks, again, B

[AmericanOne]

Being retired and the trade for 40 years thinking I'm so smart then comes the electrician with the correct information. Guess the saying is true "your never to old to learn".... haha!! (I'm a black, red blue orange, yellow, gray kinda guy)

[eternalskywalker]

14:08 in electronics (DC) black is negative (ground) and red is positive (hot).

I heard a story about an electronics teacher who wired the receptacles for an electronics workbench. No one could figure out why they would routinely get shocked when working at this bench. Eventually someone realized that the teacher did not know that AC wiring had a different color code from the DC he was used to. He had hooked the bench grounding strap to the black (hot) AC wire.

In an ATX power supply, red is +5v, yellow is +12v, orange is +3.3v, purple is +5v (standby).

The great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from. ;-)

[bills]

As a 42 year union electrician ( years in trade) and instructor, 120/208 or 120/240 is black. Red and blue. White neutral regardless of single phase or three phase
277/480 is brown, orange, yellow and GREY neutral. Grey is used instead of white so it can never be confused with the lower voltage system. Utilities use their own colors.

[projectartichoke]

For 120-volt residential ceiling fans with luminaires, the blue wire is for the light and the black wire is for the fan.
Two pair telephone cables can be tricky. Line 1 should always be red and green, and line 2 yellow and black. But, especially older homes, may have 24VAC on yellow and black for old princess phones with lighted dials, there will be a transformer somewhere if that is the case. If you're trying to add a second line with a VOIP service and you can't get it to work, you might have a transformer somewhere in your basement that needs to be disconnected, these were some of the first 'wall-wart' transformers ever made.

[Heinrich_Pistor]

Thanks for the good info. Worked in a factory here in South Africa. Our Wiring colours are red, yellow/white and blue for the live/hot wires black for neutral. Now add to that American machines with your colours of black, red, blue and white and European machines with there brown, black, grey and blue. Made it very interesting to work in that place. To add to this mess we also had some cheap piece of machinery that I think was from china wired all in one colour (probably what ever they had on hand as we had 2 identical machines with different colored wires) with crappy stuck on labels that came of at the slightest touch.

[RB-xvsi]

I’m totally insulted. I’m in a brown/orange/yellow area.

[mikeroth]

You explain the coloring system very good. Am a retired Union Electrician with 50 years. Always had trouble with the orange color on a low voltage system. Had one town who had it all thru their system. Took me a while to get use to it. I watched your video just to see what is was about enjoyed it very much.

[Dratchev]

brown is easy to remember as that is the color your pants will be if you get hit by it.

[hdtvkeith]

Really appreciate these videos. I am not an electrician, but do some of my own work. Great to see these videos targeted with simple explanations. So many “electricians” really have no clue what they are doing.

[anttimaki]

in EU its Brown, black, grey, blue for neutral, and yellow/green striped for ground.

[badandydavis]

I am a traffic signal technician, we can have up to 32 colors out to the field often in many many runs. But the service runs are always black, white, green (usually bare).

[roseironworks]

Current standards for wiring colours in the UK, as per Europe is: Single Phase, Brown Live, Blue Neutral, Earth Green/yellow striped. Three Phase is L1 Brown, L2 Black, L3 Grey,

[justinkemsley]

As a journeyman electricians, instructor, electrical inspector and commercial and residential electrical contractor I enjoy your talks. All electricians do things a little different but the willingness to learn and expand is our greatest attribute. The NEC or code as I recall has only a few colors. The rest are industry standards. Grounding conductors are green or green with a yellow stripe. Grounding rhymes with green is how I remember it. Grounded conductors are white or natural grey. Dead white is how I remember it. The high ungrounded leg of a three phase system(208) is orange. Those are the only colors that are in the code as I recall. The other colors are industry standards but not code and should be verified. They all should be verified but you know what I mean. I love what you're doing keep up the good work and don't think for a second I'm being disrespectful.😊