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reference:wire_colors

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Wire Color Standards

The following suggested standards are subject to the

NFPA 70 - National Electrical Code (USA)

  • Grounding conductor (“ground”): wires must be bare, green, or green/yellow striped
  • Grounded conductor (“neutral”): wires must be white or gray
  • Orange, when used in a 3-phase 4 wire delta configuration supplying 120/240, shall designate the “wild” leg with 208v to neutral.
    • Orange is the only ungrounded conductor specified by the NEC. “Wild leg” (120/240 center-tapped neutral delta configuration), the two end phases on the center-tapped winding provide 120 volts to neutral, but on the wild leg you will find nearly 208 volts to the neutral. If you see an orange wire in a panel, alarm bells should go off: You don’t want to wire a 120 VAC circuit across the wild 208 volt phase.

IEC 60446 Standard

  • Grounding conductor (“ground”): wires must be bare, or green/yellow striped
  • Grounded conductor (“neutral”): blue.
  • PEN (Protective Earth/Neutral, combined) conductor, when insulated, shall be marked by one of the following methods:
    • Green-and-yellow throughout its length with, in addition, light blue markings at the terminations, or
    • Light blue throughout its length with, in addition, green-and-yellow markings at the terminations

MetaTek Wire Color Standard

120/240V Single-Phase

  • black, red and white

120/208V, Three-phase

  • black, red, blue and white

120/240V, Three-phase

  • black, orange, blue and white

277/480V, three-phase

  • brown, violet, yellow and gray

230V Single Phase

  • brown and white
  • brown and blue1)

230/400V Three Phase

  • brown, purple, yellow, gray
  • brown, purple, yellow, blue

References

1)
IEC - blue is grounded, neutral conductor (“colder” color) – http://www.electrical-installation.org/enwiki/The_neutral_conductor
reference/wire_colors.1391967424.txt.gz · Last modified: 2018/05/28 22:28 (external edit)