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Patriotic colour code

Does what it says on the tin
jfgw
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Patriotic colour code

#281784

Postby jfgw » February 2nd, 2020, 6:55 pm

Now that we have left the EU, who thinks we should do the patriotic thing and revert to old, British colour codes for three-phase wiring?

I don't mean red, yellow and blue, I mean the old (pre-1964) colours, the colours of our flag: red, white and blue.

Julian F. G. W.

johnhemming
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Re: Patriotic colour code

#281785

Postby johnhemming » February 2nd, 2020, 6:57 pm

That may not be anything to do with EU.

jfgw
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Re: Patriotic colour code

#281788

Postby jfgw » February 2nd, 2020, 7:14 pm

johnhemming wrote:That may not be anything to do with EU.

Ok, it's the IEC, but this is about our individuality, about the British people making their own rules. It is about patriotism. It is about being BRITISH!

Julian F. G. W.

(We lack a :^) smiley.)

kiloran
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Re: Patriotic colour code

#281791

Postby kiloran » February 2nd, 2020, 7:22 pm

jfgw wrote:Now that we have left the EU, who thinks we should do the patriotic thing and revert to old, British colour codes for three-phase wiring?

I don't mean red, yellow and blue, I mean the old (pre-1964) colours, the colours of our flag: red, white and blue.

Julian F. G. W.

Red, white and blue is also french
And also the Netherlands and Russia
;)
--kiloran

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Re: Patriotic colour code

#281793

Postby Lanark » February 2nd, 2020, 7:34 pm

We don't want to go back to the old ways of the past we must move FORWARD into our brave new future.

The colours will be UKIP purple, UKIP purple and UKIP purple - some people may say its a bad idea having them all be purple, but they will be proven wrong - we will always know which wire is the purple one, because it will be purple.

UncleEbenezer
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Re: Patriotic colour code

#281796

Postby UncleEbenezer » February 2nd, 2020, 7:40 pm

Because the purple have decided.

And Stuttley's language around purples' parliament and the like has given us a sudden insight into the evolution of "purples' democratic republics" and associated language evolved. A distant seed of truth justifies everything.

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Re: Patriotic colour code

#281814

Postby rabbit » February 2nd, 2020, 9:12 pm

UncleEbenezer wrote:Because the purple have decided.

And Stuttley's language around purples' parliament and the like has given us a sudden insight into the evolution of "purples' democratic republics" and associated language evolved. A distant seed of truth justifies everything.


Perhaps a more sober colour code is needed in these challenging times? The folks that set the standard for armoured cable seem to have got there already. I've just installed one, and the conductor colours are brown, grey and black! (Live, neutral and earth respectively, in single phase, for anyone who might be minded to have a go!)

jfgw
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Re: Patriotic colour code

#281831

Postby jfgw » February 2nd, 2020, 11:43 pm

rabbit wrote:Perhaps a more sober colour code is needed in these challenging times? The folks that set the standard for armoured cable seem to have got there already. I've just installed one, and the conductor colours are brown, grey and black! (Live, neutral and earth respectively, in single phase, for anyone who might be minded to have a go!)

Those are the standard colours for most types of three phase cable. You can get single phase three-core SWA (Toolstation do it) with brown, blue and green/yellow cores. Two-core is usually more than adequate for single phase with the steel armour used for the earth.

Julian F. G. W.

88V8
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Re: Patriotic colour code

#281875

Postby 88V8 » February 3rd, 2020, 9:50 am

The old reels of mains cable I'm still using are red/black/green.
Which happen to be three of the five main colours of European heraldry.
Can't get away from the foreign bu**ers :)

V8

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Re: Patriotic colour code

#281918

Postby Arborbridge » February 3rd, 2020, 12:18 pm

jfgw wrote:Now that we have left the EU, who thinks we should do the patriotic thing and revert to old, British colour codes for three-phase wiring?

I don't mean red, yellow and blue, I mean the old (pre-1964) colours, the colours of our flag: red, white and blue.

Julian F. G. W.


Let's go back to when Britain was really great and do away with the earth wire altogether. Red and Black only would really assert our independence.


Arb.

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Re: Patriotic colour code

#282078

Postby servodude » February 4th, 2020, 4:42 am

Arborbridge wrote:
jfgw wrote:Now that we have left the EU, who thinks we should do the patriotic thing and revert to old, British colour codes for three-phase wiring?

I don't mean red, yellow and blue, I mean the old (pre-1964) colours, the colours of our flag: red, white and blue.

Julian F. G. W.


Let's go back to when Britain was really great and do away with the earth wire altogether. Red and Black only would really assert our independence.


Arb.


I suppose that's as grounded as most of the suggestions doing the rounds ;)

bungeejumper
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Re: Patriotic colour code

#282109

Postby bungeejumper » February 4th, 2020, 9:06 am

In this digital age of ours, I'd say all politicians ought to be permanently wired. Two cores should suffice for the lie detector, and a third one for the cattle prod in the rectum.

BJ

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Re: Patriotic colour code

#282750

Postby stewamax » February 6th, 2020, 2:45 pm

The IEC change to the old red/black/green domestic cabling was daft.
To be consistent, they should have insisted that traffic-light colours were changed as well:
- brown means Go (or dirty lens)
- grey means Caution (or even dirtier lens)
- black means Stop (or the bulb has expired). In practice, this lamp would be omitted entirely, saving ££zillions for the NHS, some of which would of necessity be then spent on expanding A&E

And although I am not colour-blind, i find it has to believe that the present colour-coding is safer.
RED means DANGER / FIRE / DANGER DE MORT / ...

(and traffic-light 'red' should be at the bottom anyway to forestall snow build-up on the shade of a lamp below)

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Re: Patriotic colour code

#282823

Postby 88V8 » February 6th, 2020, 8:34 pm

Arborbridge wrote:Let's go back to when Britain was really great and do away with the earth wire altogether.


Errrm if you mean ye olds lead-covered cable, it was earthed through the lead sheath.
Which is just as well.... my BIL, an electrician, rewired our second house for us. This was 1980, the house was 1920 and had a variety of olde wiring all of which was replaced. Or so I assumed.

Some time later, I was altering a kitchen cupboard. There was a big fat lead cable in the way, which I presumed to be redundant. So I got out my trusty (uninsulated) pliers and started cutting it.
Bang :o

It was the cable from the Board's 100 amp fuse to the fusebox.

I was unscathed, but it melted a great chunk out of my pliers. And didn't even blow the fuse.

V8

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Re: Patriotic colour code

#282956

Postby stewamax » February 7th, 2020, 11:39 am

Slightly off-thread:
Many years ago I was re-seating a line card in a communications controller in a computer room - with the power on (yip – I know).
There was suddenly a very loud explosion, a bright flash all around my hands, the lights went out, alarms came on, and so on. I thought ‘bother’ (or something similar).
Realising I was still alive, my hands were unburned and I didn’t need a change of underpants, I extricated myself to see - shamefacedly - what mayhem I had caused.
What had actually happened was that the room had been struck by a bolt of lightning that had entered via the communications lines, run 1000 metres or so between buildings to the programming area, blasted several VDUs and knocked people off their seats. The computer room itself was in a mess – apart from the IBM mainframe whose power was conditioned via motor-generator set large enough to live in. The mainframe merely registered a power glitch and was working normally. They built them tough enough for Marlboro Man in those days.

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Re: Patriotic colour code

#282961

Postby servodude » February 7th, 2020, 11:44 am

stewamax wrote:Slightly off-thread:
Many years ago I was re-seating a line card in a communications controller in a computer room - with the power on (yip – I know).
There was suddenly a very loud explosion, a bright flash all around my hands, the lights went out, alarms came on, and so on. I thought ‘bother’ (or something similar).
Realising I was still alive, my hands were unburned and I didn’t need a change of underpants, I extricated myself to see - shamefacedly - what mayhem I had caused.
What had actually happened was that the room had been struck by a bolt of lightning that had entered via the communications lines, run 1000 metres or so between buildings to the programming area, blasted several VDUs and knocked people off their seats. The computer room itself was in a mess – apart from the IBM mainframe whose power was conditioned via motor-generator set large enough to live in. The mainframe merely registered a power glitch and was working normally. They built them tough enough for Marlboro Man in those days.


I bet someone got a good slap before you realised that though!

Sometimes the hooves you hear are zebras but normally we're all looking for horses when we hear them; being hit by lightening is a bit of a zebra.

-sd

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Re: Patriotic colour code

#282964

Postby paradigm » February 7th, 2020, 11:53 am

Some time later, I was altering a kitchen cupboard. There was a big fat lead cable in the way, which I presumed to be redundant. So I got out my trusty (uninsulated) pliers and started cutting it.
Bang


I tend to use one of these handy proximity buzzer units to test for live cables before doing work. However, I always test operation first on a known live cable! I have never tried one on lead-sheathed cable though.....

paradigm


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