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Why the colours we use (Brown/Blue/Green+Yellow)

Duane

I think i've flipped up

I was under the impression we use the Brown Blue and Green/Yellow help with colour blindness (most common green and red)

I know it's to bring UK in line with EU. But why did EU use them colours.  

Because I understand green earth (CPC)

Red Live (line) [hot colour]

(Forgive any misspellings Dyslexic and hard to see , also miss out works as forget to type them)

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  • 0

    The formal answer is because of IEC 60445:2021 https://webstore.iec.ch/publication/66712 and before that IEC 60445:2017 and before that .... along with the general duty-of-care requirement based in UK common law to accommodate applicable standards to engineering work on pain of accusation of negligence or (worse) gross negligence for not having done so.

    Nowadays electrical kit is made all over the world and is not country-specific. That leads in todays electrotechnical world inevitably to an international standard of wiring colour codes. 

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  • 0

    The formal answer is because of IEC 60445:2021 https://webstore.iec.ch/publication/66712 and before that IEC 60445:2017 and before that .... along with the general duty-of-care requirement based in UK common law to accommodate applicable standards to engineering work on pain of accusation of negligence or (worse) gross negligence for not having done so.

    Nowadays electrical kit is made all over the world and is not country-specific. That leads in todays electrotechnical world inevitably to an international standard of wiring colour codes. 

Children
  • 0 in reply to Peter Bernard Ladkin
    Peter Bernard Ladkin said:
    Nowadays electrical kit is made all over the world and is not country-specific. That leads in todays electrotechnical world inevitably to an international standard of wiring colour codes. 

    Definitely true, and something I support fully. It's ironic that the country in which the only participating teams of the "World Series" of a certain national sport only come from that country, is also one of the countries that is resisting IEC harmonization in respect respect of the Neutral (and some other international standards in the electrotechnical arena). Basically, US uses White for Neutral and Green for PE, Canada and Japan use Grey ... but to be fair, these differences are actually documented in Annex B to the standard, so at least it's open for global manufacturers to see.


    Peter Bernard Ladkin said:
    The formal answer is because of IEC 60445:2021 https://webstore.iec.ch/publication/66712 and before that IEC 60445:2017 and before that

    Just a point of order, that BS EN IEC 60445 is not a Harmonized Standard for the purposes of the Low Voltage Directive ... or for the UK a Conformed Standard for the purposes of the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations. Rather, the standard is to be used mainly by Committees drafting product and installation standards, as a core standard for basic safety considerations to be considered for the purposes of safety according to IEC Guide 104 and ISO/IEC Guide 51. In the Scope of the standard (Clause 1) is the following statement:

    It is not intended for use by manufacturers or certification bodies. One of the responsibilities of a technical committee is, wherever applicable, to make use of basic safety publications in the preparation of its publications. The requirements of this basic safety publication will not apply unless specifically referred to or included in the relevant publications.

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