What is the standard color coding (wires) for a good panel?

[Paul B]

Glad to see this old thread resurrected.

Been doing this 20 years (I'm just a newbie!!!) and we use:

Black - 230-575 3-phase
Red - 120vac hot
White - 120vac neutral
Blue - 24vdc hot
White with blue stripe - 0vdc
Green with yellow stripe - ground
Yellow - foreign voltage, hot with panel disconnect off. This should be orange based on previous post.

Orange - DC drive motor wire positive
Brown - DC drive motor wire negative

The DC drive motor wires don't come up too much in the past five-ten years.

 

[504bloke]

Judging by the diversity, and contradictory, discussions on this topic, the only SAFE way to approach a panel's innards is with the knowledge that the panel-builder MIGHT have followed a published and accepted colour scheme, but it is safer to assume he didn't, unless there is a conformitory declaration attached to the panel.

I have NEVER seen a panel that has any documentory evidence that states what standards the panel is wired to.....

best not to assume anything

I have, lots, mostly EN 60204-1, with the colours labelled on the first page of the drawings

 

[daba]

I have, lots, mostly EN 60204-1, with the colours labelled on the first page of the drawings

A double post resurrection ! wow !

Anyway - your panels have drawings in them ? You're spoilt !

Yes, I know it's "Good Practice", sometimes "Company Standard", and sometimes "Obligatory", that panel drawings are actually In The Panel (add that to your wish-list !).

If I could gain access to all the panels I have worked on in the last 30 years, I could guarantee that at least 30% of them would not have their schematics in the provided holder inside the door.

And in any plant, standards change, sometimes the company just wants to align themselves with "national standards", sometimes they just do a re-think about it, and only the latest panels conform to the latest specs.

So I still stand by my statement

.... the only SAFE way to approach a panel's innards is with the knowledge that the panel-builder MIGHT have followed a published and accepted colour scheme, but it is safer to assume he didn't, unless there is a conformitory declaration attached to the panel.

PS Not sure that's a real word "conformitory" - English was never a strong language for me, lol

 

[RBergmann]

Yes, I know it's "Good Practice", sometimes "Company Standard", and sometimes "Obligatory", that panel drawings are actually In The Panel (add that to your wish-list !).

As the past owner of a UL508A panel shop, we always provided schematics in a pocket inside the listed panels (as required by UL).

Funny thing though ... when I would go to a job site for trouble shooting, the schematics were often missing. Management or supervision would remove these documents for a reason that I could never understand or get a reasonable answer to.

Since this post is regarding wire colors, these days NFPA70 (NEC), NFPA79 and UL 508A have established color guidelines in the US. Before then, JIC (Joint Industry Council out of McClain, VA ... late 70's) had documentation that is remarkably similar to NFPA79 that also provided similar guidelines.

So for my company, we never had a question as to standardization of these colors.

 

[seppoalanen]

As we can see, there are a lot of colours and needs in the world.
So, in my CAD have selection for the Colors in the Project Data Base.
In the Circuit Diagrams, Wiring lines have properties as 24VDC control wire, analog signal wire etc, not the Color propery! Wire Colour comes via Project Data Base. Drawings are usable from project to project, only Project Data Base have to change if necessory.

There are more examples on my home pages http://www.alanen.info

 

[504bloke]

A double post resurrection ! wow !

Anyway - your panels have drawings in them ? You're spoilt !

Yes, I know it's "Good Practice", sometimes "Company Standard", and sometimes "Obligatory", that panel drawings are actually In The Panel (add that to your wish-list !).

If I could gain access to all the panels I have worked on in the last 30 years, I could guarantee that at least 30% of them would not have their schematics in the provided holder inside the door.

And in any plant, standards change, sometimes the company just wants to align themselves with "national standards", sometimes they just do a re-think about it, and only the latest panels conform to the latest specs.

So I still stand by my statement



PS Not sure that's a real word "conformitory" - English was never a strong language for me, lol

Sorry - My Bad

Didnt actually mean that, i meant referring to your post that the colours of the standard were on the drawings ie 60204

I'd agree mostly with that figure, most of my customers are now trained though as it costs thme lots more if they have no drawings, obviously all my panels i have the dxf files anyways