Wire colour code

[Chris Taylor]

I once worked for a company that only ever used black for everything and then only used terminal numbers on the cable, so each cable would have a different number at each end and a row of relay bases would all have the identical numbering.
Very tricky to work with if there no drawings, but OK if you just had to change a base.

Chris

 

[Badger]

At least they/it was consistent.

 

[nonuke]

I once worked for a company that only ever used black for everything and then only used terminal numbers on the cable, so each cable would have a different number at each end and a row of relay bases would all have the identical numbering.
Very tricky to work with if there no drawings, but OK if you just had to change a base.

Chris

That looks like a funeral not a gay parade.

Sorry, but I couldn't help it.

 

[Badger]

Orange is the new Black so it wouldn't look too morbid.

 

[kamenges]

Most industrial standards in place for safety reasons as opposed to convenience. That is why relatively few functions have a defined color. From a safety perspective it is useful to be able to determine what is the safety earth conductor and what is the neutral conductor. Outside of that most other conductors are subject to some type of control (relays/ contactors/ fuses/ circuit breakers/drives, etc) so you can't make any specific determination of a given wires state without additional information anyway. Additionally, anything below about 50 volts isn't generally considered a significant safety hazard so lower voltage wiring won't have rigidly defined colors.
As said by others, just be consistent. If you do that with the few exceptions other have listed you will be fine. We rely more on wire numbers in our designs than color anyway. The whole BRN/BLU think is a little bit of an issue in that low voltage patch cords usually have those colors for power and common. We use these colors in the panel for AC supply and AC common so there is come duality that needs to be watched for.

Keith

 

[Badger]

It all boils down to Check first assume nothing. If in doubt meter it out.