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torkellDo you know that, as of April next year, the mains wiring colours will change for the UK? In fact, any electrical work now should use the new colours already, but you're still allowed to use the old ones if you've got left-over bits of cable for now.
Current colours: Red, Yellow and Blue denote the 3 phases, Black denotes neutral, and Green (sometimes with yellow stripes) denotes earth. And this is all very well and makes pefect sense as long as you're not colour-blind. If you are, then electrician is one of those jobs which is not for you.
Until the EU got their way, at which point they decided to change all the colours. Oh, and you don't refer to the phases by colour anymore - you label them "L1", "L2" and "L3" instead. So the new colours are Brown, Black and Grey for the phases, Blue for neutral, and Green with Yellow stripes for the earth.
Have you worked out the fun part yet? This table might help:
| L1 | L2 | L3 | N | E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| old | |||||
| new | // |
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Date: 2005-08-04 01:13 pm (UTC)With things like “Beer must be 5% alc. V/V if you want to export it” and “countries can have this and that amount of winegrape production, the rest must be taken out, otherwise pay a fee” are things I find unbelievably stupid. And this, this too.
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Date: 2005-08-04 05:17 pm (UTC)Europe became the EU, and then decided to harmonise colours for 3-phase kit. Now, since this is the age of political correctness, they decided to go for colours which colourblind people can tell apart. Which is why they added black to the phases, and then grey. And of course since .uk is part of the EU, we should adopt their colours.
The whole thing only falls apart when you consider the UK, and the fact that we've had blue and black the other way round for decades.