North American Electrical Wire Color Code Chart Pdf

The protective ground must be bare green or green yellow striped.

North american electrical wire color code chart pdf. There are quite a few different wire color code standards in place so it is important to understand which one to follow in which situation. Use green or green w yellow stripe s dc grounding conductors black or yellow dc negative conductors red dc positive conductors engine and accessory wiring color code colour item use yellow w red strip yr starting circuit starting switch to solenoid brown yellow stripe by or yellow y see note. Before that it had its own code for electrical wiring. This article describes the electrical wiring color code conventions for 120v or 240v ac circuit wiring in buildings in canada the u s the u k.

Color codes listed on this chart are typical. However common practice per local electrical inspectors is for the first hot live or active wire to be black and the. Cec color code for canada. Wire color codes for europe iec the international electrotechnical commission or iec has established a wire color code for most european countries for ac branch circuits.

The standards used will vary based on what country the wiring is being done in and the type electricity it is for and other factors. In the old iec color code all the lines in three phase supply are either brown or black. Electrical wiring color code guide. Nec defines white or grey color for neutral wire and green green with yellow stripe bare copper for ground wire.

American wire gauge conductor size table american wire gauge awg is a standardized wire gauge system for the diameters of round solid nonferrous electrically conducting wire. This created a lot of problem. The old color code in uk until 2004 is shown below. General wiring color code.

The smallest awg size is 40 and the largest is 0000 4 0. The us national electrical code for both ac and dc mandates that the grounded neutral conductor of a power system be white or grey. Uk started using the iec code from march 2014. Quoting from authoritative codes standards for each region we provide a table summarizing the current and prior wiring color code conventions used by electricians in building wiring.

The larger the awg number or wire guage the smaller the physical size of the wire. To enable wires to be easily and safely identified all common wiring safety codes follow a structured color scheme for the insulation of electrical wire. International wire color codes are often specified by law depending on your location though most rely on common practice below we cover europe and canada. 49 japanese conductor color coding per jis c 3306 note on flexible cable.

These are typically used for power wires in branch circuits. International conductor color coding per en 60445 section 6 and iec 60227 1 section 4 1 2 north american conductor color coding per ul 62 and csa c22 2 no. American electrical contractors and electricians must comply with the national electrical code nec for the color coding of wires.