🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Jan14.223300.8560@cs.uow.edu.au> david@cs.uow.edu.au (David E A Wilson) writes:
>bender@oobleck.Eng.Sun.COM (Michael Bender) writes:
>>anyone know why they choose BLACK for the hot wire and WHITE for
>>neutral?  I always associated black wires with ground.
>
>I wondered about that too when I saw some North American terminals over here
>in Australia. We used RED (now BROWN) = Active, BLACK (now BLUE) = Neutral
>and GREEN (now GREEN with YELLOW stripe) ...

Right, let's have some confusion.  Here is what our booklet on safety
regulations lists for international "standards":
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
		2 wire cable			3 wire cable
		Live	   Neutral	Live	   Neutral	Earth
Great Britain	Brown	   Blue		Brown	   Blue		Green & Yellow

Canada		Black*	   White or	Black	   White or	Green &
			   Grey			   Grey		Green Yellow

Denmark		Black*	   Blue		Brown or   Blue		Green & Yellow
					Black

Finland		Black or   Blue		Brown	   Blue		Green & Yellow
		Brown

Greece		Anything   Grey		Anything   Grey		Yellow
		except			except
		Grey,			Grey,
		Yellow			Yellow
		or Blue			or Blue

Japan		Black	   White	Black	   White	Red

Poland		Black*	   Blue		Black	   Blue		Green & Yellow

Switzerland	Anything   Anything	Brown	   Blue		Green & Yellow
		except	   except
		Yellow	   Yellow
		and Blue   and Red

USA		Black*	   White or	Black	   White or	Green or
			   Grey			   Grey		Green & Yellow

*Black for live in 2 core cords is now being replaced by Brown.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My list doesn't include Australia, who being upside down use black for
neutral, because it isn't in our book.  So much for our book.  Note that
Japan is listed as using red for earth!  Also note that Switzerland's entry
for 2 wire cable looks nasty - taking this list literally, they could quite
happily use black and white for live and neutral in any way they choose.
In general, black or brown seems to always be live (except in Australia);
blue, white or grey is always neutral; green, yellow or a mixture is always
earth.

 "Keyboard?  How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  adrian@uk.ac.hw.cs
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