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What color wire guide do you use ?

rons

Diamond
Joined
Mar 5, 2009
Location
California, USA
In the hobby days it was red for +5V and black for ground. Maybe a green wire with a yellow strip for safety ground.

In the control world I see black for signal out, brown for +24V, and blue for ground.

There is also wiring that is all one color. Probably doesn't look as colorful. Hard to troubleshoot if everything is tied down with tie-wraps.

The red/white/black wires are for a serial programming interface connection. Allows for software upgrades.
The wires crossing the door hinge may have to be bundled later but I hate using those tie-wraps.

5V is red
3.3V is yellow
24V is brown
Signal is black
Digital ground is blue
Case ground is green

On the box I grind off the two brackets for the door holding screws. I also grind off the lip on all three sides of
the door. Lip is on top/bottom/right side but the two brackets are on the right side. Top and bottom lip is for what?
Also mill/file a hole for a real door latch. The two red switch buttons are for manual control. In case one of the failed
States detonates a Neutron bomb over my city and wipes out my electronics I can still have manual control of my stuff.

DSC_1075.jpg

What's wrong with asking after I do the deed, other's do it ...
 
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Green/Yellow is EU for mains chassis ground

PC colours have 5V red, 3.3V orange, 12V yellow.

You think it's confusing, wait till you have 24VAC, 24VDC, and 230VAC controls in a cabinet plus 3~+N power wiring.

EU specifies I think solid blue for +24V controls, and blue/white for the common. It is not generally called ground in the controls world, as it might be floating, and ground implies fault-current handling.
 
Thanks for that. The yellow to orange change for 3.3V is easy. I started out by trying to forget the coloring for PC's.

I have a control that is made in Japan which is where the blue/brown/black stuff comes from.
 
Yeah, EU market sensors seem to use blue/brown/black, I think as a derivative of mains power colours where black is L2.
 
My go to:
Black incoming main 3 phase or other.
Red 110 AC controls, white common.
Blue, DC control .
Yellow, hot from other box or panel. to be considered live at all times.
Green is ground the world around.

At some point is the exit from base control wiring and into electronic devices. Scales, Encoders, hall sensors, control valves, SSRs....
Above all document what built and put it into a PDF. Print and put in the cabinet. It may not be you that has to solve a fault many years from now.
Modify something, document it fully for those who come after you or just for the fun of making niffy drawings and wire layouts.

I find doing big wiring layouts most relaxing.
The output awesome when done and the input known as I and others just made it.
During design and build I do short sketches on a legal pad and work or give from that piece of a machine's wires.
On a five axis machine I will end up with 30 plus pages.
That all has to go into a set of prints. Why if a in house only machine?
The same reason one comments code ....So others can understand or troubleshot or least get a hint as to what is doing what.

I overstate and perhaps have overrun my input buffer.
Lord knows everything gets hacked or changed. Notes in that panel may be gold down the road. It does not have to all nice lines or fancy.
Notes, just tidbits.
Bob
 
Yeah, EU market sensors seem to use blue/brown/black, I think as a derivative of mains power colours where black is L2.

Well I'm not making a big fuss but the sensor is from SMC (Japan) and they have a local sales office. So USA folks deal with EU creations and the EU folks deal
with USA stuff.

Gripe: I don't like using tie-wraps that can't be undone except by snipping them out. I have these plastic pieces that look like horse shoes with the ends
formed into a ball. Just insert wire bundle into inside of shoe and twist the two balls around each other.
 
On a five axis machine I will end up with 30 plus pages.
That all has to go into a set of prints. Why if a in house only machine?
The same reason one comments code ....So others can understand or troubleshot or least get a hint as to what is doing what.

I keep drawings of almost everything I make. But I am modest. I only have it by my side a couple nights while watching the news at night.
A neat drawing is made by pencil and ruler and the page goes into a "Designs" folder.
 
Black/red/blue (120/208) or brown/orange/yellow (277/480, 415, 600, 4160 or 13800) for supply conductors on the line side of the panel disconnect or fuses. Black for power conductors on the load side of the disconnect. Red for AC control circuit conductors. Blue for DC control circuit conductors. Label everything with Brady labels or printed/crimped tags to match your circuit diagram and store a copy of said diagram somewhere within the panel for the next guy.

Diagrams should be in ladder format using NEMA standard symbology and labeling.

No conductors smaller than 14awg as the general rule.

Hinged cabinet doors must be bonded with an appropriately sized equipment bonding jumper unless only Class 2 power-limited circuits are present.
 
No conductors smaller than 14awg as the general rule.
.
So hard to do this nowadays. I hate the tiny wires and hard to Brady label them but it is a shrinking world.
Ideally every wire gets a label on both ends but.... sometimes you live with labeling the cable and go to the drawings for wire colors on the tiny stuff.
Bad thing is color changes have to happen. A simple one is encoders going to control. Different make encoders have different colors.
At what junction to mix if one wants a standard going into the control? At this point have you not violated color control rules?

This is why you need prints sketches or others inside the door.
It may make 100% sense to you now, ten to twenty years later you will be grasping for even a napkin sketch of the hows and whys you did this.
Many of us can wire controls on the fly. Make a crude drawing done right or wrong and stash it away in the machine.
I will run into stuff I have done 30 years back and ask myself, why, why, why did I not do a simple color code and pin connection piece of paper.
It does not have to be any of the drawing standards but that would be nice.

GM, Ford all those had very strict rules for control wiring on a machine tool. Then came cncs from Japan which did not comply or care about any old US standards.
So the exemptions.
May you live in inserting times. Please leave some document as to what talks to another so that others can buy a clue.
Bob
 
Generally color changes happen at the field-wired device in question - inside of it's own enclosure or within a box or conduit body attached to it. Often solenoids, etc. already have red or blue leads extending from the potted coil so this isn't even an issue - merely a matter of splicing on the conductors pulled from the panel.

Any sort of network or shielded cabling is usually exempt from color-coding and instead gets an ID label on it's sheath. It's mainly line voltage controls and any sort of field-wired DC control scheme that gets red or blue insulation. PLC wiring, relay logic, panel push-buttons, indicators and selector switches, etc. Pretty easy to tell a CAT6, ribbon cable or 22awg factory wiring harness from a field power or control circuit, lol.

I might add that the 14awg minimum is a general rule within the code. I did not mean to say that it is merely a would-be-nice rule of thumb. It's required as a general rule. 16awg, 18awg and smaller conductors are only permitted under more specific conditional rules which supersede the 14awg general rule. That is to say, you can use them under specific conditions by means of specific permissions granted within the code.

You have to go to church on Sunday - unless you're sick. You have to use 14awg or larger - unless it's a fixture wire or Class 2 circuit, etc.

Also worth noting that the code does not apply to factory wiring within machine tools or appliances - the rules change drastically after the terminal block. That's engineer territory. They can do pretty much whatever the hell they want so long as they're willing to sign their name on it. Which is why we have independent testing laboratories like UL, ETL, CSA, etc.
 
1) all wires are white.

2) green tape on the grounds if I feel excitable that day.

3) number labels if it's going to have to be repaired someday.

Otherwise it's SEP.

And, a diagram no matter what.
 
1) all wires are white.

.

Shortage of colors on your wire spools?
What does not have to be repaired someday?
Much worse yet if the repair guy not you. For sure have left off labels in such thinking and latter asked myself as the repair guy why.
I'll hit a machine that I did 30 plus years back and did sort cuts on. It was so obvious and simple at the time, How could people not understand?
Then I walk into it decades later and so pissed off at my old self.
If your documentation/wiring on a yellow legal pad as much of mine has been done, scan it, the ink fades and becomes hard to read.
Bob
 
:skep:

Highly illegal. .....

Sometimes one can get with murder. It works and you never go to jail.
Anyone intelligent would know the at risk. If not seeing it done such and knowing they have no businesses being in a panel.
I hate such but it for sure exists. People step all over any color coding all the time. Most certainly when mods get done.
Part of that license should be understanding that and circuits being worked on.
It is nice and easy when all clean to the rules and labeled. We do not live in a clean world.

I do so hate to be on receiving end of SEP. Open the panel or box and "Oh-my, what is happening here".

All this talk I think still leaves the OP in the dark. Kinda of wondering about the floating digital ground which is all fine but power supply home?
What is home? The system floating for sure? Ground loops, the bane of control wiring when you get into small signal.
Just connecting a RS-232 from a plug in computer to a cnc control on a 3phase machine can take out things.
Bob
 
Part of that license should be understanding that and circuits being worked on.

Sh*t like the above is why 8,000 hours of supervised field experience as a registered apprentice and 4 years of classroom learning are required before you are allowed to even take the test around here.

And despite all that, plenty of people whom you wouldn't trust with a 9 volt battery still manage to pass it after their 5th or 6th attempt. Some would argue the test needs to be made more difficult to filter those sort out.

All you can do is stay vigilant - because some day you'll inevitably run into a panel or box full of white or green wires sitting at 277 volts to ground. If you're not paying attention you might just find it out the hard way.
 








 
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