On 21/10/2020 13:08:57, Gov. Lancelyn wrote:
On Monday, 10 August 2009 at 17:32:02 UTC+1, Carl D wrote:
I bought some SWA cable to use in the garden. It has three 2.5 mm2
cores, with brown, black and grey insulation. The label doesn't say
which colour to use for what but it does have an new/old conversion
chart. new old brown red grey yellow black blue I think brown is
live, but I'm not sure what to do with the others, because I've
only used twin and earth until now. Which one is what?

It's quite simple really (if you're a European) The earth coloured
one (brown) is live, while the "electric blue" coloured one is
neutral, but if you have black and grey then 99% of UK electricians
will use black as neutral because neutral has been black for the last
100 years and, as pointed out above, if you trasnslate R,B,G
(red/black/green) to Euro colours you get B, B, G which is Brown (or
maybe blue ) Blue (or maybe brown) and Grey! Of course if it's a
3-phase supply you can tell by looking at the indicator lights on
your control panel, which are now Brown, Black, and Grey. If the
black one doesn't seem to be working make sure the power supply is
running, and just a reminder that the switch should be set to Red for
Go or Green for Stop if it's a newer one but Green for Go and Red for
Stop if it's an older one. Any idiot could have thought that up
(though no sane person could!)

Please note this is a 11 year old post.

As long as the neutral and earth conductors are marked with green/yellow
and blue sleeving at each end consistently then the cable colours
don't matter.