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Paul_L
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Joined: 03/03/2016
Location: United States
Posts: 769

Posted: 09:03am 01 Aug 2018

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Grogster said I used earth wire as a live conductor. It was marked and labelled, and I was the only one to ever work on the unit, but that made some readers loose their balls over it.

I presume that an earth (ground) wire has a certain color in Oz. In the states a white wire is at ground but carries return current, a green wire is at ground and carries no current. Most local codes think it is acceptable to use white wires at high potential (120 v usually) if you mark them with any color except white or green. Most electricians have a bottle of bright red nail polish handy in case they're stuck with using a white wire as a hot wire.

This leads to plumbers and carpenters needling electricians on the job site when they see the nail polish bottle in the tool box. That, in turn, leads to the electricians applying nail polish to the needlers' toolbox or tools which results in all sorts of fun.

Paul in NY

Grogster

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Joined: 31/12/2012
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 9753

Posted: 10:29pm 01 Aug 2018

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Hahaha!!!!

EDIT: In Australia, New Zealand and England, Earth is always plain green, or green and yellow. Using an earth wire as a live conductor is a really big no-no, so I was totally in the wrong there with that SC article, I just could not be bothered to rewire it for the photos. Phase can be brown or red, neutral can be black or blue.

Confusingly, in three-phase arrangements, BLUE is a phase - but in single-phase arrangements, blue is neutral!

We also used to use Yellow as a phase in three-phase years ago. It is now White. So our three-phase colours are Red, White and Blue - sound familiar?

I was hunting for a popped CB the other day on the main switchboard, but had a hard time finding it, as the sub board said it was on the white phase, but the board was still marked as yellow for white, and the CB was mounted upside-down by some F..... - gentleman - so running you eyes along the CB's indicated that none of them had popped when that one had. Fun.Edited by Grogster 2018-08-03

Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!

Azure

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Joined: 09/11/2017
Location: Australia
Posts: 446

Posted: 11:59pm 01 Aug 2018

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Red, White, Blue are old Au 3Ph colour codes.

Black, Blue and White can be wired as live or neutral depending on the equipments country of origin and wiring code used.

I think in most cases if there is a red conductor one of the phases will be dark blue and Neutral will be Black.

If there is a brown conductor then the phases are brown, black, grey and Neutral will be Light Blue.
Edited by Azure 2018-08-03

Andrew_G
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Joined: 18/10/2016
Location: Australia
Posts: 872

Posted: 11:55pm 05 Aug 2018

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Hi,
Thanks to all who showed an interest.
A special thank you to Greg (Paceman) who has entrusted me with custodianship of his masterpiece. It is 500x500x200 (it needs to be higher during exposure - that will be my contribution). It has four UV tubes with a MM170 timing and controlling it. Greg has also provided full documentation and listings so it will be easy for me to get it up and running.
There may be a note for TBS in due course.
Thanks again,

Andrew

(Edit - it was good to meet a fellow shedder in the flesh - surprising how much we had in common, other than the MM)

Edited by Andrew_G 2018-08-07

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