Wiring Colours

[whatawonderfulday]

A while ago Crossy advised that Thai wiring code is White = neutral, Black = Live and green = earth, well I think I got that right.

At my lights and switches I also have black + yellow and some blue + blacks !

At my consumer unit I have some blacks going to the neutral bar plus some yellows,

Also have whites going from the lighting RCB's whereas I have all blacks going from the power sockets and A/C MCB's.

All very confusing that I thought it would be a good idea to find out what the blue's and yellow's really are, make sure all blacks go to all MCB's and that obviously all whites go to the neutral bar. If the yellows and blues mentioned above turn out to be live or neutral then I can tape them with the correct colour.

My question :- if I could find out which is positive and which is negative should I simply change them at the concumer unit ? i.e. move the white from the MCB to the neutral bar and the paired black from the neutral bar to the MCB. Also how can I check simply which is the live wire and which is the positive as at the moment, and I am guessing, I could have a positive feed from mcb to a light with the negative return to the neutral bar and another where the neutral white wire is actually the live feed.

No good asking me if I have a good earth as the test button on the RCD does not do anything ! Got a new one but not sure if I could just fit it by turning off the main consumer unit 2 pole breaker or whether it needs to be disconnected at the meter first. Any advice greatly appreciated. Please keep it simple though as I am not an electrician.

[Crossy]

As you are 'not an electrician' I would be EXTREMELY careful with what you do!! Remember that innocent looking wire can KILL!!!

The wires are Live and Neutral not positive and negative, let's get our terminology correct

If the 'test' button does nothing your RCD is faulty (they don't need an earth to operate).

Before starting anything 'lectrical you should arm yourself with (and learn to use) some test gear, it's not expensive and can save your life.

You should get:-

A neon screwdriver - This allows you to check for live wires, since it only uses one connection (you put your finger on the end as an earth return) it can distiguish between Live and Neutral easily.

A simple electronic multimeter - A 1000Baht or so well spent (Tesco have some reasonable units). Good for verifying that you have about the right voltage and that you have both L and N legs connected, something the neon can't do.

You can't go moving wires around willy-nilly.

=============================

You can change your RCD yourself, opening the main breaker should isolate everything, trace the wires and use your neon to verify ALL the wires to the RCD are dead before touching anything, additionally I avoid touching the bare wire, just in case it's hot. Note where each wire came from and put it back in the same place, easy. Don't forget to press the 'test' button on the new unit too

REMEMBER that the inlet side of the main breaker is still live when it's turned off!!!

If it still doesn't work get back to use here urgently, it is possible that it's mis-wired from new

=============================

Concerning your assortment of colour codes (yes you did remember correctly), in order to sort it you need to be methodical.

Looking at outlets first, for each breaker identify which outlets it controls (use a light to check each outlet is off). Remove the L from the breaker (if it's not black of course) and its associated N. Then check the colours connected in each outlet (power off of course) and correct if necessary (L is on the Left if you look at the outlet with Ground at the top). Re-connect the L and N correctly to the breaker and Neutral bar. Turn on and check the outlets function.

Aircons and water heaters tend to have their own breaker, so it shouldn't be an issue fixing (or at least correctly determining) the colours used for each pole, make notes if it's non-standard.

Lights are much more fun because you've got switches and wires that are hot or not determined by the switch. This is complicated by the fact that there are a number of ways to wire lighting circuits, to be honest if it's working OK I'd leave alone.

[mdechgan]

Black is almost always "HOT"

White or gray is almost always "Neutral"

However some people mix these up because black is always negative in DC connections.

Green or bare is always "Ground or earth"

ground and neutral are separate definitions. Thai's think they are the same thing because of the translation.

Red is usually a load like from a switch to a fan or light.

Blue and yellow are sometimes used the same as legs or travelers in 3 way switches.

[chris11]

Hello

Iam an electrican and work here in Thailand for more then 4 Years. My suggestion for you is. If you not 100% sure what you do better let it. Here in Thailand you can not trust any used color, because there use what they have( Many times some colors empty then they use other colors). Also can it be that they have connection Points somewhere and change the color. So if you want to change something use an electrican they are not expensive in Thailand. If you have further Question you can ask me.

Chris

[whatawonderfulday]

Many thanks for your valuable inforamtion, especially Crossy.

To Chris11, I note what you say, but reading thorough this forum, and from my own experience explained previously , most problems have been brought about by the ineptitude of Thai electricians so I don't think it would be prudent to use another one. Just to elaborate further my house is on an ongoing project. I had concerns regards the polarity of the original installation.

The current project's electrician came alnog and agreed they were reversed polarity so went to the outside meter, pulled out the tails and then came to my consumer unit and reversed the tails inside. He popped outside again and reconnected the tails straight back to the meter. Although he resolved the polarity issue it did appear to me to be an unsafe act as it was raining !

Problem was after he had done this the doorbell didn't work. So he came back, changed a bell wire connection and now it does work. He said that the original installation was done by a differant electrician who was no good !! However the bell wire he changed is now the connection with a blue and yellow wire !

He has also been and wired a water heater. True the RLCB appears to work, but it was just a pity the rubber grommet to stop the water entering the heater was omitted and left in the box so hence water entered the heater which appears to have done it no good at all.

So I think all in all I'll refrain from using a local Electrician, unless that is anybody knows a "real" one who has undergone a true apprenticeship/training that can be validated.

[chris11]

Hello

I know a electrical Companys work in Bangkok Area and Phuket Area (German-Thai Company).

Before i worked for this Company, now i switched to work for a Golf Club. If you want to have more Information's please PM me

Many thanks for your valuable inforamtion, especially Crossy.

To Chris11, I note what you say, but reading thorough this forum, and from my own experience explained previously , most problems have been brought about by the ineptitude of Thai .......

.......ter entered the heater which appears to have done it no good at all.

So I think all in all I'll refrain from using a local Electrician, unless that is anybody knows a "real" one who has undergone a true apprenticeship/training that can be validated.

[Artisi]

Many thanks for your valuable inforamtion, especially Crossy.

To Chris11, I note what you say, but reading thorough this forum, and from my own experience explained previously , most problems have been brought about by the ineptitude of Thai electricians so I don't think it would be prudent to use another one. Just to elaborate further my house is on an ongoing project. I had concerns regards the polarity of the ...........

...........s to work, but it was just a pity the rubber grommet to stop the water entering the heater was omitted and left in the box so hence water entered the heater which appears to have done it no good at all.

So I think all in all I'll refrain from using a local Electrician, unless that is anybody knows a "real" one who has undergone a true apprenticeship/training that can be validated.

If you know nothing about electrics my advice is DON"T TOUCH. Maybe if you contact the local power authority might help you find someone who knows what they are doing - maybe

[Crossy]

I know a electrical Companys work in Bangkok Area and Phuket Area (German-Thai Company).

Before i worked for this Company, now i switched to work for a Golf Club. If you want to have more Information's please PM me

Chris, is this company is capable of working to international standards for DOMESTIC installations, and would they be interested in performing the small tasks so many of us have?

[chris11]

Hello

At least the Company follow the thai regulations and work with german Standarts.

I know a electrical Companys work in Bangkok Area and Phuket Area (German-Thai Company).

Before i worked for this Company, now i switched to work for a Golf Club. If you want to have more Information's please PM me

Chris, is this company is capable of working to international standards for DOMESTIC installations, and would they be interested in performing the small tasks so many of us have?

[Cuban]

Black is almost always "HOT"

White or gray is almost always "Neutral"

However some people mix these up because black is always negative in DC connections.

Green or bare is always "Ground or earth"

ground and neutral are separate definitions. Thai's think they are the same thing because of the translation.

Red is usually a load like from a switch to a fan or light.

Blue and yellow are sometimes used the same as legs or travelers in 3 way switches.

Not picking on you mdechgan but just to illustrate an earlier comment I made about other people's wiring skills and practice and it's implications when encountered in Thai domestic wiring.

I visited a neighbor's home recently to talk about the local electrican's work, he has carried out most of the electrical work in the village (200 homes, of which 2-3 are farang owned and so have air-con and 'earthing' added.), "Yes" he said, "...I paid extra to have the earth wire installed." he stood pointing at a single red wire running alongside the 1.5 twin core (Bangkok Cable) clipped to the wall. Next time I'm there I'll take some pictures.

When working on other people's wiring assume that they are untrained, not following any standard and are at least partly homicidal.

(I didn't follow the cables back, but the CU is a rural ply-wood box, I will trace back the earth wire to see where it goes.)

[mdechgan]

Well sometimes the electricians use whatever wires are available regardless of color.

[Donnyboy]

Hello

At least the Company follow the thai regulations and work with german Standarts.

I know a electrical Companys work in Bangkok Area and Phuket Area (German-Thai Company).

Before i worked for this Company, now i switched to work for a Golf Club. If you want to have more Information's please PM me

Chris, is this company is capable of working to international standards for DOMESTIC installations, and would they be interested in performing the small tasks so many of us have?

it is unfortunate that not many other companies are like yours

[Donnyboy]

Well sometimes the electricians use whatever wires are available regardless of color.

agreed

also tap into any circuits for power

i put in some downlights in our kitchen not long ago and when i isolated the lighting circuit, the fridge also stopped along with the microwave

gee, why not just wire the whole house in 2.5mm and tapp off one circuit??

[longball53098]

My rental is run on 4 breakers. They just divided the area into 4 and then wired whatever was in that area to a breaker. On one end they have the AC, shower heater, several lights and plugs. On another just 2 or 3 lights and a plug or 2. The builder would only include a simple electric plan so the sparky did what he felt was right and then they started to add things like heaters and AC and never pulled new cable or added breakers as this would cost more.

[Crossy]

gee, why not just wire the whole house in 2.5mm and tapp off one circuit??

Actually there is absolutely no reason why this should not be done. There's even been discussion about it on the IEE wiring forums and it does not contravene the IEE regs (even 17th edition) PROVIDED the breaker is sized to protect the SMALLEST cable attached to it. So no spurring off a bit of 1.5 to a light from your 2.5mm² power circuit on a 20A breaker.

In India it's common to find power outlets on the same plate as the light switches (and on the same circuit), takes some getting used to for a Brit. That said Indian electrics are even less safe than Thai, we had a triple outlet in the lounge of our place in Delhi, I was amazed to find that each of the outlets was on a different phase!

[elkangorito]

This is all about "demand".

If you are smart enough to work out the demand, you can get the job done correctly. There are a few different ways to approach "demand"...some more expensive than others.

All anybody ever wants is a reliable & safe service (CB's not tripping every so often & house not burning down).

Maximum Demand has been previously discussed within this forum.

As for wiring colours, I'd stick with IEC colours. In Thailand, there appears to be a mixture of both IEC & NEC. This is not a good situation.

[Donnyboy]

gee, why not just wire the whole house in 2.5mm and tapp off one circuit??

Actually there is absolutely no reason why this should not be done. There's even been discussion about it on the IEE wiring forums and it does not contravene the IEE regs (even 17th edition) PROVIDED the breaker is sized to protect the SMALLEST cable attached to it. So no spurring off a bit of 1.5 to a light from your 2.5mm² power circuit on a 20A breaker.

In India it's common to find power outlets on the same plate as the light switches (and on the same circuit), takes some getting used to for a Brit. That said Indian electrics are even less safe than Thai, we had a triple outlet in the lounge of our place in Delhi, I was amazed to find that each of the outlets was on a different phase!

therein lies the problem isnt it?

fair enuff if the demand as elkangorito says is worked out. But this is usually done if at all during the initial stages of construction. Any wiring added in after could be something done ad hoc by wiring using something far less than rated CB.

agreed, it takes getting used to. Im no expert but it seems a less safe way to go.

no comment about colours, im used to red, black and green

[elkangorito]

gee, why not just wire the whole house in 2.5mm and tapp off one circuit??

Actually there is absolutely no reason why this should not be done. There's even been discussion about it on the IEE wiring forums and it does not contravene the IEE regs (even 17th edition) PROVIDED the breaker is sized to protect the SMALLEST cable attached to it. So no spurring off a bit of 1.5 to a light from your 2.5mm² power circuit on a 20A breaker.

In India it's common to find power outlets on the same plate as the light switches (and on the same circuit), takes some getting used to for a Brit. That said Indian electrics are even less safe than Thai, we had a triple outlet in the lounge of our place in Delhi, I was amazed to find that each of the outlets was on a different phase!

therein lies the problem isnt it?

fair enuff if the demand as elkangorito says is worked out. But this is usually done if at all during the initial stages of construction. Any wiring added in after could be something done ad hoc by wiring using something far less than rated CB.

agreed, it takes getting used to. Im no expert but it seems a less safe way to go.

no comment about colours, im used to red, black and green

Unfortunately, this is not done in Thailand (to my knowledge).

Please remember that the circuit breaker only protects the cable. Therefore the CB should be sized according to the cable. If this is done, there is no safety problem.

[stgrhe]

The IEC colour code is:

3-PHASE

Live

R: Brown

S: Black

T: Grey

Neutral: Blue

Ground: Yellow/Green

SINGLE PHASE

Live: Brown

Neutral: Blue

Ground: Yellow/Green