What colour is earth ?

[ignis]

Help Please

 

Got me stumped...  have some heavy duty cable with a plug already moulded on, have twin socket box for a short extension lead... [short as in 50 cm ]

 

the 3 cables are Red, Black and Grey....   ??    All the other wiring in the house and cables I have used before here are Black, Grey and Green..  So is the Red Live or Earth ?

[Crossy]

Since you have a moulded plug and can't see inside it you'll need to verify with your meter (or a battery / bulb) which core the earth pin is connected to.

 

My bets would be on the red as ground, but only because that's the one I use when I have to use black / white / red cable.

 

 

 

[ignis]

2 hours ago, Crossy said:

Since you have a moulded plug and can't see inside it you'll need to verify with your meter (or a battery / bulb) which core the earth pin is connected to.

 

My bets would be on the red as ground, but only because that's the one I use when I have to use black / white / red cable.

 

 

 

 

Thanks will look tomorrow

[ignis]

On 11/13/2016 at 7:18 PM, ignis said:

 

Thanks will look tomorrow

 Stopped being lazy, wired the new twin socket back to the kitchen main junction box

[Grouse]

Typical Thai issue

 

VCT flexible sheathed cable is frequently sold for single phase plus ground. USUALLy red is ground but sometimes black. This cable is old Thai colour code for 2 phases and neutral. 

 

Should use VCT/G which is Brown/ Blue/ green These being the current colours in Thailand for single phase plus neutral plus ground.

 

This issue has been the cause of death!

[Grouse]

On 14/11/2016 at 4:24 PM, ignis said:

 Stopped being lazy, wired the new twin socket back to the kitchen main junction box

 

What size cable? In conduit or surface mount? What size breaker? ELCB?

[catman20]

take your pick 

[leither69]

Does it matter!! Most Thai houses are not grounded so although you see a 3 core cable,  there is really one live and one neutral or phase one and phase two

[Farang99]

10 minutes ago, leither69 said:

Does it matter!! Most Thai houses are not grounded so although you see a 3 core cable,  there is really one live and one neutral or phase one and phase two

 

 

Absolutely. Our Thai built house had no earth circuit so we had to put one in.

[Sydebolle]

Unless you're an expert then you might want to let an expert handle this. 

Ground (earth) wiring is either yellow or green or a yellow/green colour everywhere, i.e. does not essentially apply to Thailand. Get an electrician with measuring gear who can tell you exactly what is what. 

I had my main almost electrocuted as the mixed up the wiring due to wrong colouring of the cable insulations which resulted in her ever-since-lasting-fear of the "Electricity Ghost" when trying to iron. 

Be warned, some of those experts seriously do not know what they do! 

[laislica]

1 hour ago, Farang99 said:

 

 

Absolutely. Our Thai built house had no earth circuit so we had to put one in.

 

 

Same here but when the "Expert" installed the Safe-T-Cut, he point blank refused to install an earth rod!

He actually said it was not needed as Thai electricity is different to that in my home country!

[Jack Mountain]

Why dont use an earth-leak ( a real one! not over current) switch? Then you only need 2 wires.

[Grubster]

Green is ground the world round.  All other colors should be assumed to be hot.  White should always be used as neutral [ still hot ]. Black should be Line voltage. Black and all other colors should be used for load voltage. If your place is not wired like this then get the testers out every time you do anything.  As noted before you will have to test that plug.

[Grubster]

49 minutes ago, Jack Mountain said:

Why dont use an earth-leak ( a real one! not over current) switch? Then you only need 2 wires.

How does that work, I'm not picking a fight, just curious.

[Jack Mountain]

3 minutes ago, Grubster said:

How does that work, I'm not picking a fight, just curious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_leakage_circuit_breaker

 

[lopburi3]

Safe-t-cut (RCCD) works if there is a difference between L and N currents.  It can save your life but will not prevent a painful shock if you become an electric ground point.  A dedicated ground would trip breaker before you touched it (hot chassis) in most cases and offers greater protection and safety.  Highly recommend using both systems but if no ground make sure you do have RCCD.

[paulbj2]

32 minutes ago, laislica said:

 

 

Same here but when the "Expert" installed the Safe-T-Cut, he point blank refused to install an earth rod!

He actually said it was not needed as Thai electricity is different to that in my home country!

 

In my house in the UK the same applied; there was no earth rod. In the past, the incoming metal water supply pipe was traditionally used as an earth but these days much of the underground water supply network is piped in non-conductive plastic so that is no longer a valid solution and earth rods simply driven into the ground are of extremely variable quality to say the very least, with the resistance to earth varying widely depending, amongst other factors, on whether the weather and thus the soil, is wet or dry.  

 

To address these earthing problems, in the UK, they have therefore introduced a system called "protective multiple earthing" where the "earth" cable in an installation is connected to the neutral cable at the fuse box. As the "neutral" is in fact, no more than a very carefully maintained earth (at the generating station and at every transformer substation along the way), it works perfectly well as an earth; in fact it is the system in which ELCBs (earth leakage circuit breakers) work best.

 

In summary, your expert may well have been perfectly right. He was probably implementing a PME installation which is bang up to date whereas earth spikes are a bit "early 20th century"

[Grubster]

33 minutes ago, Jack Mountain said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_leakage_circuit_breaker

 

Ok I read That but can't see anywhere, where it says this eliminates the need of ground wire in circuits. Did you read the "disadvantages part"? Sounds like this system could be very troublesome even with ground wires. When code in the US and Europe allows two wire circuits in a house I might bite on that but not now.   Thanks anyway.

[Shiver]

I would not use any colour as a guide.  It can tell you what it 'should' be, but not what is.  Something to measure across the wires is the only way I would have any confidence in it at all.

 

A friend who was a sparky in UK came to sort out a wall socket/light switch combo here.  All wires were black.  He just poked around with an electricians screwdriver and handled the wires while everything was hot, muttering "ah, that's the dhdhf, this is....kgktkg which means that should be .... yup that's jowsfrdf".  I stood well back and just got ready to catch him if he was thrown back far enough to go over the stairs railing.  No drama though, worked first time in just a couple of minutes.

[Crossy]

1 hour ago, Jack Mountain said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_leakage_circuit_breaker

 

 

Wrong link, ELCBs as described have been outlawed on domestic installation in most (if not all) of the world for many years.

 

What many are describing as an ELCB is actually an RCD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residual-current_device

 

RCDs don't NEED an earth to function, but they will provide better protection from shock if earth is provided. Class-1 appliances (mostly white goods and desktop PCs) should never be operated without a ground even if RCD protection is installed.

 

 

 

[sandrabbit]

5 minutes ago, Crossy said:

 

Wrong link, ELCBs as described have been outlawed on domestic installation in most (if not all) of the world for many years.

 

What many are describing as an ELCB is actually an RCD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residual-current_device

 

RCDs don't NEED an earth to function, but they will provide better protection from shock if earth is provided. Class-1 appliances (mostly white goods and desktop PCs) should never be operated without a ground even if RCD protection is installed.

 

 

 

Agreed, a lot of electrical goods like washing machines, fridges which have a metal enclosure will have a filter capacitor which is connected between the live and earth so without an earth connection the case will have some voltage on it. A house I had in the UK had a damaged earth to one of the sockets in the kitchen and I was getting small shocks off my washing machine, when I measured I had 65v to ground.

[Anon999]

1 hour ago, paulbj2 said:

 

In my house in the UK the same applied; there was no earth rod. In the past, the incoming metal water supply pipe was traditionally used as an earth but these days much of the underground water supply network is piped in non-conductive plastic so that is no longer a valid solution and earth rods simply driven into the ground are of extremely variable quality to say the very least, with the resistance to earth varying widely depending, amongst other factors, on whether the weather and thus the soil, is wet or dry.  

 

To address these earthing problems, in the UK, they have therefore introduced a system called "protective multiple earthing" where the "earth" cable in an installation is connected to the neutral cable at the fuse box. As the "neutral" is in fact, no more than a very carefully maintained earth (at the generating station and at every transformer substation along the way), it works perfectly well as an earth; in fact it is the system in which ELCBs (earth leakage circuit breakers) work best.

 

In summary, your expert may well have been perfectly right. He was probably implementing a PME installation which is bang up to date whereas earth spikes are a bit "early 20th century"

Quote from a UK sight covering current electrical practices.  "The difficulty of ensuring that bonding requirements are met on construction sites means that PME supplies must not be used."

[monkey4u]

5 hours ago, catman20 said:

take your pick 

Most trained electricians in Thailand   use whatever colour they like 

[Khon Kaen Dave]

Errm sorry,my answer was going to be,that from space.Earth is a bluey,greeny,whitish type colour with added dark blue for the sea's.

The other type of earth is a brown,sticky type found anywhere,although mostly in gardens.

But having read the posts,i know i would have made a dreadful mistake.

So,i'll get me coat.

[puipuitom]

When it is done the proper way, you should find somewhere in/around your house a connection of one of the colour lines with a deep copper pole deep into the ground. In fact.. till the ground water level.

My experience in Thailand is, there is NO LIMIT to stupidity and laziness.

When you have figured out for one plug, which colour is the "life", which the "zero" and which is "ground", it does not mean, this is valid of all plugs/rooms.

You simply have to figure it out for every place.

 

And... when you are busy... find out if a earth-leak break device is installed, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residual-current_device . In fact it compares "ingoing" via "life" with "outgoing" via "zero". If not in balance, electricity leaks away, for instance via your body. Then it switches off , for instance above 30 mA.  With 80mA over your heart, you get a new-life-trip from Buddha....Happily your DRY skin is a good resistor.  A WET skin might still give you a trip to the emergency room of a hospital.

[HerbalEd]

11 hours ago, leither69 said:

Does it matter!! Most Thai houses are not grounded so although you see a 3 core cable,  there is really one live and one neutral or phase one and phase two

Color coded wiring in Thailand??? 555555 They can't be bothered with such details.

[Crossy]

To those talking about PME.

 

Thailand is TN-C-S with MEN, like Australia.

 

It looks a lot like PME but with additional local ground rods at the distribution board, aerial supplies have the neutral grounded at every 3rd pole. The N-E link isn't in the service head (what service head?) but actually inside the distribution board.

 

Front-end RCD/RCBOs and 3-pin outlets are supposed to be the regulations for new installations, but homes are still being built with 2-pin outlets and no RCD

 

This PEA document shows how it is expected to be connected http://crossy.co.uk/Handy Files/groundwire.pdf in Thai but with lots of pictures.

 

[kannot]

i  wire  mine to  the  old  uk system black - red + green  earth as  long  as  all the  same its  ok for  me i cover any  wrong  colours with heat  shrink, example my earth cable to earth  rod  was brown but  now is covered with green heat shrink, if  i  get  new  cable its brown + blue- green/yellow  earth

[Farang99]

22 hours ago, laislica said:

 

 

Same here but when the "Expert" installed the Safe-T-Cut, he point blank refused to install an earth rod!

He actually said it was not needed as Thai electricity is different to that in my home country!

 

 

Of course Thai electricity is not t he same as elsewhere it's much less reliable, for a start, and subject to random surges in power (particularly after power cuts) which can ruin many domestic machines.

[lopburi3]

2 hours ago, Farang99 said:

 

 

Of course Thai electricity is not t he same as elsewhere it's much less reliable, for a start, and subject to random surges in power (particularly after power cuts) which can ruin many domestic machines.

That has not been my experience during the 40 plus years I have in Thailand - experienced many more real outages while in USA than in Bangkok - but agree switching is more often dirty and power lost for few seconds here so more obvious (especially with electric clocks).  Have not knowingly lost anything due to power surge (other than lightning strikes).