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- Path: sparky!uunet!munnari.oz.au!metro!otc!brendan
- From: brendan@otc.otca.oz (Brendan Jones)
- Newsgroups: sci.electronics
- Subject: Re: Various national colour code of wires...
- Message-ID: <6965@otc.otca.oz>
- Date: 15 Dec 92 23:18:16 GMT
- References: <519@bit.UUCP>
- Lines: 44
-
- in article <519@bit.UUCP>, grego@bit.UUCP (Greg Sanguinetti) says:
- > You don't need a licence in the States to wire your house.
-
- Hmm... and how many people are electrocuted in the US each year? How much
- are house insurance premiums? How often to houses burn down through
- electrical faults?
-
- > Anybody reading sci.electronics should have more than enough basic knowlege
- > to figure out house wiring. It's real easy. Sorry Brendan but I found your
- > tone a bit condesending.
-
- Yes, well I thought house wiring was trivial before I did my electricians'
- course and I have an Electrical Engineering degree with Honours from a
- university. I now know differently.
-
- There's more to it than identifying which wire is the active, especially if
- you're doing an entire house installation from the switchboard.
-
- There's a whole range of practical subleties, ranging from how often to
- support a wiring installation, how to derate it in the presence of insulation,
- how to properly terminate connection, how to earth correctly, how to maintain
- proper insulation at junction blocks, under what conditions you can safely run
- a phone line with a power line, where double insulation is required, etc etc.
-
- It's not just a matter of electrical theory, and tinkering with a breadboard
- (or reading sci.electronics) doesn't qualify you to safely play with 110V or
- 240V. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, an in the case of house
- wiring, deadly.
-
- There's nothing worse than someone who doesn't know what they don't know.
- At least now I know what I don't know, and am much more respectful of mains
- electricity.
-
- > Anyway, the color codes you described are unfortunately opposite US N.E.C.
- > codes and are therefore very dangerous to use.
-
- I mentioned quite clearly they are the IEC codes. If the US doesn't follow
- international conventions then that's the US's problem.
-
- --
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