Power input wire colour confusion.

CrackMeUp · 486

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Offline CrackMeUp

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on: January 05, 2022, 11:10:59 PM
Hi, I've just started my Crack build and I'm confused as to the wire colour choice for the power input section. The manual shows black for live, through the fuse and switch etc, and red for the neutral IEC connection to the transformer. Surely these colours are the wrong way around. Red is always used for live as far as I've ever known and certainly makes more sense to me in this application. Can anyone comment on this or enlighten me as to these colour choices please.

Thanks Steve



Offline Paul Joppa

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Reply #1 on: January 06, 2022, 04:22:04 AM
There are a lot of different conventions, actually. For example, in US house wiring (120v 60Hz AC single-phase), black is always hot, white is neutral, and ground is green, green with yellow stripe, or bare wire. This is from the National Electrical Code, which is not a law but is a set of conventionms adopted by most or all states. (Red and blue are used in 2- or3-phase power for Phase s 2 and 3.)

But of course, an amplifier is not a house.  :^) 

In industrial DC power work, a common convention is red for positive, black for negative and ground is white. (I don't know whether electric cars follow this or not ...) For tube circuits, negative is usually called ground though it may or may not be connected to a true "ground;"  black is commonly used.

You can see the confusion - black is hot in house wiring, negative in DC power, and ground in tube amps. And what colors might be used for internal wiring, e.g. filament power? Or AC signal with a DC bias vs. AC signal with no DC bias vs. DC bias with no AC signal? There are really no useful standards. We use a small number of colors, where needed, to distinguish one wire from another. It's often red for positive power and black for ground, but otherwise quite arbitrary.

Paul Joppa


Offline Paul Birkeland

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Reply #2 on: January 06, 2022, 05:15:02 AM
I'll also add that if you have a balanced power conditioner, both lines are hot!

Paul "PB" Birkeland

Bottlehead Grunt & The Repro Man


Offline CrackMeUp

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Reply #3 on: January 06, 2022, 06:43:37 AM
Thanks Paul for your in depth reply. It's much appreciated. Red still seems like an odd choice of colour for neutral given that nowhere in the world (as far as I know) is red used for neutral mains wiring, especially as outside of the US (apart from live 2 which I believe is red in the US), red is always a live/hot wiring colour. It doesn't really matter that much of course, just a bit confusing for a Brit. :)



Offline Paul Birkeland

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Reply #4 on: January 06, 2022, 07:14:02 AM
For some of our amps that use shielded twisted pair power cabling for switching mains, you'll get both red and black for hot ;)

Paul "PB" Birkeland

Bottlehead Grunt & The Repro Man


Offline Mucker

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Reply #5 on: January 06, 2022, 09:47:26 AM
One thing is certain. The guys who designed the Bottlehead amps are brilliant engineers. And because most all of the products are mature, the manuals will be 100% correct with wiring from point A to point B no matter what the color is.