Color Choice For Wiring?

[The Ballzz]

Hey Folks,

Just curious if there is any standardized color choice for what wires go to what? Most Marshalls tend to use red/black for the heaters, blue for preamp tube plates, green for grids and yellow for cathodes. Are there any other accepted standards to & fro the pots, power tubes, etc? I realize cloth wired Fenders use a different convention, but I'm just wondering if some standard is generally favored by builders here.

Along with some other stuff needed for a customers' repair, I got a "bundle" of wire from Valvestorm. I must say that this is some of the nicest wire I've had the pleasure to work with. Nice fat insulation on evenly tinned 22 gauge wire, holds a set shape and the insulation seems more "heat friendly" than most! The "bundle" gives 12 ft each of red & black and 7 ft each of brown, blue, yellow, white, orange, green and purple.

Any Thoughts Here?
Gene

[SILVERGUN]

I remember when I first found Doug's site back in 2012 and was so impressed with his wiring, so I tried to imitate it.
When I saw the pic below I bought my spools of wire and have stuck with it ever since.
Red for B+ / DC power, white for signal, black for cathodes, green for heaters. I have each color in different gauges from 18-22 and it simplifies my process and gives me some mental clarity. On some power transformers secondaries you will see red HV taps, green filament taps, so some of why I use what I use is just an extension of continuing those colors throughout the amp.


If you're gonna build a bunch of amps I highly suggest creating your own standard.

[shooter]

standards from '58 

me, I like all red 

[The Ballzz]

standards from '58 

me, I like all red 

Thanks for that chart! While it makes no reference to color differences for going to and from such things as pots, it does give me very good starting point for developing my own "standard" as mentioned by @SILVERGUN . As a lifelong sound engineer, I tend to view amps from the perspective of the direction of "signal flow" from input to output and "power flow" from the mains in to the various voltage nodes and then individual components. This helps to remind me and visualize that the voltage is doing the amplifying of the audio signal, as well as where that actual amplification is occurring. I've always wished I could hitch a ride on the incoming signal (or see a video representing this) and ride that signal through the various stages of an amp and stop by at each component to more fully contemplate/understand its affect on said signal and how it is actually accomplishing that affect! 

It's interesting that while in most electronics, green often refers to signal, whereas in electrical parlance/vernacular (at least in the United States) green often denotes ground! Of additional note is that ground/earth in Great Britain of often denoted by blue, yet Marshall uses blue for the feed from B+ to the plates of the tubes! It seems that the most consistent thing about this industry is a total LACK of consistency! 

Thanks Again  & Hey, Let's Get Together & Have A Corona Sometime?
Gene

[shooter]

It was passed to me by a member when I asked the same question 


i consider "my colors" as my signature, like I signing a painting.  Red goes well with black and I had 2 rolls, so win win.

[PRR]

> ground/earth in Great Britain of often denoted by blue

?? The two live wires are often Blue/Brown. Blue is nominally more-earthy but you are not allowed to rely on that convention. (There's less DIY house wiring in UK, and a LOT more training of professional electricians, but "neutral" is NOT "earth".)

The recent convention in EU and UK for Protective Earth is green/yellow stripe. This has become so global that you can find it in US appliances, though not house-wiring.

[pdf64]

Yes, IME the power cord of gear from the late 50s used red-black-green for live-neutral-earth, but from the very early 60s onwards, the coding has been brown-blue-green/yellow.
Post WWII, UK electrical installations have used 3 pin grounded plugs / wall outlets; plus the cable plugs have a built-in, replaceable fuse.

[shooter]

I liked how the Hollanders did their "pig tails" to individual cabnits, 3 brown, 1 green/yellow.   each brown was labeled on the insulation, L1, L2, L3.  Guessin a lot of color blindness 

[PRR]

> "pig tails" to individual cabnits, 3 brown, 1 green/yellow.

I think that is just old rubber. My house has three black plastic-jacket conductors from meter to fusebox-- fat single conductor didn't come in colors at the time.

And no, my three wires were not marked which one is "N".

[kagliostro]

Thanks for sharing Shooter

--

Here (now) the cable standar is this (cables from 2 wires to 5 wires)



Civil and industrial electrical systems use a lot more colors

Franco

[pdf64]

Yes, I’ve used 5 core power cable with that coding.