Outside Arena Lighting Cable Colour Mistake.

[TarkMalbot]

Hi,

I am currently helping out with some outside arena lighting and have a dilemma to consider. Basically the issue is the first of eight circuits has been wired in single phase but using the grey sleeved as green & yellow and the black sleeved blue as Neutral. Now I know that it should be the other way around although apparently not law but advised by the NICEIC etc to de-associate black being used as neutral blah blah blah, but the 16mm SWA tails used are now too short and awkward to swap over in the distribution board and in the fused cut outs. My question is should I have the other 7 circuits wired in using the same "not quite right" coloured cores but correctly sleeved or have the other 7 circuits wired in using the black sleeved as earth and the grey sleeved blue for neutral which is the proper way to do it but will have one circuit different from the rest?

All the posts are being put up and the cables pulled in by the owner, I designed the system, am overseeing the work including the wiring and then a local company is coming in to test, inspect, connect up to the main incoming supply and sign it off. I just wanted to ask on here before continuing and to try and limit any more embarrassment after this initial mistake. The cause of the mistake was that the distribution board is fed by a red, yellow, blue and black TP&N supply using the black as neutral so common sense was used to put the black sleeved as blue to be the neutral, brown as live and grey as CPC.

There is a warning on the DB before anyone mentions it.

"This installation has wiring coloursto two versions of BS 7671.
Great care should be taken before
undertaking extension, alteration or repair
that all conductors are correctly identified."

Photos below show un-sleeved but you get the idea:

Thanks for any advice and any questions please ask.

Mark.

 

[Guest123]

I would continue with the same system throughout, all correctly sleeved & identified. This should eliminate the possibility of any further confusion along the way by using different cores for different purposes.

 

[Knobhead]

I’d go with Lenny on that. Set a standard and stick with it throughout the system.

 

[Des 56]

Replied before reading post correctly.cough

 

[Engineer54]

Agree, stick to the same system throughout!! I did exactly the same thing when these daft new colours first came in.... Anyone notice that these colours are almost indistinguishable in bad lighting conditions??

 

[ruston]

Even at best some of the browns are near black on some brands.

 

[TarkMalbot]

Thanks for the advice guys. I have decided I will stick with the same throughout. Oh how I do wish I had waited for the sleeving to arrive before connecting up. It is a nightmare to push the 10mm sleeving over without the cores being perfectly straight which means I have to pretty much do it all again! lol Then there is the earth to do from the gland plate to the earth terminal and lamp post. Only 15 more posts to go! At least its not raining.

 

[benji]

never switches in ltg.columns before

 

[TarkMalbot]

The switches are because there are three lights on the top of each column and the arena owner want to be able to change the lighting levels dependent on the activity. You can have the centre light on, the 2 outside lights or all three.