Red is Negative, Black is Positive in China?

[SNGLinks]

I have just received a volt/amp panel meter from China.
Attached is the wiring diagram.

I assume Anode is +ve and Cathode is -ve.
I queried it and got the wiring diagram, as shown,  sent to me.

WTF?

[amyk]

No, anode is negative and red is still positive. They just drew the diagram rather confusingly.

Compare:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%B4%9F
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%AD%A3

[SNGLinks]

Thanks! Very confusing

[BurningTantalum]

They used to have traffic lights that were red for go and green for stop. The last set I saw in 2 years of working there was outside Kunming and they were blue for stop but had been rewired to the international norm in the late 80s, although the red light was still at the bottom.
Knock off NiCad and Nimh cells often have the printed sleeves assembled 'upside down'.
I often saw trucks with two red lights at the front and two white lights at the rear - we then refused to be driven at night.
BT

[TimFox]

I have seen old (not up to current IEC specs) wiring in Europe where red was "ground" or "protective earth", instead of the present green/yellow, or green in US.

[sync]

I have seen old (not up to current IEC specs) wiring in Europe where red was "ground" or "protective earth", instead of the present green/yellow, or green in US.

Yes, in Germany red was used for protective earth (1 phase cables) AND for L2 in a 3-phase system.

[TimFox]

I  have often wondered about the logic behind color-code choices, but using the same color for L2 and PE seems dangerous.
The US standard for "line" in a single-phase system is black, with white for neutral.  An electrician told that was because "black means death", which is presumably the mnemonic they taught him as an apprentice.  As I understand it, the normal US code reserves white for neutral, green for ground/PE, and allows the other colors (including black) for "hot" wires (including switched).

[sync]

I searched a bit and found that red was also used for switched line voltage. It's not only dangerous. It's completely insane.

[electr_peter]

Regarding original post, DC wire colours may be misleading in situations where current is measured (because of multiplication of wires). Correct action would be to get a proper manual and/or double or triple check everything with a DMM before powering it up.

[SeanB]

A small list in easy to understand form.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_wiring#Colour_code

[AG6QR]

I  have often wondered about the logic behind color-code choices, but using the same color for L2 and PE seems dangerous.
The US standard for "line" in a single-phase system is black, with white for neutral.  An electrician told that was because "black means death", which is presumably the mnemonic they taught him as an apprentice.  As I understand it, the normal US code reserves white for neutral, green for ground/PE, and allows the other colors (including black) for "hot" wires (including switched).

This gets especially nasty when standards are mixed.  As you point out, in regular household electric wiring, black is live, white is neutral, and green is ground.  But for DC automotive use, a typical code is that black is negative/chassis, and red is positive.

RVs or camper trailers are a hybrid of a vehicle and a house.  They typically have AC and DC wiring.  The AC is usually like house wiring, black live and white neutral.  The DC is sometimes like automotive, red + and black -, but often it's also black/white, where black is +12V and white is negative ground, connected to the chassis.

When I see a black wire in an RV, I never know whether it is connected to +12VDC, 120VAC, or chassis ground.  Gotta test everything.

[SeanB]

Work on aircraft, where every wire is white. Can be ground, 28VDC, 115VAC 400Hz, 2kVDC ( nasty to find on the connector, as they are rated for it) or anything in between. Only thing you can be reasonably sure of is the 00SWG wiring will be either ground or 28VDC.

[Rick Law]

They used to have traffic lights that were red for go and green for stop. The last set I saw in 2 years of working there was outside Kunming and they were blue for stop but had been rewired to the international norm in the late 80s, although the red light was still at the bottom.
Knock off NiCad and Nimh cells often have the printed sleeves assembled 'upside down'.
I often saw trucks with two red lights at the front and two white lights at the rear - we then refused to be driven at night.
BT

That was not something "they used to do".  That were changed by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960's.  As you would expect, in the view of the Red Guards, Red should mean means go.

[daybyter]

When I had to replace the battery of my ti 57 calculator, I had to learn, that red is also negative in Texas... :-)

[timofonic]

When I had to replace the battery of my ti 57 calculator, I had to learn, that red is also negative in Texas... :-)

In Texas and Arizona, red is negative! Or was black too?

[mrf245]

Of course,RED is positive and BLACK is negivite in your picture(according to Chinese text)

[elgonzo]

When I had to replace the battery of my ti 57 calculator, I had to learn, that red is also negative in Texas... :-)

In Texas and Arizona, red is negative! Or was black too?

Nonsense! Red is the color of the GOP, thus red is very, very positive in Texas and Arizona.

[babysitter]

Black is red and positive is negative, of course.

(Come on you had enough time to pull out this old joke)

[Rick Law]

When I had to replace the battery of my ti 57 calculator, I had to learn, that red is also negative in Texas... :-)

And in accounting departments anywhere in the USA.  Red=negative.

"Seeing Red"=="Big Yikes"

Why is 12Volt so timid?  Because it is always Yellow...

[Paul Moir]

.  As I understand it, the normal US code reserves white for neutral, green for ground/PE, and allows the other colors (including black) for "hot" wires (including switched).

And of course, there's the exceptions.  For example a common switch leg.  This is where you wire power to for example a light fixture's junction box, then drop a 2-wire to a switch to turn it on and off.  Since the 2-wire is white & black, what's an electrician to do? 

The code answer is to connect the switch's white to hot in the fixture's junction box, and connect the black wire to the fixture.  The rational is if the fixture gets changed, the (presumably homeowner) is confronted with a white and black wire to attach to his new fixture, so there is no possibility for confusion.  If the black switch leg wire was made the permanently hot one, the homeowner would see two white wires going to the fixture and so he would be liable to wire the fixture backwards.

The mnemonic that stuck with me was "Down on the white, back on the black."

[Chipmunk]

Here in the UK it's pretty much the exact opposite, on a switch drop, the brown wire will be Live, as normal, and the blue will be the switched live to the fixture (sleeved in brown at each end if the electrician's following the rules). I tend to tape them brown AND sleeve, in case the sleeving falls off

[Rick Law]

Oh boy, this is a bigger mess than I thought.

I fixed my heating system motor last year.  Brown was something I already forgot,  Blue is the the slow fan...  at least the research I did then led me to think it was some kind of standard.

Can color blind electrician even do the job?  What if the same blower fan is taken to Canada?  Would it kill someone when they hook it up according to their standard color scheme.

I wonder if there is a high rate of accidents with electricians who happens to be recent immigrants to a particular country.

[TimFox]

.  As I understand it, the normal US code reserves white for neutral, green for ground/PE, and allows the other colors (including black) for "hot" wires (including switched).

And of course, there's the exceptions.  For example a common switch leg.  This is where you wire power to for example a light fixture's junction box, then drop a 2-wire to a switch to turn it on and off.  Since the 2-wire is white & black, what's an electrician to do? 

The code answer is to connect the switch's white to hot in the fixture's junction box, and connect the black wire to the fixture.  The rational is if the fixture gets changed, the (presumably homeowner) is confronted with a white and black wire to attach to his new fixture, so there is no possibility for confusion.  If the black switch leg wire was made the permanently hot one, the homeowner would see two white wires going to the fixture and so he would be liable to wire the fixture backwards.

The mnemonic that stuck with me was "Down on the white, back on the black."

Does the code allow adding colored electrical tape to the ends of the white wire in your example?  I am familiar with blue and red tape used on three phase circuits, where the only wire available was black.

[Fungus]

The people who decided the new "standard" also managed to forget about color-blind people:

http://www.brighthubengineering.com/commercial-electrical-applications/107563-color-blindness-rules-for-electricians-and-electrical-engineers/

The best colors would be black/white/stripey. The stripey wire would have to be higher contrast than yellow/green (which doesn't look stripey at all to people who can't see green).

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

I learned early not to trust colors.  In the thermocouple world red is negative.

All white or all black wires were in a commercial instrument.  Turned out they had numbers printed on them.  Motors might too.

The IEC colors blue/brown and green with white, I haven't found a way to remember yet.