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A hunk of copper is visible that is designed to be easily connected or disconnected from its place between two screws, rated for 600 A (as stamped on it). We also see the thick wires in standard colors (two yellow/green ground and two blue neutral), as well as markings PEN (protected earth and neutral), PE (protective earth) and N (neutral).
Hot is any line or neutral conductor (wire or otherwise) connected with an electrical system that has electric potential relative to electrical ground or line to neutral. Ground is a safety conductor with a low impedance path to earth. It is often called the "ground wire," or safety ground. It is either bare or has green insulation. [1]
The National Electric Code (NEC) only specifies colors for ground and neutral: Green for the equipment grounding (safety) conductor (NEC Article 250.119), and white or grey for the neutral (grounded) conductor (NEC Article 200.6). These colors may not be used for any other purpose, nor may their purpose use a different color.
This three-wire single-phase system is common in North America for residential and light commercial applications. Circuit breaker panels typically have two live (hot) wires, and a neutral, connected at one point to the grounded center tap of a local transformer. Usually, one of the live wires is black and the other one red; the neutral wire is ...
A somewhat similar system called "concentric wiring" was introduced in the United States around 1905. In this system, an insulated electrical wire was wrapped with copper tape which was then soldered, forming the grounded (return) conductor of the wiring system. The bare metal sheath, at earth potential, was considered safe to touch.
[citation needed] A connector with ground terminal has more wires than poles: two-pole, three-wire; or four-pole, five-wire; etc. A non-grounded device may be two-pole, two-wire; three-pole, three-wire; etc. [citation needed] The numerals following the hyphen is the current rating of the device in amperes.
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The international standard IEC 60446 Basic and safety principles for man-machine interface, marking and identification - Identification of equipment terminals, conductor terminations and conductors was a standard published by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) that defined basic safety principles for identifying electrical conductors by colours or numerals, for example in ...