[Gllug] OT: Mains electricity colour coding.

[Andrew Davies]

On 24/10/2010 18:58, general_email at technicalbloke.com wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> For time immemorial I have been told brown is live, blue is neutral and
> yellow/green is earth. Mains electricity is AC so it oscillates between
> the positive and negative 50 times a second right? In that case why does
> it matter which way you wire the blue and brown cables to the nominally
> blue and brown terminals in a plug? I always assumed you could
> electrocute yourself equally well by touching the blue terminal, maybe
> even better as the brown's got a fuse that might protect you!
>
> I'm slowly working my way through W.P.Jolly's seemingly excellent "Teach
>
> Yourself Electronics" so maybe it'll all become clear soon, having said
> that - I'm also impatient!
>
> I'm wondering now if and how the notion of "live" and "neutral" is
>
> different to that of "positive and negative". If so can anyone breifly
>
> explain or point me to a website that explains? Haven't had much joy
> with google so far :/
>
> Yours ignorantly,
>
> Roger.
>    

http://www.diydoctor.org.uk/projects/partp.htm

It's a mess.
-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at gllug.org.uk
http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug