electrical code Q.

[T77911S]

last night me and a guy wired in 2 208 single phase outlets at work. the panel is a 3 phase panel. feeder wires to the panel were, from top to bottom, BLK, BLU and red.
so naturally all the existing wiring followed the same scheme down each side.
we only had BLK and RED wires for our outlet (of course green and WHT).
he said the BLK wire that we installed that was connected to the "BLU phase" had to be taped on both ends with blue tape. I said it did not matter.

is that code that a wire connected to the BLU phase has to be taped blue on both ends?

mind, this guy is quite over the top and nobody else wanted to help him do it, in fact I would not have helped except I had to come in for something else anyway.
he went thru and wrote on the front of the panel by the breakers starting at the top, BLU, BLK, RED, all the way down.

something else he did, as a side note to let you know what we deal with.
we had a an inspection at our radar site. (FAA). the elec panels are not labeled like conventional panels were each slot is it own number. at the radar, the breakers were labeled in order as in a trip pole breaker was just 1, not 1 3 and 5. the 4th slot down might be 2. ( I don't remember how they were).
so because the inspector said that was wrong he relabeled all the panels. mind you he knows NOTHING about a radar system.
the problem is we have tech manuals for the system and the manuals reference the circuit breakers per how the system was built. so in the book CB 4 is no longer CB in the panel because of him.

[Gogar]

Well if you think about it tape on only one end doesn’t do you any good, right?

IMO it’s best to think not about you but the next guy who gets in there.

[rockfan4]

I don't know if it's code, but that's the way we do things around here. Lots of thick black wires in the pdu with red, white and blue tape on each end. Like Gogar said, it makes it a lot easier for the next guy.

As far as your radar manuals go, sounds like the guy who put it in screwed up labeling the breakers because he didn't know what he was doing, and now that you do know about it, you should take it upon yourself to fix the manuals to match the breaker labels before something bad happens.

[T77911S]

Radar. No. It's a system built by Raytheon way back when. The electrical panels are considered part of the equipment and are reflected that way in the manuals.

[T77911S]

I understand the need for color code for phase rotation and in situations where one panel supplies 3 phases to another panel, which we do have.

But for a single phase 208 OUTLET?.

He said it was code, I said not but it was not worth arguing over so I let him do it as he wanted.

A house is not wired Blk red, Blk red, Blk red for single brkr services.

I am trying to figure out why I would pull out a 120v outlet and need to know it is the blue phase..

[rockfan4]

3 phase power has to be somewhat balanced when you start splitting it up into 120 and 208, or the stuff that needs all 3 phases is going to start acting weird. Let's say you have 120a load on A, 100a load on B and 150a on C. You should move some load from C to B, maybe some to A. Now which outlets were on which phase again? I don't want to walk in and waste my time figuring out which loads are on which phase.

[bickyd]

in Canada it is red black blue. 1,2,3 or A,B,C in that order. it is mandatory to identify phases on conductors at each end. the code actually stipulates that they must be painted but everyone uses colored tape. the neutral has different rules and can be longitudinal ribs, natural grey or white for identification. In a 3 phase panel the neutral caries the unbalanced load and is referred to as a true neutral. lots of three phase panels are unbalanced and the neutral is warm all the time. Add dirty power, switched power loads (computers) and harmonics and you can burn that puppy right up. that is why we try to keep things balanced or oversize the neutral conductor. if phase voltage is 208 then line voltage is 340 volts which is an odd situation for utilization. normally it would be 120/208 three phase or 347/600 for commercial.