This video is a little different,
as we’re going to look at something that features
everywhere inside the control panel
but holds a special function
that separates it from the rest of its brothers.
We are going to be looking at the orange wire inside of the panel,
WHY it is special, and what we use it for.
Now you may be asking how can an orange wire be special?
Well, it does not exactly have superpowers, but inside our panel,
it holds a secret that we’re going to find out!
But before all of that, please don’t forget to like this video
if you find it useful.
We want to continue to bring you new and exciting videos
to further your learning,
and this gives us the motivation to come up with
more exciting and easy to follow videos in the future.
Within the panel, we have a number or orange-colored wires.
You may wonder what these are for,
as we’ve already heard of the blue and white wires connected to the PLC.
Well, what these wires are for is to give power to devices
when the main switch or panel isolator is in the OFF position.
“Why would we want to keep things on when we’ve turned the power off?”
I hear you ask! “Isn’t that dangerous?”
Well to put it simply, NO!
If we try to understand the different colored wires in a panel,
this will help us to understand why those that are colored orange
are suitable to work even when the main switch is off.
The colors of wires in panels are required by law
to follow the machine safety standard EN 60204-1.
This is so that there are consistency and for safety.
In Power Circuits, AC and DC, we have this color-coding;
AC Phase will be BLACK
AC Neutral will be LIGHT BLUE
DC+ will be BLACK
and Earth will be GREEN YELLOW
In Control Circuits, AC and DC, we have this color-coding;
AC live will be RED
AC Neutral via transformer will be RED
AC Neutral (mains) will be LIGHT BLUE
and DC+ will be BLUE
Interlocks and circuits supplied from remote panels will be ORANGE;
in this case, not the one we’re after!
Finally Earth will be GREEN YELLOW
Panel services are 240VAC supplies for panel internal lighting,
programming console socket outlet,
internal heating & cooling,
CPUs (memory backup purposes), etc.
These are 'excepted circuits' as defined in EN 60204-1
and as such are not disconnected by the main panel isolator
but by a separate isolator mounted inside the panel
and designated 'maintained supply'.
The color-coding for multicore cables is like this;
The sheath will be ORANGE
AC live cores will be ORANGE
AC neutral cores will be ORANGE
and Earth cores will be GREEN YELLOW
The color-coding for single-core cables is like this;
AC live will be ORANGE
AC neutral will be LIGHT BLUE
and Earth will be GREEN YELLOW
So we come back to the original question;
What wires in our panel are orange?
Well, firstly we have the panel internal light.
We want to be able to see when we turn the main switch off!
Next, we have the socket.
This will allow us to keep our laptop charged up.
If the panel needs to be turned off for an extended period of time,
then when we are ready to go, our laptop may have died.
Not good! The socket is protected by a fuse
so that any spikes in power won’t damage our laptop!
The final thing we have in this panel with power
is a topic we’ve already covered;
the thermostat and cooling fan!
As we’ve already determined, we need to be able to keep the panel cool,
even when the main switch is off.
So how does this all work?
Well inside the panel, we have the mains feed 3 phase power
that comes into the panel to a set of terminals labeled L1, L2, L3, and N.
You can see from this that 1 phase, L1/N,
has orange wires in it.
It is separate from the other wires in this terminal block
so that they act independently.
On the back of the main switch on the left-hand door,
the wires are identified as L1, L2, L3, and N,
matching what we have on the terminals.
The outgoing side of this main switch will be isolated if the switch is off,
and will be powered if the switch is on.
The main switch is connected to the contactor labeled “150K1”.
When the switch is on, giving power to the panel,
this contactor will be “pulled in” or “energized”.
Once this is energized, power can be distributed around the rest of the panel.
That was intense! Hopefully, you’ve learned the orange wires secret.
It’s important to remember this one. It could save your life!
Now you’ve learned the SHOCKING truth behind the orange wire,
what’s next?! Stay tuned to find out!
This video was brought to you by RealPars
in partnership with Pro-control here in the Netherlands.
They are experts at control system design and industrial automation.
and they have a team of world-class automation engineers
and have been designing and implementing industrial control systems in different industries
for many years.
If you want to get in contact with them,
you can check out their website at pro-control.nl.
That’s pro-control.nl.
We will put a link to their website in the description below the video as well.
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