Wiring (colour) standards?

[SRT]

Hey all,

Just a quick question... Is there a standard to wire colours in amps or is it just sort of slap-dash depending on the wire various manufacturers had on hand at the time?

I want anything I build to be logical to an amp tech anywhere potentially even without a schematic.

--SRT

[Jazz P Bass]

On the AC mains, black is hot & white is return. (USA)
Green is Earth.
I have seen on some equipment where the speaker leads are White is hot & Black is return.

[Enzo]

It isn't slap dash, whatever-they-had-on-hand, but there is no standard either.

Within a given manufacturer's system, they often have wiring color schemes. SO the blue wire in one model XYZ123 will not likely turn out to be pink in some other unit. For example red for B+, and yellow, green,. and blue for the plate, grid, and cathode wires from part board to socket. I may have the last three in wrong order, but I never pay attention to it anyway.

AMericans have some wiring color standards, but the rest of the world often does not use them. Here we expect the plate wires from an output transformer to be brown and blue, with the center tap for B+ as red. But the same wires on a MArshall might be white, brown, and orange, or something.

So if there is a scheme, it will probably be consistent within brand, but don;t assume all wire colors have a particular assignment even in those cases.

[Gingertube]

Sticking to a wiring color "standard" make life much easier when setting to work and later fault finding.
As an apprentice I was taught a certain standard to use.
This standard is pretty much as we were taught, particularly with respect to heater, grid, anode cathode and screen wire colors.
Block Numbering System
Cheers,
Ian

[SRT]

Awesome! Thanks Ian! That's EXACTLY what I've been looking for.

[jrfrond]

It's a great idea, but I see a ton of amps with white wire all-around. BAD idea!!! The wiring scheme I use when building amps is:

Black/White: AC

Green: Ground

Red/Orange/Yellow: B+/B++/B+++ (corresponding to the three power supply nodes on a typical tube amp)

Brown: Cathodes

Blue: Bias

White: Signal

Green/Yellow Twisted Pair: Heaters (I use two different colors to track heater phasing)

[Gingertube]

Here is one I did to the wiring code I linked above - parrt wired.
Cheers,
Ian

[Gingertube]

And a flat out "brag" - here is the finished amp from the outside.
Since the amp was in a basic black Hammond Enclosure with perforated steel cover I went the whole hog on the speaker box to make it look "pretty".



Cheers,
Ian