Wire Color ?

[Stone]

Is there any "standard" as far as wire color goes? My first build was a kit and all the wire was yellow except for the heater wires, which were green. I was just wondering if there are any commonly used color schemes.

[MWJB]

Well a lot of vintage Fender based kits follow their example for wiring colours, green for heaters and yellow for nearly all other hook up wire (Fender often used 2 different colours for the power tube grid wires, a good idea to ensure proper relationship between grids/OT primaries/OT secondaries).

However, there's no reason to stick to this and it might be useful to introduce your own scheme... one colour for grid & tone control wires, another for cathodes & grounds, another for plate/power supply wires.

Colours are up to you but I like Doug Hoffman's scheme of white for grids, black for cathodes, red for plates.

Many folks use 2 different colours for the heaters to make wiring power tubes in correct polarity easier, then you can also use the 18 guage wire for hooking up speakers - a consideration if you're buying by the 300ft spool.

[Rob Mercure]

Yes there are!

Well, as far as I'm concerned wire color codes for tube electronics were well established by the second world war! If you can find a copy of the ARRL handbook there is a color code chart in there under "Construction Practices." Heaters are brown (but from the tranny - green for most tubes 'cept rectifiers which are yellow - transformer leads follow another standard), plate leads are blue, B+ is red while screen grids are orange and, and, and .... oh hell, gimme a second to grab the handbook. Lessee, OK - grounds are black, cathodes are yellow, minus PS leads voilet, AC power lines gray, while bias supply and other C/B minus leads are white.

But for building one kit this might be cumbersome but if you intend to do this for a while any old photocopier or washing machine, etc., will provide you with as much multi-colored wire as you can possibly use. For low current and "low" voltage circuits (less than about 3-400 volts - depends) old telephone "header" cables for mutiple station boxes or even an old computer monitor cable will provide lotsa wire (you can usually find at least one wire in the bundle with a voltage rating).

I dunno, it seems easy to me and makes it really easy for me to figure out my own circuits that I built 10-15 years ago at a glance. But I am too lazy to rewire existing amp circuits and do try to make any mod/repair match the "inappropriate" <grin> colors used in vintage Fenders, et al.

Rob

[Bruce / Mission Amps]

I use to talk to Ken Fischer (Trainwreck Amps for those that don't know about Kenny) about stuff like this and his comments were always something like, "use the ones that sounds the best not looks the best". Ha ha...
He really had some very strong opinions about what color wires to use in certain defined parts of the circuit.
This was based on tonal shifts he could hear or "feel"... or how much carbon black, iron oxide or titanium oxide was used in the dye lots! YIKES!

Me?
I love cloth covered solid core wire and follow no rules other then mine, and Rob, I'm an old time Ham too but ignore the ancient ARRL color lists...
I use red for all B+ and plate leads, yellow for most other hook ups, blue for anything passing AC audio, yellow and yellow/black for filaments past the power tubes (green for power tubes), black or bare wire for grounds.
Complex tone stacks will get red/black stripe, brown, white and or blue/black stripe.
Like Rob, I do this so I can glance at a circuit board of mine and know what a wire is doing or where it is going based on it's color.

[Rob Mercure]

Heh, heh, heh - Bruce, it's funny but I was actually thinking about you when I wrote the response. Partially because I was thinking about the cost/trouble for a kit manufacturer to provide wire of many colors and partially because I knew you were a ham and we had discussed the handbook in the past as a learning tool. I was never a ham but in the late 1960s the handbook and the RCA tube manual were my primary electronic learning tools - I would have probably have killed for RDH4 when I was 16!

As to my own circuits I usually don't code plate's blue but generally use red for B+ and plates - but where there is a lead to g2 from a resistor (as opposed to having the resistor on the tube socket) I will use an orange lead and I do like using yellow for cathodes and green for control grids. But for AC wiring I usually use black as many manufacturers do.

But I did want to impress on the original inquirer that standards had been established and there might be reasons to use them even if "ancient" (cuz we're both headed that way Bruce <grin>).

Rob

[Stone]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I figured there were some standards created at some point in the past. But after seeing the guts of quite a few different amps, I couldn't see an obviuos standard. My background is in industrial electronics/wiring, where green is always ground, red is always 120VAC, white is always neutral, black is always AC> 120V, etc, etc.

Thanks again.

[Matt T.]

I just look at what I have on hand (I'm just a hobbyist/enthusiast so I don't have rolls of several colors/gages/types/etc.) and then devise some sort of semi-consistent color-code for that amp.

Right now I'm completely gutting/rebuilding my very first homebrew (smallbox clone) because I modded it to hell and back and looked terrible inside. I'm using green for grids (where not shielded), red for power supply/plates except screens which are yellow, black for grounds/cathodes, white for most of the controls (except when I twisted wires...then I used either red or black for the second twisted wire). I'm using the existing green heater wires (different shade and gage than the grid wires).

Dammit I hate it when I replace a 'hard to replace' wire (like some heater wires) and then proceed to promply burn a big scar in it with my iron.

[Peter Clothier]

Most of the early British stuff like VOX seems to follow the ARRL rule as pointed out by Rob.
Just one thing thou!!!!!!!
Be wary about where you aquire your used wire from. Quite often washing machines are scrapped because the fault became to expensive to trace on an old machine. This fault was probably a break in one of the wires which has been subjected to a lifetime of vibration and has fractured, although the outer insulation seems fine (I know. I've seen it).
Imagine the worst case scenario....... Your beautiful screaming rockin amp starts to go intermittent at a gig. Then it seems ok for the next 2 sessions and then starts all over again. You get it on the bench and scrutinise it for a day. Can't find any problem.
Dare you use it at the next gig, especially after the abuse you took the last time. Well do ya...... PUNK????

from:- G6RMK

[Steve Conner]

I use blue for everything, because I bought a big spool of blue wire a while back

I would never salvage wire for anything. It's not expensive or hard to get hold of, and old wire can cause trouble like Peter mentioned. I swore off it after laboriously winding a transformer with a spool of old magnet wire a friend gave me, only to see my work disappear in a cloud of smoke because the wire had bad insulation

BTW, good to see some other hams here! I got my licence back in high school, my callsign is GM0TET. I hardly talk nowadays, but I like to play with antennas, RF circuits, and the new digital modes like PSK31. My ambition is to combine my love of tube amps and radio one day, by building a huge tube linear, but unfortunately I don't have anywhere to use one just now without causing EMI hassles.

[Rob Mercure]

Well, gentlemen, I'll just have to beg to differ. I've not had any problems with recycled wire and I've recycled it from such varying sources as photocopiers, a 1960s Baldwin tube organ, military surplus equipment, an old IBM 3000 series mainframe, automobiles and, as I mentioned, laundry appliances. Although I will admit that I've used little from appliances I included that simply to provide a common source. But what I have recycled has been good and laundry appliance wiring commonly breaks at a point where flexing wire has been mechanically "stopped" - usually where a spade or ring terminal is crimped onto the wire - the wire between "ends" is usually in great shape and since I rarely used these connectors, and solder on new ones when I do, I've not experienced a problem.

And please remember I grew in what is now described as "poverty" in an Appalachian coal mining town so my "parts store" was the pile of old TVs, radios, and appliances that were thrown out behind a local repair shop - I'd drag them home and patiently unsolder resistors, caps, tube sockets, and trannies, etc. Buying wire was a luxury that I couldn't afford.

Steve, of course old magnet wire lacquer isn't to be trusted - or at least I wouldn't do so - but I have recycled magnet wire that I've unwound from a recently operating motor and died due to bearing failure without problem. Ah, enjoy your youth and great memory - when you get to old farthood you might find that remembering where your wires go gives you the "blues." <grin>

Rob

[Enzo]

Hey, I learned my electronics from short wave, back in the 1950s. never picked up my ham ticket - absolutely had no interest in morse code.

[Euthymia]

For now....

I'm with Matt: just make it distinctive within that build. The idea is for it to be easiest to troubleshoot/mod, which to me, means tracing wires reliably.

I build/mod with surplus (not used:-) silver Teflon, so while I have at least half a dozen colors (and stripey combos) on hand, they may not fit with the military/ARRL/EIA colors.

I use mnemonics: blue=plate (as in "blue plate special"), GReen=GRids (or green=screens), and "hotter" colors like red, yellow and orange for higher voltages (and heaters), and "cooler" colors for lower voltages, grounds, cathodes.

After reading Kevin O'Connor, I use two different colors for AC heaters so that I can keep 'em in the proper phase.

Note to Matt: get some Teflon insulated wire and never worry again about notching insulation with the barrel of the soldering iron!