In the most basic 110 volt electrical setup youll find two wires. The black wire is hot.
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Black and white electrical wires. Red or orange can also be used as a second switched power wire in a 120 volt application. The neutral wire can also be gray. The white wire is always neutral and when the cable has only two conductors as most 120 volt cables do the hot wire is black. The colors regulated by the national electrical code in the united states are standardized for safety. In that wiring scheme assume the black and re marked white wires are live. According to standards in use since the mid 1900s a wire color code identifies the purpose of each wire in an electrical circuit.
The switch also has a green terminal for the ground wires which usually are bare. Black wires are always hot wires meaning that they carry electricity. The ground wire is usually left bare but in some cases the ground wire color is green. The different colors of electrical wires indicate the function of the wire with black and red indicating the wires carry electric current white usually indicating neutral charge and green indicating the wire is grounded. The black wire will be your hot wire and your whites are neutral depending on your switch setup you can wire nut the blacks together with an extra piece of wire coming from the wire nut to connect the hot to the light as well as the same method with your white wires. Sometimes youll find a white wire with a piece of black electrical tape wrapped around it.
You connect the black wires in the electrical box to the switch terminals and the white wires to each other. The white wire goes by many names that all mean the same thing. Neutral common or return. When installing a. Power flows from the box to the outlet through the black wire and back to the box through the white one.
Gallery of Black And White Electrical Wires
