Color code your cables

[Jo-JotheSoundDog]

Does anyone know if USITT is working on or has a standard color code for cable lengths and counterweights. Most theatres I have worked seem to have similar color codes but not quite the same. Which just leads to confusion.

[ship]

Doesn't matter if USITT comes up with a standard or not, no major company is going to invest the time or money in adapting to the new system if they have a good one working for them. Oh' sure it would be nice for a standard, but it's just not going to happen. Here is the depth of not only there being a problem in choosing one color, but the different systems in use. And it's not only lighting companies and theaters that would need to standardize the cable, it's scenic and sound companies too. That's a lot of money that would be going into such a system.

My college and subsiquentially me use the stipped cable standard. That's where you put one wrap of tape around the cable for each 10' of cable, or a double wide stripe for 50' and a half wide stripe for 5'. The color of the stripes was according to where the cable was designated to be used or who owned it. In my case it's light blue. Really easy to read the length of cable even if you don't know the color code just by counting the rings.

ILC uses electrical tape also, but one color or series of colors per length of cable. Not the same colors my company, or any other company I have noticed uses, we have our own standards. A good attempt at color coding would be to use ROYGB color code, another good system would be to use the electronic wire code as I remember someplace else using. The rainbow color code would probably be best to use. Too bad I don't know of anyone I see cable from using it much less me.

Design Lab - another Chicago company uses Orange tape to designate it's design lab's property and paint markers to designate the length. Many other local companys use a similar system.

As I mentioned, the company I work for, and more and more others are investing a lot of money in their markings, and with thousands of pieces of cable, re-marking them would not be cost effective.
I use colored 3" heat shrink pre-printed labels over the companie's cable that has the logo, and phone number. Atop that, I use the P-Touch to mark the size, grade and length of cable, and on the more expensive stuff, the serial number, date of manufacture and maker of it. Covering all the printed heat shrink is clear heat shrink. Much of that is being glued directly to the cable so it won't stretch out and fall off. In other words, once glued on, it's not coming up. I'm not changing. Just replacing the area code on cable from (312) to (773) to (847) has cost the company enough money. With the size, grade and length of cable marked on the cable, you don't need to know our color code, you can read the cable for size. That's simple.

Only thing I use colored stripes of tape for is in designating different types of cable such as Purple for the L6-15 cable, as opposed to no colored stripes marking for the L5-15 cable, Green for the 5-Pin DMX as opposed to nothing for the 3-pin XLR cable etc.

For any color code system, it needs to be perminantly marked on the cable so it doesn't become gooey and fall off with use like just taping the cable will have a problem with. Without the name and phone number of your company on the cable, it's really hard to return it when it walks. Light Works puts a LW on their connectors and since I'm local, I know it's them. Can't tell it's them by the color markings on the cable, but I see the warn away white paint marker or Sharpee markings and frequently return it to them if I catch it before someone else does and marks it as ours. With other companies that just put their initials or something stupid on them that they can identify but nobody else can, it's hit or miss if they are getting their cable back. Some companies use stickers or printed heat shrink also. If not under clear heat shrink to protect the label, it gets damaged or warn away really easily. Love those companies with a name but no phone number. Give them about 1 minute of searching for who to send it back to before my wire wheel and goof off takes off the markings.

Some places like Frost Lighting, Navy Pier, and McCormic Place buy their wire pre-printed with who it belongs to, than they can mark it's length any way they want if at all. Those companies pay extra for their wire, but they always get it back.

Light Works/ILC has the only workable solution for marking cable and that's putting a color code chart on their road boxes. We adapted a similar system so when you are in the box, you can just look for the color of the marking. Our color code is much more simple than Light Works system in that we only get into double colors after say 150' and I'm going away from that system towards just repeating colors. Easy to tell the difference between a 15', 75', and 175' cable.

I stole one of ILC's box marking charts from a road box about two years ago and posted it up so that when we rent from them, our tech people know how long the cable is. It's a very popular chart to look at amonst people in the shop. We based our own chart off the one we stole, just with different colors. Charts are a good thing, wish at least if there was no standarization, at least more companies would provide cable length charts.

But I still prefer using the pre-printed heat shrink and labeling the cable for grade, type and length under a clear heat shrink. That way, there is no confusion and to be quite frank, it not only looks better, but looks much more professional no matter what your color code.

[dvsDave]

Could you post that color chart online, or send me a picture of the chart?

[ship]

I'll let wemeck post the ILC cable length conversions. My copy is at work hanging off a file cabinet and I'm not going back to work until Wed. I could probably scan it after then but it's just a bunch of colors in square boxes with sizes next to them. Simple enough nothing magical about a chart.

As for where I work, all someone did was to tape some heat shrink labels to a piece of paper next to the printed lengths and mass photo copy it. Than someone else took a bunch of highlighter markers and filled in the colors. Much more simple than using a color printer and graphically printing it all out.

Our lengths/colors for the 3" heat shrink would be:'
5' = yellow
10' = blue
15 to 20' = red
25' = white
50' = yellow
75' = red
100' = blue
125' = white
150' = yellow/blue
175' = blue/red but is going all red
200' = black

Beyond that, I have color stripes in addition to the length color to designate a specific cable for a purpose such as brown for the computerized hoist data cable, silver for the Lynx system, Masking tape for 6-channel Clear com... etc. You name it, and it has it's own color code. Cyan for ColorRam, Orange for Chroma Q cable, purple for other scroller cable, etc. In addition to orange for special cable and purple for 208v cable or green for DMX cable. Lots of colors for special purpose stuff and adaptors. So many I not only ran out of unique colors for each type of gear thus the silver and masking tape, but I have charts all over the building saying what stuff is such as yellow/green markings on L5-20 to slip plugs, or yellow heat shrink on 3pin to 5pin adaptors. Gets really confusing. Most important part is once it's coded such as all edison to slip adaptors being black heat shrink, it's easy to find similar cables of that type.

Again, go with the color code of those you rent the most from, or if you don't usually rent, I would go with the colors of the rainbow out of symplicity. That's probably what USITT would use anyway.

Red = 5'
Orange = 10'
Yellow = 15'
Green = 25'
Blue = 50'
Purple = 75'
Black = 100'
Grey = 125'
White = 150'

Or something like that.

[wemeck]

I contacted Michael Kathan (mike@IntelligentLighting.com) at ILC who sent me the following:
5' - no color
10' - white
15' = red
20' - green
50' - yellow
75' - purple
100' - blue
125' - blue & orange

[Jo-JotheSoundDog]

I still think it would be nice to see it standardized. I remeber working in a theatre in upstate NY whose in house weights were on two different color codes. And to make it even more confusing was they had both steel and lead weights. So you would think you were grabbing a 20lb brick and it would turn out to be 50 lbs!!!!!
At this point of time in my career I am so confused when I look at color coded cables from working with 28 totally different codes.

Green is 20 no 30 no 15 no...........AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!! !!

[ship]

My first laugh of the day. Thanks!

[Jo-JotheSoundDog]

Yeah now that I think about it just writing the length of the cable on both the plug and the receptacle ends is probably the best idea. Save the Sanity.

[ship]

I have Light Works/TLC's "Cable Lengths and Color Codes" sheet as swiped out of one of their road boxes in front of me. Kind of looks like a navy signal flag chart.
5' White
10' Red
25' Blue
50' Green

Than it gets complex
75' Blue/Green
100' Red/Blue
125' Red/Blue & Blue
150' Red/Blue & Green
175' Red/Blue & Blue/Green

Nothing I would want to impliment or memorize.

[ship]

I'm not sure if I agree with marking the length on plugs. Frequently they are taken off when made into on-site adaptors and what you are marking them with usually wears off especially if anywhere around Goof Off much less general wear on the cable.

Time out, my soap box for a moment!!!

Here I have made a few hundred adaptors of every type. You would think the crew chiefs would have at least 4 of every type of adaptor on their show just out of symplicity for emergencies, but it never fails that cable comes back with differing connectors on them, and frequently a lot of cable coming back made into really long stage to Edison adaptors much less the ever popular Edison to 208v connectors or the reverse. And they wonder why a 50' cable can be anywhere from 50 to 45'? Anyone know why a L6-15P to 5-15R adaptor would be not only unsafe but against the NEC? Those suckers get cut by me when I see them really fast. Can't always blame the crew chiefs, I have even lopped off a few plugs in my time while on site, when things have changed, but there are those few crew chiefs that are always showing up with screwed up cable. Angers me because they have better things to do on site than installing plugs half hazzardly and I know I do also than repairing cable that there is adaptors availble for.

Than there was that instance of the 3 circuit and very dangerous 3-circuit Edison (Nema 5-15P) to 3-phase female 30 amp (L21-30R) adaptors I had to make. Okay, it's not great to make such a thing because if just one of those plugs is un-plugged you can get shocked by touching one of the hot pins if there is a un-balanced load. But I made the adaptor as close to NEC standards as I could citing the rule about making adaptors with lower rated plugs to at least as close to the rating as possible. In this case for the Edison plugs, I used 20 amp Edison plugs (5-20P) feeding the 3-phase 30 amp output. This 50 year old stage hand that works with us frequently and had been a stage hand for around 30 years wasn't familior with such a Nema 5-20P plug with it's twisted neurtral pin so he wasted like two hours in swapping out those expensive 20 amp plugs for 15 amp plugs in an effort to plug them into the AC distro unit for the show. Only pleasure I got out of the deal was showing this "expert"stage hand, when the gear got back to the shop how a 20 amp "Edison" receptacle is able to accept both the normal "U-Ground" parallel blade 15 amp plug or that twisted pin 20 amp plug rated for the load of 20 amps and not just 15 out of 30 amps. It will accept 4 types of plug, (Nema 1-15, 1-20, 5-15 and 5-20 plugs) one of them such as the one I provided the adaptor with and that AC distribution rack panel I designed the adaptor for, (Hello, didn't I build this adaptor specifically for your show?) as with all recepticles rated for 20 amps, had such receptacles that would accept both the 20 amp plug and the normal 15 amp plug. He wasted his and company time because he did not know what the heck he was doing.

Point is that you have to dummy down every thing you do on stage. Plus, with tact, (remember the tact until at least your thirties) no matter how young you are, if you are right, it doesn't matter what age you are, sometimes you do get to tell the elder pro people they are dumb-asses. That would be why at 40 or 50 they are still climbing ladders for a living instead of flying a desk chair or at least directing people by their mid- thirties. By the way, life on the stage is a great thing, but what are you going to do once you start getting back akes and they don't magically heal with a full night's rest anymore. In this profession, if you don't become an expert and very good at what you do and how you lead, by your mid thirties, by your mid 40s much less 50s you soon find your career changing to gas station attendent has-been or wana be a few years later. There is not a retirement plan for people that are not worth their experience in this industry unless they get it thru the union. With the union, it's not a question of your individual value if stupid, just being a member to achieve retirement in the profession. Nothing personal but it's ability and knowledge. That's where that college degree if nothing else comes in handy. If you don't have the theater as your path in later life, at least you can become like your dad working in an office to feed the family. Those of you who think the stage is the thing are being short sighted and will unless one of the few lucky wind up pumping gas.

Back to the cable marking subject in refrence to on-site adaptors.
Those same people that have no idea of what a ferrule is much less have ever read the instructions provided with the plugs for how to install a strain relief on the size of cable they are working on. There is a point at which when installing the strain relief too tight, when you crush the cable that the insulation between conductors given it's rubber will be pushed out of the way sufficiently to the extent that there is only say 1/32" of insulation between conductors. I would say that's not a good thing to see. Read the instructions and follow them for applying plugs on cable and installing the strain relief no matter how much you think you know.

Than there is the idiots that take a paint marker to mark directly on the plug the cable's use. Plus in marking your cable for pre-looming it in shows - at least for us, the plug is what is taped and marked for indication of the truss location and use. I just bought $350.00 worth of colored tape today to help the crew chiefs make it thru the summer in marking their cable and truss so the monkeys on site can see color and stripes of color than match up those colors and stripes to what it is supposted to join with. Yea, roadies have a bad name for themselves for a good reason besides chasing groupies.

Get into entertainment lighting or touring shows, and things are done as simple as possible so as to avoid confusion with the union boys. They might be the big time professionals, but for the most part, unless you have everything down to marking the 10' pieces of truss that need to join up with each other marked and pre-planed out in a way as simple as possible so a child could assemble it, it won't happen no matter how smart or professional they claim to be. "Are you trying to tell me my job?" (But I digress. Don't want to start another "taking food out of my mouth" war - there are ears everywhere..." Disclaimer, my views are my own, what I say does not reflect where I work or the views of my co-workers while they are dealing with you and that's why I don't say who I work for publically. It's a small world and saying such things could not only get back to where I work but could effect my career. That's reality for you in the real world, when I write stuff, it can effect how I make my living.)

Once you cover the plug in gaffers tape plus a colored tape, not much room left for length markings much less who the stuff belongs to. Granted, this is specific to the type of use I have for cable but you never know when you will have guests or have a short turn around between shows and need to get ready as much as possible for the change over for a quick change. Could mark the back part of the strain relief perpendicular to the wire with the length of the cord, but that's what's usually marking the NEMA code of the plug or scribed with how to use the strain relief.

What to me what is even more important yet is marking the stuff with who it belongs to because it almost never finds it's way into the proper road box if there is one that's closer for the union boys. In that area that's cable that is marked with company name and phone number (did I stress this enough,) you can also mark the cable length with colors and or text in this area.

Just got something like 100' of 10/5 SO cable in today with L21-30 connectors on it. I figure it's about 100'. Only markings on it was a 4" width of purple tape on the wire at one end. By my costs, that's $99.50 worth of cable and plugs without any markings on it so I can't send it back to who it belongs to. For normal companies that think a 250' spool once or twice a year is a lot, that's probably more like $150.00 down the hole because nobody invested $0.15 in getting a pre-printed with logo shrink tube or mylar label on the cable much less invested $3.00 for a printed velcro company logo for it allowing it to be returned when found. All it had was something like a 18" $10.00 Rip Tie velcro strap on it without even a paint marker company name on the velcro strap.

I don't even have a use for 10/5 SO wire and I get it in and un-marked all the time. I have stacks of it that I just give away to who ever wants it. Usually the company bosses who bought generators recently and need power cords so they can light up their houses in emergencies.

At least with 12/3 SJ or SO, It can be turned into something useful to me. Only use I have for that size wire is in 400' lengths when feeding the front of house light board control area. It's breakered at 20 amps three phase at the light board distro so 10/5 is pleanty large. (Talk about a power strip, ours have 12 outputs on three phases.) The rest of my L21-30 cable is powered by 8/5 SO wire to account for voltage drop. 10/5 won't do the rated amperage of it's plug in long lengths especially for running a bunch of 2 ton chain hoists.

So anyway, I would say marking your cable for who it belongs to is by far more important than marking it for length unless you absolutely never have anyone else's gear in your space. And while making your cable, it's really easy to mark it for both who it belongs to and length what ever system you use. Swiping cable Includes having the janitors coming in and swipeing cable when buffing the stage to a high gloss, much less your local DJ shop/band coming in for a rental during the summer when nobody is around and leaving with more than they came in with.

My buddie the sales person and I at work get together for a cable party and make cable probably once or twice a month either for the companie's needs or for resale. It's a lot cheaper for our local high schools and -having too much money for their own good - community church to have us make cable for them properly and according to code and instructions. When my buddie and I get together, we can make 80 cables a day with lots of inturrupting phone calls, important E-Mails that need a response and "how do I do this" or "can I have a lamp" questions while we work. That in addition to getting constant cold calls from the newest supplyer in town that want's to be your best frien in supplying everything you could possibly want. I have a catalog from Feit lamps on my desk. It's a foreign knockoff brand of lamps with a sales rep that calls me at least once a month asking if there is anything she can do for me. That's about the point where art becomes just business - when people start calling you to make a sale.

While it doubles the time it takes to make a cable with a full set of markings and logo for who we are making it for, we both see the value in at least pulling off the school's website the school's logo or at least a generic comedy and tragidy logo with the rest of that specific cable's info and we always put it on the cable we make. (Goes back to the "marking your tools for getting them back discussion.) Not only does it assure the school or church group keeps the cable they paid for, and has really cool looking monogramed cable, but it assures we don't have to replace it as fast when lost - better things to do with our time. Plus there is that little detail of if you have equipment you are proud of, you will take a little more care of it.

So anyway, we pull the company logo off the internet and print it to a color or black & white copy about the size of a business card in most instances. We add text to the logo for size, type and gauge of the wire, plus a phone number and name, and cut than stick the cut logo out to the back of double sided carpet tape. Than we stick the logo to the cable and apply some clear heat shrink over it all with rubber adhesive sticking the heat shrink to the cable.

Simple straight forward process.
He color code and tapes the wire, I install the label. He clear heat shrinks the wire, I cut the outer jacket. He readies plugs for installation on the wire, I strip it for length and install ferrules on it. He installs the wire in the terminals, I ensure the proper wires went to the proper terminal and close up the plug with the strain relief. He installs the velcro or tie line, we both un-tangle than coil the mass of say 40 or 50 cables we build in one sit down. After lunch, we start over with the next size of wire.

Primary step in making any cable before we even start stripping the wire is marking it. Most suppliers if you provide them with materials to do so with won't even charge you for marking it. Just takes a bit of pre-planning even on fixtures. Otherwise such a marking process is easy enough to impliment in any school. If you have a lot of cable, you can buy colored and pre-printed shrink tube with your logo for around $0.15 to 0.30 ea. in over 250pc lots. Such bulk amounts of labels would last a few years in most instances. Most popular size of shrink tube for me is the 3/4" x 3" colored shrink tubing with a 3:1 shrink ratio than 19mm 4:1 clear shrink tube over it to prevent the printed lettering from wearing or rubbing off. We use rubber adhesive to ensure the shrink tube doesn't re-stretch out once the cable flexes with use.

My buddie and I add labels to just about everything we sell including fixtures. Adds something to the worth of what we sell when it comes with a personalized label and we see a lot of return sales because of it. In this day and age where more and more even high schools are renting out their stages for outside stuff, such a regiment of marking your stuff would be well worth it.

Anyway, just a few thoughts.