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. According to standards in use since the mid 1900s a wire color code identifies the purpose of each wire in an electrical circuit.
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Black wire and white wire. A black wire is generally considered to be a hot wire which is to say it carries current. In the most basic 110 volt electrical setup youll find two wires. The black wire is the hot and the white wire is the neutral sometimes called the return leg. 335 views kev go lives in toowoomba queensland australia 2019 present. The white wire goes by many names that all mean the same thing. The white wire is the common path by which spent electricity goes back out to the power company.
Neutral common or return. 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. You connect the black wires in the electrical box to the switch terminals and the white wires to each other. The neutral wire can also be gray. In a dc setting the black wire would be negative and the red wire positive. The white wire is generally considered to be what its called a neutral wire which in other terms would be considered to be a ground but not an earth ground.
The ground wire is usually left bare but in some cases the ground wire color is green. Sometimes youll find a white wire with a piece of black electrical tape wrapped around it. The black wire is hot. The switch also has a green terminal for the ground wires which usually are bare. Power flows from the box to the outlet through the black wire and back to the box through the white one.