Radio Wiring Colour Codes

[mendipviews]

Is there a standard wiring colour code for wiring radios & TV's or does it differ from maker to maker??? as I want to get some wire to replace a radio thats loom has gone brittle and you can no longer see the colours.

Many Thanks
Luke

[fido]

If you ever throw out an old electric cooker it is worth keeping the internal wiring from it. This is fibreglass insulated and looks similar to the cloth insulated wiring in pre-war sets.

[tiv48]

as far as i know old radios were wired with tined copper wire soldered at one end then the insolating sleave was fitted .the other end was then soldered
rob t

[David Simpson]

Hello Luke, Back in the 50's & 60's there was a colour code for valve base connections used mainly in military & some civilian radio equipment :- Heaters - Brown, Cathode - Yellow, Grid - Green, Screen - Red, Anode - Blue. Earth was very often - Black.
However, most military spec wiring was in looms, and with more & more American equipment being used, a lot of wiring was mono-colour with all terminations marked with Hellerman sleeving. AVO, Wayne-Kerr, Marconi etc also sometimes followed this sleeving method. Multi-coloured wires were also starting to appear in the 50's & 60's, and again were often terminated with Hellerman or similar sleeving.
In post-war years, there was a shortage of civilian type wiring (vir etc) but a surplus of ex WD wiring, so that was often used in domestic radios. More confusion, eh!
An extra two-pennoth - a favourate bitch of mine - I hate the use of un-used valvebase connections as "tags" for randomally connecting components - in many domestic radios !
If a chassis needs re-wiring because of perished rubber wiring - I fit paxolin tagboards or stand-off pillars instead.

Regards, David

[fido]

as far as i know old radios were wired with tined copper wire soldered at one end then the insolating sleave was fitted .the other end was then soldered
rob t

I was thinking more in terms of speaker wiring and other items remote from the main chassis. My HMV radiogram has a bundle of 5 such wires for the mains energised speaker.

[David Simpson]

tiv48, The practice of just using tinned copper wire for wiring radios was in use back in the 20's. Then later - shellacking or varnishing the wires gave a minimum of insulation. By the 30's, rubber insulated wiring was in common use, but mainly coloured black. By the time the war finished & into the late 40's, pvc & other plastic insulation was becoming commonly used. Resin coated, Rayon, & Fibreglass sleeving has also been in use since the 40's.
As Fido says, mains energized speakers were often annoyingly wired with a bundle of mono coloured (mainly black) wires. Another of my pet hates is when these are hard-wired direct to components under the chassis & pass out through(often perished) a rubber grommet - to the mounted speaker. When re-assembling I always fit a tag-strip or term. strip for easy connection. And sleeve the whole bundle with flexi-sleeving.

Regards, David