Wires colors conventions

Hi guys,

moving my first steps with Arduino. I have a standard workshop kit which comes with lot of different color wires: green, yellow, blue, red, orange, gray, brown, white.

What are the conventions on using this colors?

Thanks,

Fabio Varesano

1 Like

General convention is "watch, what you're doing" :slight_smile: Also, in the most cases, the red wire is connected to Vcc (+5V for example) and the black to the GND.

You can see more here: LMGTFY - Let Me Google That For You

There aren't many if any. Use black or green for grounds, red or orange for positive supplies.
Other than that you could use the resistor colour code for numberd pins:-
0 - black
1 - brown
2 - red
3 - orange .... and so on.

Electrons are notoriously un fussed about the colour of their over jackets.

While there aren't any real conventions, you do often see some "standards":

red = +5V
yellow = +12V
black = GND

These are common colors used in PC power supply outputs for peripherals. I have seen similar colors used on bench power supplies, but not always. Sometimes you see green or blue used to indicate a signal wire (which could be any voltage).

There is a standard color coding for AC wiring (household wiring) - that will vary from country to country; this tends to be a standard, but you are typically only talking about three wires, generally.

For the purposes of breadboarding, though, a few tips:

  1. keep the wires neat and tidy - don't make a rats nest or cross wires over each other if you can avoid it

  2. bundle or run next to each other "common" wires that serve a similar purpose (bus lines); for instance, if you have multiple lines driving a row of LEDs or something, run them together in parallel in your layout

  3. for wires that serve a common purpose, like above, unless you have a particular reason not to - use the same color

  4. use clear tape to hold wires down - NOT other wires

Use one colour for everything. It's often cheaper to buy a larger quantity of one colour than many small quantities of different colours, and black looks cool.

Like everyone said, other than using Red for +5V and Black for GND, there aren't really strict standards.

Something I do (but this is probably just me) is when using a clock signal, I use Orange. I also typically use Green for Data signals.

It's often cheaper to buy a larger quantity of one colour than many small quantities of different colours, and black looks cool.

Nothings cheaper than 20 feet of 24/48 pair telco cable! Plus you get tons of pretty colors! Perfect for your breadboard rat's nest!

;D

For my personal intention, I use black or any dark color wire for GND.
Red or Blue for positive.

Purple for any normal link between components and I would use Yellow for signal (well, I would if I ever worked with signals).

It all depends on what I have.