Length color code

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Ã￾rni F. Sigurðsson

Freshman
Jun 23, 2012
31
1
8
Reykjavík, Iceland
For those of you who are using color codes for cable length, how is your code ?

This is just for fun.

Where I work the color code is taken from the biggest rental place in the country (which also happens to be a whirlwind retailer).

All our cables are Canare quad with Whirlwind/Neutrik connectors, laser marked with company logo and with a color code (with neutrik color sleeves) on one end only (Male for XLR, Female for Power/Signal combo cables for monitors) so that the visible end to the audience is always black.

Cables that don't have neutrik connectors are marked with electric tape with clear heat shrink over.

2M: Gray
5M: Red
10M: White
15M: Green
20M: Blue
30M: Yellow

Not sure if the color code goes further. If we have something over 30M it's usually on a cable drum. and not color coded.
 
Re: Length color code

Árni F. Sigurðsson said:
in what layout?

5m = Green, 10m = Brown/Black, Brown/Green = 15m ? or just first length = first color in code.
Click to expand...

we always used resistor code. and we always just indicated first number of length unless the second number was something other than 0. we replaced white for 1 instead of brown i'm guessing just to make it easier to see. plus white tape is pretty easy to find.

working in feet, we'd occasionally hit the '3 stripe' issue. 125' cables for instance. but they were rare oddballs in the shop. most things were 1 color, or very occasionally 2.

so for that shop -

5' - green
10' - white
20' - red
40' - yellow
60' - blue
100' - white

and yes, 100' and 10' were the same color. they're pretty easy to tell apart... :)

i've always preferred some form of resistor code just to make it at least a little bit universal. quite a few folks know the resistor code already. others, like me when i started out, just learned it same as any other...
 
Re: Length color code

I'm better with the ROYGBV system that I learned in Elementary school and I use these color codes for all cable lenghts.

Red = Less than 5’
Orange = 15’
Yellow = 20’ (these are all right angle heads for Drums)
Green = 25’
Blue = (I forget, no longer have this sizes)
Purple = 50’
 
Re: Length color code

Matt Vivlamore said:
I'm better with the ROYGBV system that I learned in Elementary school and I use these color codes for all cable lenghts.

Red = Less than 5’
Orange = 15’
Yellow = 20’ (these are all right angle heads for Drums)
Green = 25’
Blue = (I forget, no longer have this sizes)
Purple = 50’
Click to expand...

+1 to this... I use BROYGBV for everything...


Brown = 5'
Red = 15'
Orange = 25'
Yellow = 50'

A little e tape on the end of the cable and you'll never be confused.


Evan
 
Re: Length color code

Robert Piascik said:
sorry for the dumb question but what is resistor code?
Click to expand...
There's many acrostics for "remembering" the resistor color code... but I was never seemingly capable of accurately remembering the associated acrostic... letzsee... is it Mary who gives something and somebody something else? I dunno. I've done better with an image-name technique, which for the resistor color code is easy... just visualize a rainbow.
 
Re: Length color code

W. Mark Hellinger said:
There's many acrostics for "remembering" the resistor color code... but I was never seemingly capable of accurately remembering the associated acrostic... letzsee... is it Mary who gives something and somebody something else? I dunno. I've done better with an image-name technique, which for the resistor color code is easy... just visualize a rainbow.
Click to expand...

Bad
Boys
Rape
Our
Young
Girls
But
Violet
Gives
Willingly

not exactly a very Politically Correct mnemonic. but there you have it...
 
Re: Length color code

Rob Timmerman said:
That *is* the resistor color code, or at least a subset (the resistor color code starts with black, and continues past violet into grey and white)
Click to expand...


yep. although i still prefer that the color code correlate in some way to the actual length as opposed to just an 'order' to put the cable lengths in. i found that using direct resistor code was really handy working with stagehands, because if they knew resistor code they could pull any cable out of our bin and instantly know how long it was. they didn't need to know that our 'medium short' cables were 25' or whatever...

of course, this also happens to be the system i learned when i first started doing sound for real. so some of my attachment could just be because 'i learned it that way'
 
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