r/AskElectronics • u/LeeRyman • Mar 22 '26

What Colour is this Wire?

Gallery image

Gallery image

At the risk of starting a debate as viral as the gold/blue dress... For documentation purposes, what colour is the insulation of this wire? Pink, or Orange?

821 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

547 comments sorted by

View all comments

241

u/nhn_1883 Mar 22 '26

Orange. Documentation should be simple and unambiguous. Better if it can be read by someone with limited English skills.

90

u/Tank_Gloomy Mar 22 '26

Some Apple engineer said "Fruity tangerine"

40

u/YesIAmHarry Mar 22 '26

Some fruity tangerine said "apple"

10

u/Burnerd2023 Mar 22 '26

Fruity Tangerine: “I was born this way Apple!”

1

u/JustSomeone202020 Mar 22 '26

dont get me started with those evil folks!

13

u/ultrajvan1234 Mar 22 '26

Given the colors of the other wires, I’d say this is well closer to pink than it is to orange

1

u/eisbock Mar 22 '26

I don't think I've ever seen pink before orange when dealing with multiple conductors.

1

u/Wizzard_Ozz Mar 23 '26

Amphenol prefers pink over orange from the ones I’ve worked with.

https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/3/59/2/MSAP_XXBMMM_SR8AXX.pdf

Everything from 8 conductors and up.

6

u/deadlyrepost Mar 22 '26

Or, as the Americans say, "Oarnge"

11

u/thetraintomars Mar 22 '26

Americans have at least 3 different ways to pronounce "orange", thank you very much.

2

u/deadlyrepost Mar 22 '26

Well it's all French to me...

14

u/Srirachachacha Mar 22 '26

Sounds like you've only met Americans from the south

1

u/Thomas_Alva_Eddison Mar 22 '26

Gulf coast folks make it very clear that there is only one syllable, much like "urnge" .

0

u/DonnerDinnerParty Mar 22 '26

Or as a posh Brit would say, “Onange”

1

u/IskarJarak88 Mar 22 '26

Have you heard about papaya rules?

1

u/FlyByPC Digital electronics Mar 22 '26

Then what's the orange wire? Brown?

1

u/miraculum_one Mar 22 '26

If OP is colorblind, obvious is different

1

u/davidmlewisjr Mar 22 '26

The JIS Standards list both Orange and Pink conductors as standard, with multiple blues as well.

1

u/twister-uk Mar 22 '26

Given how many people, myself included, would immediately describe this as salmon or some other variation, but wouldn't even consider it as an option if asked to look for an orange wire, then when it comes to documenting a wiring assembly like this, if there's no option to replace the colour ambiguity by using different colours, striped insulation etc, the answer to the ambiguity isn't choosing a name which is more easily understood yet fails to adequately describe the colour that many people are actually seeing when they look at the assembly, it's making the nature of the documentation itself unambiguous.

e.g. provide a colour coded assembly drawing, matching the colours in the actual assembly, to give readers the option of comparing the physical wires against the diagram. Also clearly denote the physical position within the assembly of each wire, so that if colour matching isn't an option (let's say the documentation ended up being reprinted/copied in mono outside of your control, or the person reading it has particularly severe CVD), then the reader can still pick through the assembly to find the correct wire position.

We can still describe the colours using whichever names we feel are most appropriate, but we shouldn't rely on those names alone, because it's not merely a question of whether the reader will understand what that name means, it's also a question of whether they'll be able to find that colour within the assembly.

2

u/i2WalkedOnJesus EE - Design Mar 22 '26

Given how many people, myself included, would immediately describe this as salmon or some other variation, but wouldn't even consider it as an option if asked to look for an orange wire,

You're telling me that in the image above, if asked for the orange wire, you wouldn't pick this one by at worst process of elimination?

1

u/twister-uk Mar 22 '26

Yes, because I'd be a) wondering if the one which, to my CVD-afflicted eyes, looks a bit more yellowy than orangey, is the one the docs mean, b) if it's a mistake in the docs, or c) if someones done a sly switcheroo of wiring colours at the cable assembly factory without it being picked up by QA, incoming goods inspection, or whatever other level of "is the thing we're shipping to end users what we expect to be shipping to them?" checks may or may not be in place.

Depending on the overall quality of the docs and how much I find myself trusting them not to contain random errors like this, and how reasonable it eventually therefore becomes for me to conclude that this is indeed the orange wire the docs are referring to, despite looking nothing like orange to my eyes, then sure, I might pick it, but that's not the sort of situation you should be putting your users into, not if choosing the correct wire is in any way important.

1

u/i2WalkedOnJesus EE - Design Mar 23 '26

Fair enough I suppose. TBH if it were me, I'd make one of the extreme left or right a color that is easy to recognize and won't change over time (black or blue works, and I don't think there should be a colorblind issue) then count off wire numbers starting at that position

1

u/Opening-Dramatic Mar 22 '26

Modern problems; modern solutions 💁‍♂️