Do you "colour-code" your wiring?

[reddesert]

Yes, especially for vero builds where there is a lot of offboard wiring. I have a bag of modest lengths of a lot of colors of 22 or 24 ga stranded wire and will be sorry when it runs out.

V+ - red
Ground - black, or gray (because I don't have a roll of black)
Input - green
Output - orange (begins with "O" so I can remember which of I/O is which)

Rest - not consistent but each pot/switch gets the same color. For example, if there are 3 wires to each of a drive, vol, treble, and bass pot, the drive pot wires are all one color, vol pot are all a different color, and so on. Because control types vary a lot, I don't do anything like "the drive pot is always brown."

For testing a circuit, I solder in short lengths of wire and use clip leads to connect them to pots, jacks and power. I keep the layouts in a binder and label vero/perf boards with a Sharpie, so that if I fish a board out of the box of languishing builds, I'll know what it is and can find the layout to know where to connect all the pots.

[bcruzin2]

I only have 5 colors consistantly,  white, green black red and yellow. So
White = Input
Green = Output
Red = V+
Black = Ground
Yellow = V-
For pots
Yellow =  lug 1 (because it is not always ground)
Green = lug 2 ( because generally it is the coming out of the pot and if used as output vol, it is the same as output
White = lug 3 (because it is generally going into the pot)

[pinkjimiphoton]

i bought a roll of "ribbon wire" to try and absolutely hate it. once it wiggles at all, it fails. uggggh.

that said,
with me,

input is green
output is blue
B+ red
b- black

pots will depend on how many of them and what they do. whenever possible, i try to connect them directly to the board somehow, like with longish resistor leads.
but i do color code them too. but don't stick to anything in particular.

[pauloh22]

I don't have enough colors for more distinction, but I use:

Red for V+
Black for ground
Green for signal

I end up with a lot of green wire in my boxes 

[Paul Marossy]

Yes.

Red = V+
Black = Ground
White = Sig In
Blue = Sig Out

Other colors as needed, if needed

[Jay Bones]

Yes, red +, orange -, white in, green out, black ground.

[bluebunny]

white	IN
orange	OUT
red	V+
black	V-      (or green: I've got a huge reel lying around...)

Pot connections (if not board-mounted) are usually torn from a rainbow ribbon cable, so whichever two or three wires are next up for grabs.

[Mark Hammer]

The theme that seems to be running through the numerous posts is that identification of power and ground is critical, as is identification of in and out.  Everything else is secondary.  Why in and out?  If you're like me, flipping over a chassis and board to wire up jacks and bypass switches has a pretty good chance of upside-down mistakes unless one can keep track of what's what.  As well, veroboard layouts don't always seem to have obvious locations for in and out leads, so colour helps to pinpoint them once the board is stuffed.

[garcho]

i find it extremely odd that no one who's listed green uses it for ground, common, return etc. isn't that weird? it's something of a electronics standard. sure the mains ground is bare, unless it isn't, then it's green, as is the wiring for your lamp, ceiling fan, etc. I've also seen it as easily the most used color for chassis ground and transformer ground and most ground screws are painted green, not to mention the english ground and green.

[garcho]

on a similar note, i use orange for out.

i use number color codes for wiring panel mount pots, or other multi wire things: brown is 1, red is 2, orange is 3 etc

[Mark Hammer]

i find it extremely odd that no one who's listed green uses it for ground, common, return etc. isn't that weird? it's something of a electronics standard. sure the mains ground is bare, unless it isn't, then it's green, as is the wiring for your lamp, ceiling fan, etc. I've also seen it as easily the most used color for chassis ground and transformer ground and most ground screws are painted green, not to mention the english ground and green.

If it's a bipolar supply, I'll use green for ground, since I have to use black for V-.  But if its a simple +9v supply, then ground is black.

[Sooner Boomer]

i find it extremely odd that no one who's listed green uses it for ground, common, return etc. isn't that weird? it's something of a electronics standard.

Other than mains wiring, I use green for wiring a "non-power" ground.  This might be a digital ground in an analog circuit (or an analog signal ground in a digital circuit).  I also tend to scrounge for wire, and use a lot of network wiring (not just Cat5 or even ethernet wiring...).

Many, many years ago I had a pair of kittens.  I made them a toy out of scrap cut-offs of red and blue wire.  The white cat especially, liked to toss it into the air and chase it across the room.  Unfortunately, these are probably the two most common colors of wires in low-power electronics.  For a long time, they were convinced that *every* piece of red and blue wire was a toy I just hadn't dropped on the floor for them to play with yet.  They never really did anything destructive, but the white cat unspooled a 50 foot roll of red wire across the floor one night after I'd gone to bed.  They finally grew out of it, and started chasing laser dots and ping pong balls.

[reddesert]

i find it extremely odd that no one who's listed green uses it for ground, common, return etc. isn't that weird? it's something of a electronics standard. sure the mains ground is bare, unless it isn't, then it's green, as is the wiring for your lamp, ceiling fan, etc. I've also seen it as easily the most used color for chassis ground and transformer ground and most ground screws are painted green, not to mention the english ground and green.

Green is a standard for mains voltage (AC) ground, and white and black for current carrying wires (Except that I think the standard colors are different in the UK, but carry on).

However, for low voltage unipolar supplies as in most pedals, red and black are standard for plus and minus voltage. Every 9V battery snap and every pair of voltmeter test leads that I have used have been red and black.

If bipolar supplies had become the standard for pedals and DIY effects, then DIYers' ideas about whether ground is black or green might be different.

[duck_arse]

i find it extremely odd that no one who's listed green uses it for ground, common, return etc. isn't that weird? ....

... generally [always], red/black for supply, but greens for ground. lights for signal to bypass ....

my pedals usually have miles of green wire running from the board ins/outs, around the footswitch and then to the in/out jacks. separate ground wire per.

I know a few of our members have some form of colour blindness, and I've been wondering how their particular form of colour blindness might affect any of the previous [or future] poster's colour choices - bearing in mind the use-wot-you-got ethos. some of the posted colour schemes have me wondering, is all.

[EBK]

i find it extremely odd that no one who's listed green uses it for ground, common, return etc. isn't that weird? ....

... generally [always], red/black for supply, but greens for ground. lights for signal to bypass ....

And here too (just saying  ):

Red wire for +V, black wire for -V, and green wire for Vb or ground (if bipolar supply).

[bloxstompboxes]

i find it extremely odd that no one who's listed green uses it for ground, common, return etc. isn't that weird? ....

... generally [always], red/black for supply, but greens for ground. lights for signal to bypass ....

my pedals usually have miles of green wire running from the board ins/outs, around the footswitch and then to the in/out jacks. separate ground wire per.

I know a few of our members have some form of colour blindness, and I've been wondering how their particular form of colour blindness might affect any of the previous [or future] poster's colour choices - bearing in mind the use-wot-you-got ethos. some of the posted colour schemes have me wondering, is all.

I am one of those color blind members and it has been a problem sometimes for me in my career as an engineer. When in doubt, I measure or ask a friend for another pair of eyes.

[Mark Hammer]

Hi Eric.  Happy New Year to you and the family.

Colour-blindness would not only impact on wire choice, but reading resistors as well.  Of course, even with full colour vision, AND the strongest reading glasses dollar stores carry (4x), the fact that 1/8w metal film resistors have 5 stripes means I still have to measure them to be certain it's the value I think it is.  Colour-vision does not remedy age!! 

[thetragichero]

in theory, yes I try to keep colors consistent between builds but in practice there are a lot of color words written on printed out schematics.

I try to stick to black or brown for 0v, some sort of red for v+, orange for v-.
I gutted a Baldwin organ last year so I have a 1 gallon pail full of various colors of wire ranging in length from 6" to about 4 ft, so before I wire anything I figure out what color will go to what in each build and then write it down

[bloxstompboxes]

Hi Eric.  Happy New Year to you and the family.

Colour-blindness would not only impact on wire choice, but reading resistors as well.  Of course, even with full colour vision, AND the strongest reading glasses dollar stores carry (4x), the fact that 1/8w metal film resistors have 5 stripes means I still have to measure them to be certain it's the value I think it is.  Colour-vision does not remedy age!! 

Back at you on the New Year!

As for resistor color coding, I learned it for school and only had to deal with the professor's hand written 'Blue,' or whatever, in hand drawn resistor images in black and white.

I have since forgotten the code and rely on schematics and comparing a good vs bad board when troubleshooting.

[EBK]

I mentioned this aneceote before regarding asking my lab students to decode resistor color bands:

https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=117553.msg1091959#msg1091959

The short version: I emphasized that they were being tested on their ability to understand the code, not their ability to discern the colors.  I used to do just fine reading the color bands on beige 5% tolerance resistors, but I almost never trust myself reading the blue 1% ones.