Color Coded Ribbon Cable
Color Coded Ribbon Cable
Color coded ribbon cable, also known as a rainbow ribbon cable or multicolor ribbon cable , uses repeated color patterns as conductor identification. This pattern usually uses industry standard resistor color codes, where brown is used for conductors and pins 1, 11 and 21, and red is used for conductors and pins 2, 12 and 22, etc. Color-coded ribbon cables can be composed of insulated wires that are pulled parallel to each other, or they can be made of twisted pairs, with a repeating flat section at a specific length interval for termination.
The edge marked cable is usually marked with a stripe on the first conductor connected to pin 1 of the connector. The edge markings can be any color, but are usually based on pitch or center pitch cable. For example, 0.050″ pitch cable is usually marked with a red edge. This identification method is suitable for cables composed of two or more IDC connectors with every connector connecting to every wire, but when a single wire or a small group of wires, It is not so useful when it must be terminated separately. In this case, additional markings will be applied to the designated conductors to allow proper identification and termination.
