We have just set a young man on (17) to work for us in a role that requires him to work with 12 and 240 volt electrics, installing and repairs. The problem is it turns out he is colour blind and neither his parents or he realised, so is struggling to identify wire colours. We have printed a crib shett with a coloured line and the colour written above it to help also labeled up the cable reels. We were hoping that he maybe able to retrain his brain to cope. Are we being silly, it’s just we really want to help him if at all possible rather than have let him go for reasons that are not his fault.

Don’t know… have you looked at different websites??

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I don’t think he can retrain his brain. colour blindness comes in a vriety of types of varying severity. He might be able to lern to distinguish the main different colours but he may not.

Give him a bit of time to see if he can learn a way of coping

any help?
http://www.colourblindawareness.org/

http://colourblind.freeservers.com/

tritanopia looks trippy

I suffer with what is best termed colour recognition (or lack of it). I see the same as everyone else but my brain can’t tell you what the colours are, I also have the more usual colour blindness symptoms. I ran a motorbike shop for years and somehow learnt colours to the point that I could mostly follow a wiring diagram and easily wire a bike from scratch.

So as above, give him some time and although he won’t be able to retrain his brain he might just come up with a way of coping.

My brother’s severely colourblind – he found out during a school eyesight test when he was 13. I tend to rewire any appliances for him, safer that way. :/

The live wire is the brown one. For those that are colour blind, that’s the one that *isn’t* the blue one.

its not something you can ‘retrain your brain for’ or ‘grow out of’ as I was once told.

Im kind of unique in that Im different types of colourblind in either eye, quite rare by all accounts.

It really depends how severe this guy is, some people can see normally under normal light (ie really bad with flouro lights – eg dont ask me if clothes match in a high street store) some people can see large areas nnormally but things like wires in a plug for eg can all look the same colour (minus the stripey one obviously), some people it will only be various colour groups (red/brown, blue/purple being the common ones).

We were hoping that he maybe able to retrain his brain to cope. Are we being silly,

Yes, impossible.

He can use coloured filters to tell colours apart.

For example, assuming he is red-green colour blind (most likely):
Brown 1 (red) + green filter = disappears (or + red filter still visible).
Brown 2 (green) + red filter = disappears (or + green filter still visible).

No chance, sounds dangerous, time to look for another career, I’ve got a red and green deficiency and struggle, but I’m only a graphic designer, I identify colours by rgb and cmyk values.

I’d be very interested to hear what your company H&S lead says when you ask them to quantify the risk of someone with colour perception problems working on electrics.

I’m pretty sure colourblind people aren’t allowed to carry out any electrical wiring type jobs. I know I’m certainly not.

EDIT:
FWIW, I find my ability to differentiate between colours can be affected by light source, light levels, the background that colours are displayed against, etc. The crib sheet might work for him in the office but out in the field it may well be worthless.

Might be better for him to retrain now, rather than struggle on for a year or so getting electric shocks every so often. Have you got anything less colour dependant that he could do?

Also, how do you get to 17 without anyone realising you’re colour blind?

I have a level of red/green colour blindness. I find light makes a lot of difference. Defo worth making sure he carrys a torch if he’s trying to do anything in low light.

Virtually all men are colour blind, it’s just the degree.

I’m pretty sure colourblind people aren’t allowed to carry out any electrical wiring type jobs. I know I’m certainly not.

I’m colourblind (I can’t see any of the numbers in those books they have) and yet I’ve got an HND in electronics. One test we had to pass was correctly identifying 300 slightly different coloured wires in a cable.

It’s possible to learn to cover.

300 slightly different coloured wires

by name or just comparing them with another bundle of 300 and matching them for connection purposes?

From nearly joining the Navy (and being a bit colour blind myself):
Aircraft electronics – No
Weapon electronics – Yes
Nuclear electronics – Yes

It’ll be fine 😉

Depends which colour he is deficient in and which colour wires he’s dealing with, he may be lacking one colour completely or have one colour being perceived slightly less than the other 2. It’d be quite easy to go through life with this unnoticed if he’s not had his eyes tested, especially if he’s a trichromat rather than a dichromat.

Having a crib sheet could help but baring in mind he could see both an orange and a green cable as orange, or both a red and grey as grey, on both the crib sheet and in the wire, might make things a bit tricky for him.

i think the newer european colour scheme for 220v is designed so colourblind people can work with them, he may struggle more with the old british way though

I’m fairly colour blind, but I’m happy to wire plugs for personal use. Anything more complex with a greater range of colours, eg wiring Cat5 cables and I struggle.

Just wiring plugs “might” be ok. Consequences of getting it wrong are mostly serious though.