colour blindness ?

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clayton13

Hi there, I just want to run a question past you guys, i want to start training as an electrician but i'm concerned about the rules regarding colour blindness, i am colour blind but i feel this shouldnt be a problem ( Should it ? )

Will i be asked to pass a colour blindness test at any point ?

Are there any colour blind electricians on this forum ?

Regards

Steve
 
I suppose it would depend on what colours you can't see or have a problem with. If it's brown, grey, black, blue then I'd say you'll have a fairly major problem
 
Oh and yes, im through ETT in NI and the colour blind test was cumplsory...

Any colour problems and you were not allowed to proceed. I would imagine it would make your job really difficult?
 
I mate of mine has pretty much monochrome vision, when he left school his dad set him up with an apprenticeship as a spark. Luckily he managed to swap it for wood butchery.
 
i've never had any problems in general everyday life, i can see all colours fine, i can grap a pill of wires and pick any colour out but ifi try the colourblindness test i can't see all the numbers mixed up in the group of dots.

i guess i'll see when i find a course local.
 
clayton13 said:
Hi there, I just want to run a question past you guys, i want to start training as an electrician but i'm concerned about the rules regarding colour blindness, i am colour blind but i feel this shouldnt be a problem ( Should it ? )

Will i be asked to pass a colour blindness test at any point ?

Are there any colour blind electricians on this forum ?

Regards

Steve
Click to expand...

http://www.------.org/factfiles/health/colourdefects-page.cfm?type=pdf
 
I'm colour blind, brown looks green, but it's usually obvious as there's either a blue with it or black and grey, it's only red if it's got a single black. Blue purple and pink a look the same.

i manage fine, even though hedgehogs look green and the grass looks orange.
 
So long as you can identify if it's brown or red that's fine even if they look the same as by a process of ilimination, if you don't know if it's brown or red, if it's got a black with it on its own it's going to be red and if it's got a blue one it's going to be brown.

But it it's got a solid yellow too then it's going to be red and old colors.
 
clayton13 said:
i've never had any problems in general everyday life
Click to expand...

How much things have to be accommodated can often depend on whether it's formally classed as a disability or not. What you've said there more or less defines the fact that your level of colour blindness wouldn't be counted as a disability. I think.
 
uksparks said:
So long as you can identify if it's brown or red that's fine even if they look the same as by a process of ilimination, if you don't know if it's brown or red, if it's got a black with it on its own it's going to be red and if it's got a blue one it's going to be brown.

But it it's got a solid yellow too then it's going to be red and old colors.
Click to expand...
You're screwed if you're wiring with singles though.
 
uksparks said:
I'm colour blind, brown looks green, but it's usually obvious as there's either a blue with it or black and grey, it's only red if it's got a single black. Blue purple and pink a look the same.

i manage fine, even though hedgehogs look green and the grass looks orange.
Click to expand...

Ive misunderstood how this works then then, how my training trust explained it to me was if you were colour blind at allthen you couldnt continue with them, i think its great that you can still do the job if its not too severe. Seems some training organisations must be more lenient than others.
 
One of the first things I had done by the DNO I started off with was a medical and a check for colour blindness , if I didn't pass then I was looking elsewhere for a job,,
 
Colour Blindness Par se should not be an issue to you wanting to be an Electrician, if you can distinguish the colours you need to then your fine just always ensure you have good lighting, head torches etc for poor lighting conditions as this will be your weakness... Green/Yellow is striped now because green and red were often confused by people with some forms of colour blindness and we used to have a lad work for us and not once did it lead to problems ...he made mistakes but no more than anyone else on the learning curve.

Please ignore the arrogance of some responses thinking having colour blindness means you must be having a laugh wanting to be an Electrician TBH its shows more about their ignorance to the real world and hope you go for it and forget the worries.... only you will know if your form of Colour Blindness will be an issue but if you can distinguish all the colours we deal with from each other then your home free.
 
When I started serving my time I had to take a colour vision test, any hint of a problem would have meant me making another career choice because I would not have been allowed to follow the path I did.
Funny how times change.
 
clayton13 said:
thanks' i cant do the test on my tablet but i'm sure i can see the colour differences in the lines.
Click to expand...

Means nowt if you don't complete the test. How do you know you're seeing them *right*? That's the whole point of faulty perception, you perceive things at odds to how they really are.
 
I've been a spark for 19 years. I'm colour blind, never had a problem with electrical installation work. I found out after I finished my apprentiship. Wasn't until I applied for a job as an operator on an oil refinery and failed the medical I found out. I couldn't believe it!!!
 
darkwood said:
Colour Blindness Par se should not be an issue to you wanting to be an Electrician, if you can distinguish the colours you need to then your fine just always ensure you have good lighting, head torches etc for poor lighting conditions as this will be your weakness... Green/Yellow is striped now because green and red were often confused by people with some forms of colour blindness and we used to have a lad work for us and not once did it lead to problems ...he made mistakes but no more than anyone else on the learning curve.

Please ignore the arrogance of some responses thinking having colour blindness means you must be having a laugh wanting to be an Electrician TBH its shows more about their ignorance to the real world and hope you go for it and forget the worries.... only you will know if your form of Colour Blindness will be an issue but if you can distinguish all the colours we deal with from each other then your home free.
Click to expand...

Thanks, i needed that :yesnod:
 
I guess at the end of the day, you have lived with what you can see all your life no different to how anyone else knows colours. Personally I think you would probably have to be quite bad to not take it up as a career, like others say, only you know what you can see and how you identify the colours.

If you put a brown and red pencil next to each other, I can tell you which is which if I have a good look, but if they are on their own I can't.
 
There are many levels of colour blindness and it may be the case that severe forms are tested for hence reflected in some comments but your interest in wanting to be a sparks indicates you are probably not hampered that way.
The colour blind test do check for different colour cone problems and some may well be a disadvantage like multi-cone deficiency where you are blind to many ranges of colours but again you will probably know what your problem areas are and if it will effect you.
 
Some of the training schemes make you sit colour tests, my son is colour blind, we rang the local colleges, some made you do the test others didn't. The only job I've ever had to sit one was with BT. So I guess it's up to the employer.
 
When I went for an apprentership with Haydon Young years ago had to take colour test, failed, took one with BT passed, load of old rubbish never ever had a problem with seeing any colours bunched together or single!!.
 
I know two colour blind electricians and they do not seem to have any problems. They are both green/brown/red colour blind. They're both qualified so they must have either passed any test they were given or there was no test.

I think its more down to how colour blind you are, so its up to you to decide if its a problem.

If you do have to have a test then I suggest these EnChroma | Color For The Color Blind or just search for chromagen glasses.

Colour blind tests just get you to distinguish shapes or numbers, which you must have taken as a child. The above glasses dont help you to know what the colour is but they do enable you to see the difference between the colours enabling you to pass the test.

Good luck.
 
Last edited:
trev said:
When I started serving my time I had to take a colour vision test, any hint of a problem would have meant me making another career choice because I would not have been allowed to follow the path I did.
Funny how times change.
Click to expand...

This is exaxtly what i thought and was told several times in the past year, hene what i thought, and there are too many genuine wind-ups floating about here latley...

Ive learnt something today, i apologise and sincerely hope i havent offended you in any way Clayton13. Good luck to you and all the best for the future.
 
I remember an old spark who was fine until they brought in the harmonised colours. He ended up taking early retirement due to it as he felt he had become a liability.
 
I would check this out properly before starting your apprenticeship.. ... I had an apprentice a about 6 years ago who got tested in his second year and was found to be colour blind (Although he already knew himself) and they told him he couldnt continue... 2 years wasted
 
I bet there's an 'app' for identifying colours. If not, I'm gonna patent it!!:smile5:

edit: just googled this; colour identifier

already available!
 
On my first day at college during the first year of my apprenticeship (26 years ago) everyone did a colour blindness test. One of the guys failed it and got moved to a bricky apprenticeship.
As well as mains cable there is also data,telecoms,alarms,controls wiring to think about.
 
When I started my training one of the first things they did before enrolment was a colour vision test.
As sarky spark says once you get onto the job it isn't just brown, black, grey, red, blue, yellow, green & yellow - you could be expected to work with multicore cables with all sorts of colours. With certain cables I've had trouble distinguishing between brown and orange or pink and red, and I'm not even colour blind.
 
Years ago when going for apprenticeships with large companies on of the tests was the Isihara colour blindness test which was coloured balls with a number inside, if you couldn't read the number then goodbye apprenticeship that was for them all.

I know it's not funny but could you imagine a colour blind painter.
 
I sometimes have trouble separating blue and green when they are toward the turquoise mix (what I see as bluish, others see as greenish).

Never had a problem with a colour test book or actual cables.

Mind you I do get a lot neutral to earth faults on my new installs...mmmmm :)
 
trev said:
You sure :)
Click to expand...
I've not been diagnosed as colour blind, although sometimes I'm not sure - I was working on this office refit with a guy who was supposedly a 'mate' but had been out of the game for a few years. Yeah one of those.
I went over to get my volt stick back off him and was confused as to what cable colours he was using - brown and very very very very very dark blue? Nah he'd found an old roll of black in the maintenance cupboard and used that instead of the blue we'd brought with us.
 
Am colour blind, was in my second year apprenticeship when they came across my green card stating I was colour blind. Got kick off the course straight away.

Now if I read the book of dots I can not do it, I can see colours ok all I can not do is see very very slight different shades which most people would not be able to see.

Had to go for a H&S test which cost me a weeks wages back then, did the test and pasted.
 
I found this on line:
Take the Ishihara Color Vision Test
We were talking about this at work the other day; apparently the first one is visible to everyone whether they're colour blind or not; it's to weed out people deliberately trying to fail the test. The next ones are randomly selected from a bank so you can't 'revise' for the test (cheat). I seem to remember whenever I've done it I haven't been able to see anything on the last slide - I suspect this may also be deliberate.
 
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