ISA-101 Quick Reference

9 motor states · canonical alarm palette · ISA-5.1 tag patterns. Print one-sided A4 and pin it to your panel.

The 9 Motor States

Stopped

Gray. Commanded OFF, feedback OFF. Default normal state.

Starting

Blinking green (~1 Hz). Commanded ON, awaiting feedback. Shown here half-tone with a dashed border to mark the blink.

Running

Solid green. Never blinks. Confirmed running.

No feedback

Yellow + dashed border. Command/feedback mismatch.

Manual

Blue. Local/HOA bypass. HMI not the controlling authority.

Disabled

Dark gray. Intentionally out of service.

Running + P1

Green body + red P1 badge. Critical alarm during operation.

Running + P2

Green body + orange P2 badge. High-priority alarm.

Fault

Red. Tripped or P1 fault prevents operation.

Alarm Priority Palette

P1 critical#D32F2F

P2 high#F57C00

P3 medium#FBC02D

P4 low#1976D2

running#2E7D32

stopped#9E9E9E

disabled#616161

HMI bg#C8C8C8

Rule: color encodes state, not identity. Decoration in saturated color steals attention from real alarms.

ISA-5.1 Tag Cheat Sheet

Letter	Variable
`P`	Pressure
`T`	Temperature
`F`	Flow
`L`	Level
`A`	Analytical
`Z`	Position

Modifiers: I = indicator · C = controller · T = transmitter · S = switch · V = valve · H/HH = high/high-high · L/LL = low/low-low · Q = totalizer.

Examples: PIT-101, FCV-104, LSHH-401, PSV-201.

Mounting Bubbles

Field

DCS

PLC

Shared

Want these as editable symbols? Build the 9-state motor block in the free Symbol Builder, or browse the motor symbols other engineers have published in the community library (CC BY 4.0).
Alarm and state badges from this sheet are in the official icon library. Questions about a state? Ask the community.