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How many visual states should a motorized element have on an HMI?

HMI & SCADA design @pauserranoAdvanced4634 viewsEnglish
I'm standardizing motor symbols for a Weintek project and I keep seeing HMIs with only two states: green when running, gray when stopped. My commissioning engineers say that's not enough to troubleshoot fast.

What is the practical minimum set of states for a motor/pump/blower block, and how do I keep it consistent so an operator reads the same colors on every screen? Is there a canonical list?

1 answer

Two states is enough for a lamp, not for a motor. The set we standardize on is nine, because each one maps to a distinct operator action:

1) Stopped (gray) 2) Starting (blinking green) 3) Running (green) 4) No feedback / running command but no run confirmation (yellow) 5) Manual/local (blue) 6) Disabled/locked out (dark gray) 7) Running + P1 alarm (red badge) 8) Running + P2 alarm (orange badge) 9) Fault/tripped (red).

The key is that color is never the only cue. Starting blinks, no-feedback and manual differ in shape/badge as well as color, so a color-blind operator still distinguishes them. Alarm state is a badge layered on top of the run state, so you never lose the run/stop information when an alarm appears.

For reversible drives (compactors, bidirectional conveyors) add FWD/REV arrows inside the block and keep two running states, one per direction. Full breakdown with the exact colors is here: /learn/9-motor-states.html
@pauserranoAdvanced463 Accepted answer

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