# green and red



## gpop

Just out of interest.


4000 amp main 480v Green (flag) is closed/red is open
sub station breaker 25kv red (flag) is closed/green or white is open


Why didn't they use a standard color pattern.


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## MDShunk

Beats me. It's always been green=off, safe to work on. Red=running, stay away. Counter-intuitive, but that's the way the green/red indication has always been on disconnects of every flavor. 

Is is possible that something on your 480 breaker is backwards, like someone screwed pilot lamp lenses on the wrong place or put a handle nub on upside down? I'd say your 480 breaker is wrong somehow, unless it was actually manufactured to some non-standard.


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## Southeast Power

No sure with the info posted. You might want to post the name of the manufacturer and the vintage. Public or government facility.
There might be an intermediate white or yellow position when its charging or when charging isnt complete. 
Any pics??


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## Zog

That does not seem right, what type is the 480V breaker and are you talking about the mechanical flag or an indicating light?


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## canbug

"Generally" Red is danger, closed and Green is safe, open.
But you never trust what a light bulb is telling you. Kind of like your wife, Test before touch.


Tim


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## just the cowboy

*Then why are run lights green on machines*



canbug said:


> "Generally" Red is danger, closed and Green is safe, open.
> But you never trust what a light bulb is telling you. Kind of like your wife, Test before touch.
> 
> 
> Tim



My question is why are start buttons green lights on machines then?


Cowboy


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## MDShunk

just the cowboy said:


> My question is why are start buttons green lights on machines then?
> 
> 
> Cowboy


Green means go.

Red estop and cycle stop means stop. 

It is weird that the handle nubs, breaker flags, and pilot lights on MCC buckets have red running and green not running, but that's how it's always been. 

Couple that with andon lights on machines generally with a green "running" and red for "error/fault", and x-rays and lasers have a legal requirement that red means "running". 

Everything's all screwed up, no matter which direction you look at it.


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## Zog

Or he could be referring to the "flag" above the remote pistol grip handle on the switchgear to operate the breaker? In which case that has nothing o do with the condition of the breaker.


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## just the cowboy

*yea thats what I mean*



MDShunk said:


> Pilot lights on MCC buckets have red running and green not running.
> 
> Everything's all screwed up, no matter which direction you look at it.



Yea I remember trying to write standards the MCC thing really screwed it up.


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## gpop

I can not get pics as the cameras are disabled on the phones. In exchange we get free wifi which we disable to avoid being tracked.


I looked this morning at one of the mains and was shocked to see that the closed arrow was red. My first thought was that ive been in the sun to long and im going mad.


Went into another mcc and noticed that the closed arrow was green. The arrow is pointing the correct direction (points to text in the casing that says closed) so that has me wondering if its a replacement sticker. Some of the older gear has faded colors so its possible. 


In a few months we are doing a power outage so I will take a closer look then. 


I have never use colors as a indicator of safety which is why I was wondering if there's anything in writing that says red is on and green is off.


i also agree that it gets confusing when buttons are green for on and red for off. Even wonderware is normally programmed to show red as faulted and green as running.


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## Zog

gpop said:


> I can not get pics as the cameras are disabled on the phones. In exchange we get free wifi which we disable to avoid being tracked.


It would really help if you told us the type of breakers you are talking about and what exactly you are looking at


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## gpop

Its a siemens sbs4000


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## gnuuser

MDShunk said:


> Green means go.
> 
> Red estop and cycle stop means stop.
> 
> It is weird that the handle nubs, breaker flags, and pilot lights on MCC buckets have red running and green not running, but that's how it's always been.
> 
> Couple that with andon lights on machines generally with a green "running" and red for "error/fault", and x-rays and lasers have a legal requirement that red means "running".
> 
> Everything's all screwed up, no matter which direction you look at it.



yep thats the way manufacturers and marketing like it. 
if they made things standard all the time that would mean they could purchase from just one place and the merchants wouldn't be able to compete.
its up to us to figure it out!


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## telsa

If there's one thing I hate, it's a color-blind electrical engineer.


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## Zog

gpop said:


> Its a siemens sbs4000


On a SBS the Green arrow should be pointing down to the "Contacts open" and a red arrow should be pointing up to the "Contacts closed"


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## Electrical-EE

*Worst case starts from beginning*



telsa said:


> If there's one thing I hate, it's a color-blind electrical engineer.


It's worst case. Starts right away from day 1 of Engineering college where you have to identify resistors by color coding. :vs_mad:


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## JRaef

There are standards for what colors mean what. But the nice thing about standards are that there are so many to choose from...

NFPA79 for _*machine*_ controls says LIGHTS are to be Red for Running, Green for Ready (Off). But PUSH BUTTONS are Green for Start / Run, Red for Stop / Off. It's not really up for debate, but there are a lot of people who don't bother with that standard.

Where is gets crossed up even more though is when people use illuminated push buttons; is it a push button, or a pilot light? The official way to do it is that you put the Start label on the green IL PB, and when you Press it, the Green light goes off and the RED light illuminates. Then when you push the red one, the machine stops, red light goes off and the green one illuminates. In other words, you STILL follow the convention. But a LOT of people get that one screwed up because it means cross wiring them.


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## triden

ISA 101 is changing all of that when it comes to HMI design - instead they suggest using contrasting monochromatic colours for on/off instead of the standard red/green. 










Don't know how long until this new practice will ever follow through to MCCs.


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## MDShunk

triden said:


> ISA 101 is changing all of that when it comes to HMI design - instead they suggest using contrasting monochromatic colours for on/off instead of the standard red/green.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Don't know how long until this new practice will ever follow through to MCCs.


Almost the opposite of what we've been used to on HMI's for decades. The icon is normally green running in auto, yellow running in hand, red faulted, and white or grey for auto mode but not running, and black for off in hand. This new standard is really going to screw some people up.


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## paulengr

First off NFPA and IEEE are like Europe vs. the Americas. There is a rivalry that runs very deep. They often put out conflicting things just to create conflict, like Americans establishing right side on roads and running all race tracks counter clockwise vs. European left hand and clockwise. The color thing is like that.

Last time I checked NFPA 79 used red for stop/stopped, green for start/running, and if it doesn't fit these use some other color. Basically the traffic light standard. 79 is closely followed in some industries like automotive but largely ignored in others.

ISA is a standards organization struggling to survive. Attendance is extremely low and despite some actually good standards once in a while, they are almost ignored by everyone. The HMI standards compete with NFPA 79 which is much more widely known. ISA follows IEC/IEEE standards for ladder diagrams for instance but the majority of North American schematics use the old JSA symbols that are now maintained by NFPA 79. ISA is more comprehensive but it's more of a bunch of chemical engineers, not controls people.

ANSI standards for switchgear are red for energized, and green for off. Used almost universally on switchgear.

FAA is so picky on colors that even the lenses have to be a very specific shade of red and green that is not easy to match...It's not close to typical LED colors.

So here comes the issue, the switchgear and most breakers follow ANSI. The HMI, push buttons, and drives follow NFPA/ISA with the traffic light colors. At the MCC though it often has breakers in it and some people want the NFPA coloring while others follow ANSI/IEEE, so you get a mix. Same old rivalry. Just try to make it all one or the other though and you'll find yourself in a no-win battle with suppliers. I've tried, and lost.

Red and yellow, never mind blue, white, etc., are far less standardized 

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk


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## triden

MDShunk said:


> Almost the opposite of what we've been used to on HMI's for decades. The icon is normally green running in auto, yellow running in hand, red faulted, and white or grey for auto mode but not running, and black for off in hand. This new standard is really going to screw some people up.


It's tough at first, but after approximately 10 installation using situational awareness design techniques, the operators are loving it after about a week. Everything about it is more intuitive and straight forward. When an operator walks into the plant, they have a quick look at the screen - if they don't see red or yellow there are no problems with their process.


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## glen1971

Colors can mess up the best of us... People will assume a color means one thing, then go somewhere else and it is just the opposite..
On a couple of the annunciator boards we have, green can mean open OR closed for a valve, depending on what the valve does.. There are some red lamps that show a valve being open, and that would be an abnormal condition. On the MCC's it is pretty much site specific, with Amber being a trouble is the only one that is common to each site. HMI's, I don't think there are two that are the same, but mostly, if it's green it is running, or open..


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## gpop

Most of our wonderware screens are based on. 

Outline in color = off, Filled in color = running, flashing red = un-acknowledged alarm, Solid red = still in alarm but operator has acknowledged the fault. Green= running in manual, green outline = stopped in manual, white outline = stopped and not in auto or manual (normally after a fault has been cleared)


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## cmdr_suds

As a controls contractor, I have to use the colors that are in the specs. Often when the consultant specified red for running, green for stopped and yellow for fault, The customer would have me change them to a more intuitive color scheme like green for running and grey for stop and red for alarm. 

Of course that wouldn't occur until after the project was complete, everybody was paid and the consultant gone.:biggrin:


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## MechanicalDVR

cmdr_suds said:


> As a controls contractor, I have to use the colors that are in the specs. Often when the consultant specified red for running, green for stopped and yellow for fault, The customer would have me change them to a more intuitive color scheme like green for running and grey for stop and red for alarm.
> 
> Of course that wouldn't occur until after the project was complete, everybody was paid and the consultant gone.:biggrin:


Oh been there done that.


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## MDShunk

Related to HMI's, but not necessarily to colors, one of the best things we did was install live screen recording software on all the VM's that serves HMI's. Caches about 3 days worth. If there's any question about who clicked what, when, and on what HMI, we can "roll the tape" and see the little arrow moving and putting pump X or valve Y in hand and doing something they shouldn't have. No more excuses about things mysteriously happening on their own.


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## MechanicalDVR

MDShunk said:


> Related to HMI's, but not necessarily to colors, one of the best things we did was install live screen recording software on all the VM's that serves HMI's. Caches about 3 days worth. If there's any question about who clicked what, when, and on what HMI, we can "roll the tape" and see the little arrow moving and putting pump X or valve Y in hand and doing something they shouldn't have. No more excuses about things mysteriously happening on their own.


LOL!

Busted! "It just happened"


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## MDShunk

MechanicalDVR said:


> LOL!
> 
> Busted! "It just happened"


It's not to get anyone in trouble. It's so we don't spend all shift chasing ghosts. A pump just blew it's seals pumping into a closed valve? That's not even possible in the logic. The valve has to prove open first. but... if you run the pump in hand you could force it to run dead-headed into a closed valve. Look on the recording quick like to see if someone ran it in hand before we start chasing valve control top feedback problems or other ghosts.


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## MechanicalDVR

MDShunk said:


> It's not to get anyone in trouble. It's so we don't spend all shift chasing ghosts. A pump just blew it's seals pumping into a closed valve? That's not even possible in the logic. The valve has to prove open first. but... if you run the pump in hand you could force it to run dead-headed into a closed valve. Look on the recording quick like to see if someone ran it in hand before we start chasing valve control top feedback problems or other ghosts.


I wasn't going for guilt as much as BS stories that you get told in just such an incident.


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## MDShunk

MechanicalDVR said:


> I wasn't going for guilt as much as BS stories that you get told in just such an incident.


Oh, yeah. Who could resist the urge to at least bring it up to the operator? :vs_laugh: I should put a sticker on my tool cart "No BS Zone". Truth is, I really don't care who did what. I'm not the police. I just want to get the straight story so I can fix the thing.


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## MechanicalDVR

MDShunk said:


> Oh, yeah. Who could resist the urge to at least bring it up to the operator? :vs_laugh: I should put a sticker on my tool cart "No BS Zone". Truth is, I really don't care who did what. I'm not the police. I just want to get the straight story so I can fix the thing.


Too many times an operator is afraid they are going to get fired or something over things like that and to me it was just job security so I'm not gonna tell.


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