Pilot Light color coding standard

For Japanese Standard on the color coding on Pilot light for annunciator:

Red Pilor Light means running(e.g. motor is running)
Green Pilot Light means stop(e.g. motor is stop)
Amber Pilot Light means warning or fault

Other Pilot Light color coding, Im not familliar.

How about NEMA, IEC, or other standard Pilot light coding. Does anyone here can give the color coding difinition?


thanks.

Lovington Dela Cruz.

According to BS / EN 60204, pilot lights should be used as follows.

Red - Hazardous condition

Yellow - Abnormal condition, impending critical condition

Green - Normal condition

Blue - Condition requires action by operator

White - Used for everything else

And here's the pilot light definitions from NFPA 79:

RED - Danger or alarm, abnormal condition requiring immediate attention

YELLOW (AMBER) - Attention, caution / marginal condition. Change or impending change of conditions

GREEN - Machine ready; Safety

WHITE - Normal Condition Confirmation

BLUE - Any function not covered by the above colors

Thankfully, the important ones are similar!...

beerchug

-Eric

According to NFPA79 - Electrical Standard for Industrial Machinery

Pilot Lights:
Red - Danger or alarm, abnormal condition requiring immediate attention
Yellow(amber) - attention, caution/marginal condition. Change or impeding change of conditions (i.e. automatic operation)
Green - Machine ready; Safety (i.e. Machine ready to be restarted)
White - Normal Condiiton Confirmation
Blue - Any condition not described above

No colors are actually specified as On or Off, or Running or Stopped. However, Green is supposed to mean "Machine can be started", so it must mean machine is Off.

The NFPA color code Jim and Eric give is widely used in power plant applications, and by many large engineering firms. In other industries most operators are confused by this color code - in the case of valves it usually works out to Red for open, Green for closed. For pumps and most other motors it's Red for On and Green for off. This is counter intuitive, and most operators expect to see Red for fault and Green for Running or Open, so I set my sytems up that way.

And while we're at it, Blue and White pilot lights are almost useless - they are very difficult to see in normal background lighting, and impossible outdoors. I avoid them.

I usually use amber for open vlaves and warning status.

The upshot is that in the US the "standard" colors are widely ignored. Make sure you have removeable lenses, so you can change your pilot light colors in the field!

Can we do some World Wide Standard suggestion ?
It means big busines for lense and Led makers.

No, there's no universal color code standard, as the others have indicated. You should be asking your client this question. As T. Jenkins stated, the "red=running or valve open", "green=off or valve closed" convention has its roots in the electric power industry. I've been in the controls business for over 30 years as an engineer in the municipal water and wastewater industry. The vast majority of our clients follow that same color convention.

I feel those colors are only counter intuitive to lay people who associate green and red with traffic lights. The people who run the plants have a color convention that exists at their facility because it works. Absent a universal standard, people adopt something that works elsewhere, for whatever reason. So if my client says, our plant uses purple and aqua lights, I'm not going to try and give them something else. If you're a manufacturer, you have to be flexible. Your equipment has to conform to the standards in place at the final destination. Same with the engineers.

There is no standard - be flexible.