HMI Breaker status color

[dalporto]

Hello all.


It's already have been discussed here and over internet, but I'd like to have your opinion again on the topic.


If you physically look at a breaker, most of the time (if not all), red will indicate that the breaker is closed, and green that the breaker is open / tripped. This comes from red = danger because closed = energized = dangerous, which can make sense in the field.


On a HMI, they extended it to motors and valves and many are still using that scheme nowadays, which is based on "security".


My main customer does the exact opposite and since it is its standard, I oblige. This is based on "control" point of view for the operators using it. Breaker closed is green, motor running is green. I have no problem with it until another company comes in and look at the screens and have a hard time to do the switch in their head. Anyway, I won't change that one any time soon.


I'm working on the same kind of project with a new company where their actual setup is a mad mix between both of the schemes, and where sometimes alarm lights on let say temperature switches are red when it's ok, and turns grey when it's in alarm (wtf?!?). This is maddening, and they don't have any standard regarding that, so I'd like to use that project to fix the uncertainty of what operators (and anyone) looking at that.



I want to try something where there won't be any "alarm" colors on the pages, I just want to keep it black/grey/white and get rid of lights on their overcrowded useless "schematic / P&ID" pages, those things belongs in an alarm page (where the colors belongs), not on a page you never look at.


So let say I have a 1-Line diagram with disconnect switches and breakers to place in a page (see example).



Background will be dark grey (or beige, don't know yet).


Don't know if it's best to show the lines in black or white. It's usually black, but I'm open to suggestion.



For the disconnect it's quite easy to put an animation showing if it's open or closed.


What I want to do is to make sure that anyone who will look at the 1-line will quickly know the breaker status and not wondering which scheme have been used on that one.



The breaker representation is usually a square / rectangle with the breaker name inside it (ex: 52T1).



So let say the lines are "fixed" black, then I would use black for breaker closed, and white for breaker open, and the text would then have to change color to be visible over black & white too, which could be annoying but manageable. There is also grey as a color (unracked / no control power / status discrepancy).



I know that some HMI "standards" are going this way now (no colors on pages), but still there is nothing about breaker status colors.


I'm not sure about going only black and white to represent that;


Add a box next to it with text TRIP / CLOSED?
Represent the "contact" in the box?


And what about the motors / valves? Text?


Any ideas / suggestions?


Thanks.

 

[A_G]

My opinion, I like your suggestion "Add a box next to it with text TRIP / CLOSED?"

I was not aware of this until recently, but color coded HMI's may be difficult to understand for color blind employees and statistics say that about 10% of males and a smaller percentage of females are color blind to some degree. ( https://www.colorblindguide.com/post/colorblind-people-population-live-counter ) Also like you said, different companies have different standards as to what colors mean what. I used to work at a company that used Red for closed valves, which was confusing to me, because I always associated Red with Alarm/Fault conditions. however everyone else that worked there was used to it

 

[JesperMP]

I am in the camp that says : The HMI indicates everything that impedes the proces or the sequence with red color.
It is true that there is an inconsistency with the color indicated on the breaker. I would add a comment on the HMI "position indication on the breaker is green for disconnected, red for connected. This is the opposite of the HMI status indication."

edit: I have begun using a red X to indicate something blocking the proces. This also works for colorblind people.

 

[JesperMP]

The word "closed" meaning letting the energy through is also counterintuitive if you are not used to the meaning.

 

[dalporto]

The word "closed" meaning letting the energy through is also counterintuitive if you are not used to the meaning.

I think this is why my main customer is using Closed/Tripped instead of Closed/Open for breakers, just to make sure that "Tripped" cannot be anything else than "de-energized", so the corollary "close" can just be the opposite. Maybe it's something else too, but nobody remembers why they absolutely want to use Trip instead of open, even if the breaker is not actually tripped, they just opened it.


Happens a lot when working we newbies:


-Close that breaker please;
-It's already closed!
-No it's not;
-Yes, the motor is off!
-I know the motor is not running, this is why I want you to close that breaker;
-Close means to put the breaker on? That's cringe man!
-Close means to close the circuit. What are you learning in school these days?




That can lead to some hazardous situations.

 

[I_Automation]

On my HMI's I usually don't show the status of a circuit breaker, but show the status of the power coming off it.


Green is always On or Powered Up


Red is always OFF, although for motors Red=Faulted, Grey, Dim Blue or dim Green -Off while bright Lime Green = On



Plus, on a side note, I never agreed withe the Red=On on circuit breakers as no other component does that.

 

[BryanG]

I have played with various methods, but ended up figuring that peoples understand of facial expressions is pretty much universal. I add colour, just because...... So I have green happy smiling face for things that are working correctly, orange annoyed faces for problems, red sad faces for big problems and grey noncommittal faces for things that are off. Using words is great but requires translation for machines going to non English speaking places.


I could take it further:
People that ignore training
The ones that tell me that the system 'just went wrong'
End of shift
I remember a member here that uses happy turkeys on screen for when a turkey plucking machine is working well.

 

[ojz0r]

I read a whitepaper or something similar from ABB (i think) with the advise that the HMI should only display disturbances in color (ideally red) and leave everythin else in grayscale. The point being that it is quickly apparent what the problem is without alot of different colors and flashes causing information fatigue during normal operation.

 

[Tom Jenkins]

I've been dealing with this issue since the '70s and there is no resolution in sight. I used to carry a bag of red and green lens caps for pilot lights so I could switch them out at startup if I had guessed wrong on preference.

Ultimately you need to go with the wishes of the client. There is no right answer to this question.

 

[dalporto]

If you see that, what do you understand from it regarding the colors?


It's a 1-line with 2 generators, 3 breakers(52) and one disconnect / load breaker (89).

 

[Puddle]

Green is always On or Powered Up


Red is always OFF

I used to work on a power station which had the whole DCS programmed with the logic of red=danger and green=stopped. It was strange at first seeing the operator sat in front of a screen full of red symbols telling him everything was fine.

 

[mad4x4]

I used to work on a power station which had the whole DCS programmed with the logic of red=danger and green=stopped. It was strange at first seeing the operator sat in front of a screen full of red symbols telling him everything was fine.

^^^Weirdo... RED is STOPPED or FAULT Green is GO you don't drive through a RED traffic light do you?

Look at -> https://www.realpars.com/blog/hmi-colors

Where the approach is less is more so less color is more infromative. So only a Fault would show up (Green/RED/BLUE) what ever you choose.

also look at -> https://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/

 

[WhinnieThePooh]

I read a whitepaper or something similar from ABB (i think) with the advise that the HMI should only display disturbances in color (ideally red) and leave everythin else in grayscale. The point being that it is quickly apparent what the problem is without alot of different colors and flashes causing information fatigue during normal operation.

I agree. A multitude of colors is usually very confusing and distracting.

When designing an HMI I stick with the same logic as stoplights.
Green = GO or RUNNING
Red = STOP or FAULTED

However, I always add a fault screen or message box somewhere that gives a description of what is going on.

Edit: mad4X4, it looks like we agree

 

[creativepaper]

In my past my pharma customers would require that all HMI's are designed for color blind employees. This means that if I use color, I also need a text indication as well.
I extended this to other customers and now since I got out of contracting game, in my current workplace.
Most people still just use color and I haven't come across anyone that has cannot see the difference between green and red. High ups like the inclusivity of it, and its very little extra work on my part.

For Red / Green, I've seen both ways. I like an overview screen to be green when things are running and red when things are not running.
Text next to the indication avoids all problems

 

[I_Automation]

In my past my pharma customers would require that all HMI's are designed for color blind employees. This means that if I use color, I also need a text indication as well.

Except here in the Detroit area I have customers that at least 20% of their employees can't read or write that are operating machines and demand NO text, or as little as possible. (They really allow people coming in to fill out applications and interview to bring someone that can write for them - why would you allow that danger to run your machines?)



Plus 2 customers of foreign ownership are running 75% can't read English, and they post notices in about 12 different languages and still have to call another employee over to translate from one of those languages to the language that one person uses.