Hello,

I need to choose suitable text labels for the front panel of a power converter. It will have 4 labels:

• Fault (or warning)
• Incident (or fault, or error)
• Idle (or ON, or stand-by, or running, or ready, or live, or energized)
• Supplying (or power-supplying, or delivering)

The thing is that I'm not sure which wording to choose for all 4 labels. What I'm pretty sure is that:

• An incident is more severe than a fault
• A fault and an error are more severe than a warning

However, some of these terms may not be suitable for power electronics...What terms do you suggest for two anomalies? (one being more severe than the other)

Also, this appliance is turned on in two steps:

1. Step 1 - From the front panel interface, you can press a button to supply an electronic board, that means just to supply the command circuit (not supplying current), in order to use the front panel interface. This would be called maybe "idle", then...
2. Step 2 - From the idle front panel interface, you can press a button to start converting power. This would be called "Supplying" for instance.

What terms would you choose to label these features properly?
Thank you.

Edit: Another option for Step 2 could be "Converting"...

 

#1-the standard to which this product is being designed to might require specific wording.. Heck we are required to put our markings in english and french and they are very specific about the exact words being used..

For errors in my world its common to see the following
minor
major
critical

Also having clear descriptions of what each means in your installation manual is a good idea.. Heck you could just use fault 1, fault 2, fault 3 assuming a user can easily reference the manual/troubleshooting guide..

Then there is
DANGER: Indicates an imminently hazardous situation which, if not avoided, will result in death or serious injury. Safety Signs identified by the signal word DANGER should be used sparingly and only for those situations presenting the most serious hazards.

WARNING: Indicates a potentially hazardous situation which, if not avoided, will result in death or serious injury. Hazards identified by the signal word WARNING present a lesser degree of risk of injury or death than those identified by the signal word DANGER.

CAUTION: Indicates a hazardous situation, which if not avoided, could result in minor or moderate injury. It may also be used without the safety alert symbol as an alternative to “NOTICE”

NOTICE: is the preferred signal word to address practices not related to personal injury. The safety alert symbol should not be used with this signal word. As an alternative to “NOTICE”, the word “CAUTION” without the safety alert symbol may be used to indicate a message not related to personal injury.

 

You have fault as a label and yet use the same word to describe the incident label.

Personally, I'd put fault as more severe than incident, but that could just be me. An incident conveys "something happened", where fault implies " something happened that isn't supposed to happen ".

Idle/Ready is good.

I would consider changing "Supplying" to something more generic, like "Active", "Running", or something along those lines, but again, that's just my preference...

 

Thank you for your feedback. Interesting points of view.

 

Hi guys, do some of you also feel that a fault is more severe than an incident?

 

Hi guys, do some of you also feel that a fault is more severe than an incident?

Non-native here but I think that a fault could cause a non serious incident or an accident.

Not directly related with your original question. This morning I read this in the manual of my scope:

DANGER: Indicates an injury or hazard that may immediately happen.

WARNING: Indicates an injury or hazard that may not immediately happen.

CAUTION: Indicates that a potential damage to the instrument or other
property might occur.


Hope that could trigger some ideas.

 

Assuming these are labels for LED indicators just make "fault" a red LED and "incident" a yellow led..
Frankly I think "major/minor" is the perfect wording for something in the power world to indicate 2 problems/error states with different severity. Nothing is left to "ass u me" with those 2 words..

 

Thank you guys.