Industrial Engineer · phase 12 of 16 · noun

Run Enable

Hardware or logic condition that must be present before the drive will accept a run command.

The Explain card

Plain English: Run enable is a condition that has to be present before the drive will honour a run command. It is usually a hardware input, and often it is tied to a safety circuit.
Example: The emergency stop relay feeds the drive's enable terminal. With the stop pressed, the enable drops, the drive ignores every run command, and pressing start on the HMI does nothing.
Why it matters: Enable and run are separate on purpose, so a safety function can hold the drive off without touching the control logic. A missing enable is the second most common reason a drive sits there ready and refuses to move.
Hook: Permission to run, separate from the request to run.

How the word is built, where it came from, and what it sits beside in memory.

In a sentence

During commissioning, the technician verifies Run Enable at terminal 12 before testing the motor from the PLC.

Why these words

run Old English rinnan, to flow or move names the operating action associated with the drive
enable Middle English enablen, from en- plus able names the enabling state in the compound

Where it came from

Origin: English technical compound formed from run and enable
Entered the language: 20th century
What changed: Run broadened from physical movement to machine operation, while enable became a standard control-system label for making an operation available.

How it is spelled

Pattern: Run uses the common consonant-vowel-consonant spelling for a short stressed vowel.
Pattern: The prefix en- is joined directly to able in enable.

Spelled like

Broken into chunks

What it sits beside

Same subject

Same shape

drive control signals

Phase 12: VFD Commands, References, and Stopping

Starting, referencing and stopping, including the several very different things a drive can mean by the word stop.