I think 'défaut' is OK here, and is what I'm most used to seeing on various types of equipment — though I do acknowledge that M/M has a very valid point about the ambiguity of that word.

Not sure about your 'temoin', I'd sort of expect to see 'voyant' (though I do realize both terms are commonly used)

Also 'de façon intermittent' — not sure what your source text says, but 'intermittently' suggests a kind of randomness that is not usual in this sort of context; I suspect you might need something like 'clignoter', which is more appropriate to describe an LED that is flashing or blinking at a more or less consistent rate.

Also a bit wary of your 'condition' — I suspect that 'état' could possibly be more appropriate here.



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Note added at 2 hrs (2008-05-01 21:24:33 GMT)
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Or of course for 'fault condition' you might wish to consider 'dis/dysfonctionnement'

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Note added at 20 hrs (2008-05-02 15:27:19 GMT)
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It is argua

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Note added at 20 hrs (2008-05-02 15:35:57 GMT)
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It is arguably slightly inadvisable to use 'panne' for 'fault', as 'panne' tends to imply a breakdown (= something isn't working), whereas a 'fault' can simply indicate an anomalous situation that doesn't prevent operation.

I really think you are trying to 'chercher midi à 14 h' here — 'défaut' is ever so commonly found in exactly these sort of contexts, and if it causes you any kind of terminology conflict with 'default' = 'par défaut', then I'm sure those occurrences will be minor, and you should be able to disambiguate it fairly easy in a few, isolated cases. After all, FR source texts cheerfully use both terms side by side, and no-one seems to get terminally confused.

As for 'common', we don't have enough detail of the system as a whole to quite know why these things are being referred to as 'common' — it would reauire much more detailed knowledge of how the system works to understand that. It could have many possible significations, but despite the fact that FR is not of course my native language I have seen enough FR technical documents to know that generally speaking, the term 'commun' is used in almost exactly parallel ways to the word 'common' in EN, and I see nothing at all in any of the context examples given to lead me to think that any other translation would be desirable — or indeed, possible.

So I can only suggest that you adopt 'commun' for 'common' and 'défaut' for 'fault', and find alternative solutions for any other terms with which that might clash.

To some extent, this kind of telegraphic language doesn't "make sense" in EN (but presumably does to the informed reader who has the system in front of them) — and the same is probably going to be true of your translation: it might not appear to make sense to you, but the technician reading it will understand what it is all about.

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Note added at 20 hrs (2008-05-02 15:41:20 GMT)
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The original word order would, of course, make a big difference if this was a purely EN doc. Instead of transalting from IT > FR and then asking the question, please could you translate some of these terms from IT > EN, so that we can follow the word order correctly.

For example, is LED COMMON FAULT your FR word order, or EN? It makes a huge difference! If it is FR, then we should understand it as the 'common fault' LED — which is what I have been assuming all along, and which seems to make most sense in all your examples.

So the 'common disabled' LED is there to warn that this 'common' feature (whatever it is) has been disabled.

But of course, it might equally be a 'common LED' to indicate a 'fault' (as M/M has assumed) — do you see why it is so crucial for you to explain these word order issues? Personally, because of the other examples, I'm far from convinced this latter interpretation is correct... but the issue is going to be central to resolving your translation doubts.