What do the small letters on a circuit board mean? Does anyone know the abbrereviation for Varistors?

Question

What do the small letters on a circuit board mean? Does anyone know the abbrereviation for Varistors?

Answer 1

The letters are used for designers, testers, and repair technicians so they can quickly identify parts. Varistors are not extremely common so I have no idea what symbol they might use, and the symbols do vary somewhat by company, application, locale, etc. The ones I have seen most often look like blue ceramic disc capacitors. I think the schematic symbol for a varistior is two triangles tip-to-tip, symmetric along the line, inside a circle.

Answer 2

Those are reference designators. A Varistor is RV, at least in the OrCAD library (link below.)