Apparatuses and methods for passive fault monitoring of current sensing devices in protective circuit interrupters

A method of self-testing a protection device interrupter comprising:

• monitoring components in the protection device interrupter to determine whether the components are operational during an arrangement chosen from (a) a line hot arm and a line neutral arm of the protection device interrupter being disconnected, respectively, from a load hot arm and a load neutral arm of the protection device interrupter;
• and (b) the line hot arm and the line neutral arm of the protection device interrupter being connected, respectively, to the load hot arm and the load neutral arm of the protection device interrupter and a load connected to the protection device interrupter via the load hot arm and the load neutral arm is drawing zero current;
• wherein the monitoring comprises monitoring a characteristic associated with at least a selected one of the components in the protection device interrupter chosen from a coil, analog signal conditioning circuitry, and an analog to digital input of a digital processor in the protection device interrupter;
• wherein the monitoring a characteristic comprises using a noise signal associated with the components during the arrangement;
• and the disabling connection of the line hot arm and the line neutral arm to, respectively, the load hot arm and the load neutral arm is performed when the noise signal meets a designated criterion.