Electrical fault interrupt circuits

Abstract

A circuit for the avoidance of electrical shock and burns in an electrical appliance. Designed primarily for a two wire appliance, the device consists of a conditioning circuit at the load and a fault sensor/interrupter at the plug. The conditioning circuit halts the flow of current to the load for a portion of each cycle of an AC excitation. If current flow is detected at the plug during this time interval it is indicative of a fault condition and a circuit breaker at the plug is opened. A fault is detected if one of the following conditions occurs: 1) a resistive path is established between hot to ground; 2) a load other than the conditioned load is placed between hot and neutral; and 3) an overtemperature condition is detected at the load. The circuit is self-resetting so that in the absence of a hot to ground fault, hot to neutral fault, or overtemperature condition, electrical current is allowed to flow.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.