ARC fault circuit interrupter tester with current responsive pulse timing
AssigneeUnique Technologies, LLC
InventorsKerry Berland, Paul Berland, Mitch Budniak
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An arc fault circuit interrupter test circuit is disclosed. The test circuit incorporates a controller along with at least one power transistor, a current sense circuit and a voltage sense circuit. When the power transistor is operated, the current flowing through the transistor is sensed, and if the current is not at least equal to a threshold value, the voltage at which the power transistor is operated is increased.
Claims16
An arc fault circuit interrupter test circuit comprising:
- i. a full-wave bridge rectifier accepting a hot line of an electrical system and a neutral line of an electrical system and generating a positive line and a negative line;
- ii. at least one power transistor coupled to the positive line of said full-wave bridge rectifier and to the negative line of said full-wave bridge rectifier, and adapted to electrically couple said positive line and said negative line when operated;
- iii. a voltage sense circuit coupled to the hot line of the electrical system and the neutral line of the electrical system for sensing an AC voltage waveform;
- iv. a current sense circuit for sensing current flow through said power transistor;
- v. a controller coupled to the voltage sense circuit, the current sense circuit, and to said power transistor, said controller adapted to generate a sequence of control pulses for operating said power transistor and coupling said positive line to said negative line, thereby generating a fault, wherein the controller is adapted to generate each control pulse at a specific voltage of the AC voltage waveform, and further adapted to measure a current generated by each control pulse and compare the current to a predetermined level, and when the current is less than the predetermined level, the controller is adapted to generate a next control pulse at a higher voltage level of the AC voltage waveform.
The test circuit of claim of 12 wherein said controller is adapted to monitor said current sense circuit to determine if an arc fault circuit breaker electrically coupled to said test circuit has operated and wherein said controller is adapted to operated said indicator based on whether said arc fault circuit breaker has operated.
A method operating on a microcontroller for testing the functionality of an arc fault circuit interrupter, the method comprising the steps of:
- i. generating a plurality of control pulses of finite duration, each control pulse generated at a selected voltage of an AC power system;
- ii. electrically coupling a hot line of the AC power system to a neutral line of the AC power system at a voltage level as indicated by a particular one of the plurality of control pulses;
- iii. measuring the current generated while the hot line of the AC power system was coupled to the neutral line of the AC power system;
- and
- iv. when the current is below a threshold current level, changing the voltage level at which a next pulse is fired to a higher voltage level of an AC power waveform.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.