The invention relates to an electrical fault interrupter, which includes a miswiring circuit which can be used to detect the presence of a miswiring condition.
To adequately determine whether an electrical fault exists in a power distribution network into which an electrical fault interrupter has been connected, one or more sensors in the electrical fault interrupter would typically be coupled to one or more of the power conducting lines in the fault interrupter, such as phase lines, the hot line, and the neutral line. In some cases this would require the electrical fault sensor be coupled to multiple power conducting lines simultaneously or would require multiple electrical fault sensors be employed in the electrical fault interrupter. Such electrical fault sensors can be bulky as well as expensive. However, these sensors may be required to protect against electrical faults regardless of how the device is wired to a power distribution network, such as when the device is wired properly with the phase line of the power distribution network being wired to the phase line of the electrical fault interrupter, or in a miswired condition where the phase line of the power distribution network is wired instead to another line in the device such as to the neutral or ground line.
One way to reduce or eliminate the requirement for an additional or more complex electrical fault sensor in an electrical fault interrupter is to include a miswiring detector which would result in either the tripping of the electrical fault interrupter or opening of the power conducting lines in the presence of a miswiring condition. Therefore at least one embodiment of the present invention relates to an electrical fault interrupter comprising at least one electrical fault sensor configured to detect one or more electrical fault conditions, at least one miswiring circuit, and at least one circuit interrupter configured to open at least one power conducting line in the presence of an electrical fault condition or a miswiring condition. In at least one embodiment, one end of the miswiring circuit is coupled to a ground line. More particularly one embodiment relates to a miswiring circuit configured to generate a miswire signal when an improper connection between a power distribution network and a line side of the fault interrupter is detected
When applying a miswiring circuit to at least one electrical fault interrupter design, one benefit of the miswiring circuit is that it can be used to reduce the number of sensors required to determine the presence of an electrical fault. In at least one other electrical fault interrupter design, the miswiring circuit can be used to reduce the complexity of one or more sensors required to determine the presence of an electrical fault. In all cases, the presence of a miswiring circuit in the design would result in the tripping of the electrical fault interrupter during a miswiring condition so that at least one power conducting line is open circuited.
In the above described embodiments, the inclusion of the miswiring circuit in the electrical fault interrupter allows one or more electrical fault sensors to be reduced in number or complexity, thereby providing a device manufacturing cost reduction.
Alternatively, a miswiring circuit can be included in a device without a fault sensor. In this case, the device would be configured to activate a circuit interrupter when there is a miswire condition.
Other objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description considered in connection with the accompanying drawings. It is to be understood, however, that the drawings are designed as illustrations only and not as a definition of the limits of the invention.
In the drawings, wherein similar reference characters denote similar elements throughout the several views:
Referring in detail to the drawings,
Electrical fault interrupter 10 also includes at least one miswiring circuit 80, and at least one circuit interrupter, which can be in the form of any known circuit interrupter but is shown by way of example by relay mechanism 50. Examples of relay mechanisms which could be used in electrical fault interrupter 10 include mousetrap relays, electrically held relays, reset lockout relays, off-the-shelf held relays, bistable relays, circuit breakers, contactors, and fuses, and one of ordinary skill in the art will understand how to adapt any of these relay mechanisms to be used in electrical fault interrupter 10.
Miswiring circuit 80 is configured to generate a miswire signal when an improper connection from power distribution network 100 to electrical fault sensor 20 is detected. A miswire signal is any signal generated by the miswiring circuit that would indicate that the device has been miswired. An example of a miswire signal is a signal produced by miswiring circuit having a sufficient set of characteristics to activate components such as logic circuit 30, relay control circuit 40, relay mechanism 50, or microcontroller 60. These characteristics can include a sufficient voltage or frequency to activate these components. While this embodiment discloses the miswiring circuit incorporated into a device having a fault sensor, a fault sensor is not required for this miswiring circuit to operate. Therefore, at least one embodiment includes the miswiring circuit without the fault sensor. In this case, the miswiring circuit would operate separate from the fault sensor and activate a circuit interrupter alone when a device is miswired.
Relay mechanism 50 is configured to open at least one power conducting line in the presence of an electrical fault condition or a miswiring condition. While electrical fault interrupters including the electrical fault interrupter of the present invention can be employed in single phase or multi-phase power distribution systems, this embodiment of the present invention is disclosed in a single phase system that includes power distribution network 100 hot line 112 which is intended to be connected to electrical fault interrupter hot line 12, power distribution network 100 neutral line 114 which is intended to be connected to electrical fault interrupter neutral line 14, and power distribution network 100 ground line 116 which is intended to be connected to electrical fault interrupter ground line 16. Relay mechanism 50 is configured to electrically disconnect at least one power conducting line when an electrical fault or miswire condition is detected. This embodiment of the present invention is disclosed with relay mechanism 50 disconnecting hot line 212 and neutral line 214 via relay mechanism 50 conducting arms 52 and 54 respectively.
In this embodiment, power distribution network 100 provides three lines: hot 112, neutral 114, and ground 116. Power distribution network 100 is in the form of a power producing network such as power that is supplied from a power supply plant. While the power received from power distribution network 100 can be in the form of any acceptable power, in at least one embodiment this power is be in the form of 120 volts, at 60 Hertz. The three power lines 112, 114, and 116 are normally wired to electrical fault interrupter 10 hot 12, neutral 14, and ground 16 respectively. Lines 12, 14 and 16 are referred to as hot, neutral, and ground based upon their intended wiring connections. However, if power distribution network 100 hot 112 is wired to electrical fault interrupter 10 ground 16, then ground 16 is indeed hot, though it continues to be referred to as ground 16.
Electrical fault interrupter 10 also includes power supply 90, which is coupled between hot 12 and neutral 14, and which derives one or more AC and/or DC voltages for use by electrical fault interrupter 10 circuitry. For example, fault circuit 22 may include a GFCI detection chip like the National Semiconductor LM1851 which requires approximately 26 volts DC to operate properly, and in such case power supply 90 would provide 26 volts DC to fault circuit 22. Similarly logic circuit 30 may include digital logic chips like the 74HC00, in which case power supply 90 would provide 5 volts DC to logic circuit 30. It is understood by one of ordinary skill in the art that power supply 90 can be implemented together or in separate areas of the circuitry of electrical fault interrupter 10, can derive its power from any suitable lines coming from power distribution network 100, can derive clean or rippling or noisy power levels that still allow proper operation of electrical fault interrupter 10, and can exploit power-deriving features which are part of any of the other blocks in electrical fault interrupter 10. For example, the National Semiconductor LM1851 chip effectively has a 26 volt Zener diode built into its power pin, which can be exploited to create the 26 volts DC the chip requires.
While a logic circuit and relay control circuit are not required for the embodiments shown, the embodiment disclosed in
While
Miswiring circuit 80 includes circuitry 80j which includes diode 87 and resistor 82, which together produce a miswire signal which will be low relative to neutral 14 if and only if ground 16 becomes lower in voltage than neutral 14. In a similar manner to the description for the embodiment of
In this embodiment, miswiring circuit 80 is coupled between electrical fault sensor 20 and ground 16, and more particularly between opamp inverting input 23b and ground 16. Opamp 23 has an inverting input 23b and a noninverting input 23a. The miswire signal from miswiring circuit 80 mixes a negative current into opamp 23 inverting input 23b, causing opamp 23 to drive its output high, thereby activating SCR 46 in a manner similar to the one described for the embodiment of
While
Power supply 90 is coupled between hot 12 and neutral 14, and derives one or more AC and/or DC voltages for use by electrical fault interrupter 10 circuitry. As described for the embodiment in
Relay control circuit 40 operates as in the
Miswiring circuit 80 in this embodiment includes circuitry 80f (se
As described in the
Microcontroller 60 is designed and programmed to receive the fault signal from fault sensor 20 and miswire signal from miswiring circuit 80, and to activate the gate of SCR 46 when either signal is active. If electrical fault sensor 20 is of the type which produces a signal which requires further electronic and/or computational analysis in order to detect the electrical fault or faults of interest, microcontroller 60 would perform such electronic and/or computational analysis, and use the result of that analysis as the fault signal in determining whether to activate the gate of SCR 46. It is understood by one of ordinary skill in the art that microcontroller 60 can be implemented using any appropriate technology, including but not limited to a microcontroller, microprocessor, finite state machine, programmable logic array, ASIC, gate array, PLC, control board, microcomputer, or other similar processing device. Therefore, microcontroller 60 represents any one of the above examples.
Miswiring circuit 80 produces a miswire signal when miswiring circuit 80 detects a miswire condition, and microcontroller 60 responds to the miswire signal by activating the gate of SCR 46 which energizes solenoid 55 of relay mechanism 50 resulting in the disconnection of power conducting lines 212 and 214. Though not a requirement of the present invention, microcontroller 60 can also be employed to perform further electronic and/or computational analysis on the miswire signal from miswiring circuit 80. Such electronic and/or computational analysis would be desirable in order to prevent a false trip due to electrical noise in power distribution network 100. Such electronic and/or computational analysis would be especially useful in multi-phase environments where microcontroller 60 could be used to determine which power conductor electrical fault sensor 20 is connected to, by analyzing the phase and period of the signal from miswiring circuit 80. Such electronic and/or computational analysis would also be useful if microcontroller 60 were referenced to hot, because the signal coming from miswiring circuit 80 would be perceived by microcontroller 60 as alternating high/low at line frequency when wired properly, thus requiring timing analysis of that signal to detect a miswire condition. In such a case, an example of the timing analysis microcontroller 60 would perform would be to track how long since the most recent transition of the signal from miswiring circuit 80, and if there is no transition for a full line frequency cycle or any other predetermined interval, then consider the miswire signal true and activate SCR 46 to disconnect power.
Since microcontroller 60 knows whether it activated SCR 46 due to an electrical fault or miswire condition, microcontroller 60 could activate one or more LEDs or other annunciators, such as led 62, to indicate to the user that electrical fault interrupter 10 tripped and why.
The embodiments disclosed in
It is understood by one of ordinary skill in the art that miswiring circuit 80 can be designed using various circuit topologies, discrete or integrated components, and be passive or active.
For example,
Accordingly, while only a few embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described, it is obvious that many changes and modifications may be made thereunto without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
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