Multifunctional residential circuit breaker

摘要

An electrical fault detection device for use in a branch of a power circuit that utilizes signals from an AC line current sensor (109) coupled to an electrical distribution line having a primary and neutral lines, a line highfrequency sensor (107) coupled to the electrical distribution line, a differential current sensor (134) coupled to the primary and neutral lines, and a ground fault current sensor (136) coupled to the primary and neutral lines. A signal conditioner (130) receives the signals output by AC current sensor, the line high frequency sensor, the differential current sensor and the ground fault current sensor and generates a signal indicative of the load current associated with a branch of the power circuit. Output of the signal conditioner is sampled and processed by a processing resource (159). The processing resource has stored therein data representing a plurality of time-versus-current curves that define a plurality of regions in which tripping may or may not occur. One region has time data and current data that define a time-duration for a particular current magnitude for which no tripping will occur. Another region has time data and current data that define a time-duration of a particular current magnitude for which tripping will occur. Processing resource processes sampled signal to determine the region to which the processed time data and current data correspond, and generates a signal (161) to initiate tripping if the sampled signal yields a time duration for a particular current magnitude that corresponds to a region for which tripping must occur.