AN OVERVOLTAGE PROTECTOR CIRCUIT AND A DETECTOR CIRCUIT FOR SUPERVISING SUCH A PROTECTOR CIRCUIT

摘要

An overvoltage protector circuit (14) for telecommunication equipments (12), said protector circuit including a gas discharge tube (17) connected to a communication line (11) for passing any harmful surge currents appearing in the line to ground (15). A degradation detector circuit (18) is arranged to detect any degradation of the gas discharge tube (17), the detector circuit comprises a reference gas discharge tube (19) with a higher breakdown voltage than the supervised gas discharge tube (17) and an alarm circuit loop (20) connected to an alarm system (30). Said alarm system is arranged to detect when current is breaking through the reference gas discharge tube (19) and to initiate a degradation alarm.