The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 20, 1996
Filed:
May. 10, 1994
Raymond W Mackenzie, Baldwin, PA (US);
John A Wafer, Beaver, PA (US);
Eaton Corporation, Cleveland, OH (US);
Abstract
Apparatus for generating alarms for a group of circuit interrupters, especially those which respond to arcing faults, includes a device associated with each circuit interrupter providing an indication of a tripped condition and a common alarm generator which generates an alarm when any one, or at least any one of a number of selected circuit interrupters, is in the tripped condition. In one embodiment of the invention, switches indicating that associated circuit interrupters are tripped generate auxiliary trip signals on a common alarm bus. The auxiliary trip signals are latched by a latch on the common alarm bus which energizes a relay to activate a local and/or remote alarm. The latch is reset by a switch on the load center door. In another embodiment of the invention, an IR beam is blocked from reaching a photo-detector whenever a circuit interrupter handle is in the tripped position which also results in energization of a relay to actuate the common alarm. Selected circuit interrupters only can be alarmed by orienting the light beam such that only circuit interrupters selected by adding an extension to the handle block the beam when the associated circuit interrupter is tripped.