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:
Jun. 06, 2000
Filed:
Mar. 27, 1998
Raymond Warren Mackenzie, Baldwin Borough, PA (US);
Eaton Corporation, Cleveland, OH (US);
Abstract
A portable tester plugs into a receptacle in a branch circuit of an electric power distribution system to verify protection against arc faults, line to ground faults and neutral to ground faults provided by a circuit breaker located at a remote load center or by ground fault and, or arc fault interrupters in the receptacle, and also checks for proper wiring. The arc fault detector gates phased back rectified half cycles of the ac power to generate step changes in the instantaneous amplitude of current in the branch circuit which mimic the repetitive striking of an arc. Preferably, only half cycles at least 60 ms apart are gated so that the user can verify the time to trip with a watch and can count the gated half cycles to trip by counting pulses generated by a light emitting diode (LED) in the gating circuit.