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:
Jun. 08, 1998
Frederick Y Kawabata, Beaverton, OR (US);
Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR (US);
Abstract
An apparatus and method for deriving a signal from the AC line and conveying it to processing circuitry employs two wires each of which is non-conductively attached and capacitively coupled to a respective one of a two-wire AC power line. Each of the capacitive pick-offs is coupled to a respective input of a differential amplifier for amplification. Advantageously, because the output signal is a replica of the AC power line signal, the detection threshold can be set at or near zero volts. This makes the detection point insensitive to the amplitude variations of the AC power line. In one embodiment, an output signal is developed at a single ended output of the differential amplifier, and applied to a low pass filter to remove undesired higher frequencies. A further amplifier provides greater amplification of the filtered representation of the AC power line signal, and includes an amplitude limiting circuit to accommodate the wide range of AC line voltages which may be applied to the instrument.