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:
Apr. 17, 2012
Filed:
Jun. 01, 2010
John R. Baldwin, Newtown, CT (US);
Robert Fanzutti, Naugatuck, CT (US);
Daming Yu, Easton, CT (US);
Hubbell Incorporated, Shelton, CT (US);
Abstract
A self test (ST) ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) provides improved end of life (EOL) detection by rejecting false EOL information. A processing device receives fault detection signals indicating when faults are detected, and input signals indicating when contacts used to interrupt power to a load are closed. The processing device rejects the fault detection signals when they fail to meet a selected condition and the contacts are closed, and declares end of life (EOL) when the selected condition is met. The fault detection signals can correspond to pulses at an output of a gated device between the processing device and a GFCI chip, and the selected condition can be a selected integer number of pulses.