Arc fault detector with protection against nuisance trips and circuit breaker incorporating same

摘要

An arc fault detector (29) of the type which generates a trip signal when a time attenuated accumulation of pulses produced each time an arc is struck reaches a selected value, includes a pulse conditioner (105) which discriminates against false trips induced by phenomena such as tungsten bulb burn out and turn on of a cold tungsten bulb (101) controlled by a dimmer (111). The pulse conditioner (105) includes a zener diode (107) which limits the amplitude of the pulses applied to the integrator, and stretches all of the pulses to reduce the variation in pulse duration. The latter can be accomplished by a peak detector (109) which stretches pulses which reach the zener limit to a duration of at least about a half cycle.