Patent ID: 9640971
Date: 2017-05-02
CPC Classifications: H02H

Claim:
1. A circuit interrupter, comprising: a phase conductive path and a neutral conductive path disposed between a line side and a load side of said circuit interrupter; a differential transformer coupled to said phase conductive path and said neutral conductive path; a ground/neutral transformer coupled to said phase conductive path and said neutral conductive path; a circuit interrupter chip electrically coupled to respective fault inputs from the differential transformer and the ground/neutral transformer; a controller electrically coupled to the circuit interrupter chip, the controller further including an electrical sensing line disposed through the differential transformer and the ground/neutral transformer, the controller coupled to a variable resistor, where a resistance value of the variable resistor is controllable by said controller; and an interrupter circuit coupled to the controller for opening at least one of the phase conductive path and the neutral conductive path when a predetermined ground fault current condition is sensed by the circuit interrupter chip; wherein the controller is programmed to adjust the resistance value of the variable resistor based on a sensed value of said predetermined ground fault current condition from said electrical sensing line, wherein the adjusted resistance value adjusts a fault current interrupter trip-time response of the circuit interrupter to maintain the fault current interrupter trip-time response within a predetermined range.