Patent ID: 9689925
Date: 2017-06-27
CPC Classifications: G01R

Claim:
1. An arc fault circuit interrupter test circuit comprising: i. a line shorting circuit accepting a hot line of an electrical system and a neutral line of an electrical system; ii. a voltage sense circuit operatively coupled to the hot line of the electrical system and the neutral line of the electrical system for sensing an AC voltage waveform; iii. a current sense circuit for sensing current flow through said line shorting circuit; iv. a controller coupled to the voltage sense circuit, the current sense circuit, and to the line shorting circuit, the controller adapted to generate a sequence of control pulses for operating the line shorting circuit and generating a fault, wherein the controller is adapted to generate each control pulse at a specific voltage of the AC voltage waveform, and further adapted to measure a current generated by each control pulse and compare the current to a predetermined level, and when the current is less than the predetermined level, the controller is adapted to generate a next control pulse at a higher voltage level of the AC voltage waveform.