Patent ID: 7633736

Claim:
A circuit interrupter comprising: separable contacts; an operating mechanism structured to open and close said separable contacts; and a trip mechanism comprising: a sensor structured to sense current flowing through said separable contacts, a processor cooperating with said sensor to determine a plurality of different trip conditions responsive to said sensed current, a nonvolatile memory operatively associated with said processor, and a trip actuator cooperating with said processor and said operating mechanism to trip open said separable contacts responsive to one of said different trip conditions from said processor, wherein said processor is structured to save in and retrieve from said nonvolatile memory cause-of-trip information for said different trip conditions including said one of said different trip conditions, wherein said cause-of-trip information for said one of said different trip conditions includes a corresponding cause-of-trip code of a plurality of different cause-of-trip codes corresponding to said different trip conditions, and wherein said corresponding cause-of-trip code is not a trip current.