Patent ID: 8072716

Claim:
An AFCI device which detects an electric arc fault from an alternating-current (AC) power, the AFCI device comprising: a current transformer wound around one side of which a conductor line through which the alternating-current power is supplied by a certain number of times; a power circuit which rectifies an alternating-current voltage signal induced from the conductor that is wound around one side of said current transformer, and converts the rectified result into a constant voltage signal to then be supplied as drive power necessary for an arc fault detector; an arc fault detector supplied with the drive power from said power circuit, which detects an arc fault from a voltage signal according to an amount of current variation of said current transformer; a power breaker which shuts off the power source when an interrupt signal is applied from said arc fault detector; a display which displays the supply of the power source to ascertain whether lines are connected; and a false arc generator which produces a pulse signal of a waveform that generates a false arc, supplies the generated pulse signal to said arc fault detector, and tests whether a circuit operation is normally operated, wherein said false arc generator comprises: a first rectifier which receives a commercial power source as an input source and rectifies alternating-current voltage of the commercial power source to generate a rectified signal; a drop resistor which drops the voltage of the rectified signal to generate a voltage-dropped signal; a mono-stable multivibrator which adjusts a voltage level and a pulse width of the voltage-dropped signal and generates a pulse signal that is used to provide a false arc for testing the arc fault circuit interrupter; a high-frequency generator; and a switching unit which performs a switching operation with respect to the high-frequency signal that is generated from said high-frequency generator according to the output waveform of said mono-stable multivibrator, to thus generate a pulse signal that is used to generate a false arc pulse for testing the arc fault circuit interrupter to then be input to the arc fault circuit interrupter, wherein the switching unit comprises: a first transistor which is turned â€œON/OFFâ€ according to the output waveform of said mono-stable multivibrator that is applied to a base of the first transistor, and outputs the direct-current voltage that is applied to the collector of the first transistor through an emitter thereof; and a second transistor, whose base is connected thereto if connected with the emitter of the first transistor, and which is operated in linkage with the â€œON/OFFâ€ operations of the first transistor, in which the second transistor is turned on as the first transistor is turned on, to thus output the high-frequency signal which has been generated from the high-frequency generator and applied to the collector of the second transistor, through the emitter of the second transistor.