Patent ID: 7003435

Claim:
An arc fault detecting device capable of being electrically connected to an electrical wiring system between line side phase and neutral conductors and load side phase and neutral conductors, said device comprising: signal detecting means coupled to detect current in a conductor of the electrical wiring system to generate a signal representative of the detected current, signal modifying means coupled to the signal detecting means to generate at least one modified signal which represents the filtered or unfiltered current detected in the conductor, and a micro-controller coupled to receive the at least one modified signal wherein the micro-controller performs the following: generates a SINE signal having half cycles and zero crossings from a raw input signal, or a signal from a finite impulse response (FIR) filter, or a signal from an infinite impulse response (IIR) filter, compares the generated SINE signal with the at least one signals generated from the signal modifying means to generate a DELTA signal, analyzes the DELTA signal for at least one characteristic representative of the occurrence of an arc, and generates an output signal upon detection of the at least one characteristic representative of the occurrence of an arc.