Method and arc fault circuit interrupter employing a hysteresis value for compressor rumble

• US 7,253,996 B2
• Filed: 04/06/2005
• Issued: 08/07/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 04/06/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Eaton Intelligent Power Limited (Eaton Corporation PLC.)
• Original Assignee: Eaton Corp. (Wisconsin) (Eaton Corporation PLC.)
• Inventors: Elms, Robert T., Parker, Kevin L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Bruce; David
• Assistant Examiner(s): BRANDT, MICHAEL J
• Application Number:
  US11/100,363
• Publication Number:
  US 20060227468A1
• Time in Patent Office: 853 Days
• Field of Search: 361/20, 361/93.1, 361/102
• US Class Current: 361/2
• CPC Class Codes: H02H 1/0015 Using arc detectors
• CPC Class Codes: H02H 1/04 Arrangements for preventing response to transient abnormal conditions, e.g. to lightning or to short duration over voltage or oscillations; Damping the influence of dc component by short circuits in ac networks

Abstract

An arc fault detection circuit collects samples of sensed current, determines a peak current value from the samples for each line cycle, determines a hysteresis value for a compressor load as a function of differences between the peak current values, and generates a trip signal responsive to the sensed current and the hysteresis value. The circuit determines a difference value for each line cycle from the present peak current value less the previous peak current value, low pass filters the difference value to provide a low pass filtered value, determines a peak value from the low pass filtered value, determines that the absolute value of the low pass filtered value is less than a portion of the peak value and responsively saves the peak value, and determines the hysteresis value as a function of the saved peak value. An operating mechanism opens separable contacts responsive to the trip signal.

Claims

1. An arc fault circuit interrupter comprising:

a line terminal;

a load terminal;

separable contacts electrically connected between said line terminal and said load terminal;

a current sensor adapted to sense current flowing between said line terminal and said load terminal and through said separable contacts, said sensed current including a plurality of line cycles;

an arc fault detection circuit adapted to collect a plurality of samples of said sensed current for each of said line cycles, determine a peak current value from said samples of said sensed current for each of said line cycles, determine a difference value for each of said line cycles from the peak current value of a corresponding one of said line cycles less the peak current value of the previous one of said line cycles, change the sign of said difference value on alternate ones of said line cycles, low pass filter the changed sign difference value for each of said line cycles to provide a low pass filtered value for each of said line cycles, determine a peak value from the absolute value of the low pass filtered value for each of said line cycles over a predetermined count of said line cycles, save the peak value as a saved peak value after the predetermined count of said line cycles, determine a hysteresis value as a function of the saved peak value, and generate a trip signal responsive to the sensed current and the hysteresis value; and

an operating mechanism adapted to open said separable contacts responsive to said trip signal.

2. The arc fault circuit interrupter of claim 1 wherein said arc fault detection circuit is further adapted to determine said difference value, said low pass filtered value and said peak value for about ninety of said line cycles before saving said peak value and then resetting said low pass filtered value and said peak value and determining a new value of said hysteresis value.

3. The arc fault circuit interrupter of claim 1 wherein said line cycle corresponds to a line voltage having a line cycle with a positive zero crossing and a negative zero crossing;

wherein said arc fault detection circuit collects a first one of said samples of said sensed current at about the positive zero crossing of the line cycle of said line voltage and a last one of said samples of said sensed current at about the negative zero crossing of the line cycle of said line voltage; and

wherein said peak current of said line cycle is the maximum of said samples of said line cycle.

4. The arc fault circuit interrupter of claim 3 wherein the last one of said samples is a seventeenth one of said samples.

5. The arc fault circuit interrupter of claim 3 wherein said arc fault detection circuit collects and saves said samples of said sensed current for four consecutive ones of said line cycles;

wherein for three consecutive ones of said line cycles said arc fault detection circuit determines differences between each of the samples of one of the line cycles and each of the samples of an immediately previous one of the line cycles and determines a maximum positive value and a maximum negative value from said differences for said three consecutive ones of said line cycles;

wherein said arc fault detection circuit determines whether there is one or both of a local maximum value and a local minimum value from said determined maximum positive value and said determined maximum negative value over said three consecutive ones of said line cycles; and

wherein said arc fault detection circuit determines that said local maximum value or said local minimum value is greater than said hysteresis value and responsively adds said total current value to a trip tally.

6. The arc fault circuit interrupter of claim 5 wherein said hysteresis value is at least about four amperes.

7. The arc fault circuit interrupter of claim 6 wherein said arc fault detection circuit is adapted to clear said trip tally when said total current value is greater than a predetermined value.

8. The arc fault circuit interrupter of claim 6 wherein said arc fault detection circuit includes an enable counter and a disable counter;

and wherein when said total current value is greater than a predetermined value said enable counter is incremented and said disable counter is zeroed.

9. The arc fault circuit interrupter of claim 8 wherein said arc fault detection circuit further includes a flag having an enable state and a disable state;

wherein said enable counter includes a first limit;

wherein said disable counter includes a second limit;

wherein said flag is set to said enable state when said enable counter exceeds said first limit; and

wherein said flag is set to said disable state when said disable counter exceeds said second limit.

10. A method of determining a hysteresis value for an arc fault circuit interrupter, said method comprising:

sensing a plurality of samples of current for each of a plurality of line cycles;

determining a peak current value from said samples of current for each of said line cycles;

determining a difference value for each of said line cycles from the peak current value of a corresponding one of said line cycles less the peak current value of the previous one of said line cycles;

changing the sign of said difference value on alternate ones of said line cycles;

low pass filtering the changed sign difference value for each of said line cycles to provide a low pass filtered value for each of said line cycles;

determining a peak value from the absolute value of the low pass filtered value for each of said line cycles over a predetermined count of said line cycles;

saving the peak value as a saved peak value after the predetermined count of said line cycles; and

determining a hysteresis value as a function of the saved peak value.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising outputting said current from said arc fault circuit interrupter to a load which is a compressor;

and confirming that said load is said compressor when a portion of said saved peak value is greater than a predetermined value.

12. The method of claim 10 further comprising employing a value, low_pass, as said low pass filtered value;

employing a value, peakΔ

, as said difference value;

employing an integer, n, to identify the corresponding one of said line cycles; and

calculating said low pass filtered value from;

low_pass=low_pass+{[peakΔ

]*(−

1)ⁿ}−

(low_pass)/16.

13. The method of claim 10 further comprising determining said hysteresis value as being 3/32 of said saved peak value plus a predetermined value.

14. The method of claim 10 further comprising determining said difference value, said low pass filtered value and said peak value for about ninety of said line cycles before saving said peak value and then resetting said low pass filtered value and said saved peak value and determining a new value of said hysteresis value.

15. An arc fault circuit interrupter for a compressor load, said arc fault circuit interrupter comprising:

a line terminal;

a load terminal;

separable contacts electrically connected between said line terminal and said load terminal;

a current sensor adapted to sense current flowing between said line terminal and said load terminal and through said separable contacts, said sensed current including a plurality of line cycles;

an arc fault detection circuit adapted to collect a plurality of samples of said sensed current for each of said line cycles, determine a peak current value from said samples of said sensed current for each of said line cycles, determine a hysteresis value for said compressor load as a function of differences between the peak current values of said line cycles, and generate a trip signal responsive to said sensed current and said hysteresis value; and

an operating mechanism adapted to open said separable contacts responsive to said trip signal.