Circuit breaker panel with wireless communications capability
First Claim
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1. A circuit breaker system comprising:
- a bus bar subsystem;
a plurality of circuit breakers, each circuit breaker including;
mechanical components and a solenoid for selectively breaking electrical continuity in an electrical path between a power source and corresponding line and neutral bus bars of the bus bar subsystem, the mechanical components adapted to connect to the corresponding line and neutral bus bars of the bus bar subsystem without wires;
sensor circuitry for monitoring the electrical path and detecting faults; and
logic circuitry coupled to the sensor circuitry for generating a fault detection signal identifying a type of fault detected by the sensor circuitry;
a first subsystem including;
trip control logic responsive to fault detection signals received from each of the plurality of circuit breakers, the trip control logic programmed to selectively activate the solenoid of a selected one of circuit breakers and independently break the continuity of the corresponding electrical path in response to a particular type of fault identified by a fault detection signal received from the selected circuit breaker; and
a communications interface; and
a second subsystem including;
a communications interface for exchanging signals with the communications interface of the first subsystem; and
wireless communications circuitry for establishing wireless communications with a system external to the circuit breaker system.
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Abstract
In at least some embodiments, a system includes a plurality of circuit breakers and trip control logic external to and coupled to the circuit breakers. The trip control logic enables a plurality of different tripping options to be selected for each of the circuit breakers.
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Citations
18 Claims
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1. A circuit breaker system comprising:
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a bus bar subsystem; a plurality of circuit breakers, each circuit breaker including; mechanical components and a solenoid for selectively breaking electrical continuity in an electrical path between a power source and corresponding line and neutral bus bars of the bus bar subsystem, the mechanical components adapted to connect to the corresponding line and neutral bus bars of the bus bar subsystem without wires; sensor circuitry for monitoring the electrical path and detecting faults; and logic circuitry coupled to the sensor circuitry for generating a fault detection signal identifying a type of fault detected by the sensor circuitry; a first subsystem including; trip control logic responsive to fault detection signals received from each of the plurality of circuit breakers, the trip control logic programmed to selectively activate the solenoid of a selected one of circuit breakers and independently break the continuity of the corresponding electrical path in response to a particular type of fault identified by a fault detection signal received from the selected circuit breaker; and a communications interface; and a second subsystem including; a communications interface for exchanging signals with the communications interface of the first subsystem; and wireless communications circuitry for establishing wireless communications with a system external to the circuit breaker system. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A circuit breaker system comprising:
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a plurality of circuit breakers, each circuit breaker including; mechanical components and a solenoid for selectively breaking electrical continuity in an electrical path between a power source and line and neutral bus bars; sensor circuitry for monitoring the electrical path and detecting faults; and logic circuitry coupled to the sensor circuitry for generating a fault detection signal identifying a type of fault detected by the sensor circuitry; a first subsystem including; trip control logic responsive to fault detection signals received from each of the plurality of circuit breakers, the trip control logic programmed to selectively activate the solenoid of a selected one of circuit breakers and break the continuity of the corresponding electrical path in response to a particular type of fault identified by a fault detection signal received from the selected circuit breaker; and a communications interface; and a second subsystem including; a communications interface for exchanging signals with the communications interface of the first subsystem; and wireless communications circuitry for establishing wireless communications with a system external to the circuit breaker system, wherein the mechanical components of each of the plurality of circuit breakers are manually resettable and the trip control logic is further operable to; prevent reset of the selected circuit breaker by continuously activating the solenoid of the selected circuit breaker in response to a signal received by the wireless communications circuitry.
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12. A circuit breaker system comprising:
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a bus bar subsystem; a plurality of circuit breakers for selectively breaking electrical continuity in a corresponding plurality of electrical paths transmitting electrical power from a power source to a corresponding line bus bar of the bus bar subsystem, each circuit breaker including independent circuitry for detecting faults on a corresponding electrical path and in response generating a fault detection signal representing a type of fault detected; trip control logic operable to independently trip each of the circuit breakers to cause a break in the continuity of the corresponding electrical path in response to a fault detection signal representing a fault type of a particular set of fault types predetermined for the circuit breaker; and wireless communications circuitry for receiving signals for selecting the particular set of fault types for each of the circuit breakers. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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Specification