Ground loss detection for electrical appliances

[0002] This application claims the benefit of the filing of US. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/100,577 entitled “Ground Loss Detection for Electrical Appliances”, filed on Sept. 16, 1998, and the specification thereof is incorporated herein by reference.

[0003] This application is a continuation in part application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/756,784, entitled “Shock and Arc Protection Device for an Electrical Distribution System”, to Hirsh et al, filed on. Nov. 26, 1996 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,973,896, which is a continuation in part application of Ser. No. 08/653,943 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,844,759, entitled “Electrical Fault Interrupter” to Hirsh et al, that was filed on May 22, 1996 and issued on Dec. 1, 1998, and also 08/799,919 now of U.S. Pat. No. 5,943,198 entitled “Electrical Fault Interrupt Circuits” to Hirsh et al, that issued on Aug. 24, 1999 and was filed on Feb. 13, 1997 as a continuation of Ser. No. 08/453,664 filed on May 26, 1995 now abandoned, the teachings of all of which are incorporated herein by reference.

[0004] FIG. 1 Block diagram of ground detection circuitry

[0005] FIG. 2 Specific embodiment of ground detect circuit

[0006] FIG. 3 Ground detect circuit using sensitive gate triac

[0007] FIG. 4 Ground detect circuit with low current on/off switch

[0008] FIG. 5 SCR based ground detect circuit with low current, low voltage on/off switch

[0009] FIG. 6 G round detect circuit with indicator

[0010] FIG. 7 Ground detect circuit that can be used with shock prevention circuit

[0011] FIG. 8 Deadzone in the AC current during which a fault can be detected

[0012] FIG. 9 Alternative ground detect circuit that can be used with shock prevention circuit

[0013] FIG. 10 Shock protection combined with open ground detection

[0014] 20—Plug

[0015] 21—Ground prong on plug

[0016] 22—Electrical outlet

[0017] 23—Neutral prong on plug

[0018] 24—Hot conductor

[0019] 25—Hot prong on plug

[0020] 26—Neutral conductor

[0021] 28—Ground conductor

[0022] 29—Earth ground

[0023] 30—Load

[0024] 32—Appliance housing

[0025] 34—Control circuit

[0026] 36—Triac

[0027] 37—Sensitive gate triac

[0028] 38—Triac gate

[0029] 39—SCR gate

[0030] 40—Resistor

[0031] 41—Desensitizing resistor

[0032] 42—MT1 terminal of triac

[0033] 43—Cathode of SCR

[0034] 44—MT2 terminal of triac

[0035] 45—Anode of SCR

[0036] 46—Low current switch

[0037] 47—Silicon controlled rectifier

[0038] 48—Limiting resistor

[0039] 49—NPN transistor

[0040] 50—Neon indicator lamp

[0041] 51—PNP transistor

[0042] 52—Low current/low voltage switch

[0043] 53—Steering diode

[0044] 54—Back to back zener diodes

[0045] 55—Steering diode

[0046] 56—Current dead zone

[0047] 57—Ground current limiting resistor

[0048] 58—Diac

[0049] 60—Hot prong

[0050] 62—Neutral prong

[0051] 64—Ground prong

[0052] 66—Hot side triac

[0053] 68—Diac

[0054] 70—Charge capacitor

[0055] 72—Steering diodes

[0056] 74—NPN Darlington

[0057] 76—PNP Darlington

[0058] 78—Resistor

[0059] 80—Voltage divider

[0060] 82—Conductor

[0061] 84—Conductor

[0062] 86—Hot to ground fault

[0063] 88—Hot to neutral fault

[0064] 90—Load to ground fault

[0065] 92—Node

[0066] FIG. 1 portrays a block diagram of the ground detection circuitry. A plug 20 has three prongs 21,23,25 on one side that insert into an electrical outlet 22. By convention, these prongs are configured to correspond to either the ungrounded conductor 24 (also known as the “hot” conductor), the grounded conductor 26 (also known as the “neutral” conductor) or the ground conductor 28, which, when plug 20 is inserted into outlet 22, should be electrically connected to earth ground 29. This connection to earth ground 29 may be at the outlet 22 or at a remotely located distribution panel, transformer, or other location. The load 30 represents an appliance load, for example, the heater coil in an electric heater, the light bulb filament in an electric light, or the motor in a pump. The load 30 may be optionally surrounded by a grounded appliance housing 32. A control circuit 34 is connected in electrical series between the load 30 and the neutral conductor 26. The control circuit 34 also makes a connection to the ground conductor 28. The control circuit 34 serves to monitor the connection to ground through the ground conductor 28. When this connection is broken, the control circuit responds by inhibiting the flow of electrical current out of the load 30 and to the neutral conductor 26 thereby forcing the appliance into an off condition.

[0067] FIG. 2 depicts a specific embodiment of the ground detect circuit. In its simplest embodiment, the control 34 consists of a triac 36 electrically connected at the MT1 terminal 42 to the load 30 and from the MT2 terminal 44 to the neutral conductor 26. A triac is a type of thyristor which may be thought of as a latching electrical switch. When the magnitude of the voltage potential at the triac gate 38 exceeds the magnitude of the voltage potential at the MT1 terminal 42 by more than some characteristic gate turn-on voltage, the triac 36 turns on, allowing electrical current to flow from the load 30 to the neutral conductor 26. Once the triac 36 is triggered into a conducting state, it continues to conduct electrical current as long as current magnitude is above some minimum threshhold known as the holding current. In this case, the triac 36 is said to be latched and continues to conduct even in the absence of a gate stimulus. If the triac 36 is in a nonconducting state, and the voltage potential at the triac gate 38 remains below the gate turn-on voltage, then the triac 36 will remain in a nonconducting state and little or no electrical current will flow from the load 30 into the neutral conductor 26. A resistor 40 may be used to connect between the ground conductor 28 and the triac gate 38. This serves to limit current flow to ground to that amount sufficient to turn on the triac 36 without drawing excessive currents that might damage the triac 36 or exceed accepted standards for ground current.

[0068] In a properly wired electrical distribution system, the neutral conductor 26 will have a voltage potential very close to that of the earth ground potential. Accordingly, as the voltage potential of the hot conductor 24 cyclically rises above that of the neutral conductor 26 and then falls below that of the neutral conductor 26, the triac 36 is turned on to allow current flow in first one direction and then the other. The load 30 then receives essentially full power for each half cycle of alternating current excitation and the appliance operates normally.

[0069] If the electrical connection from the triac gate 38 to the earth ground 29 through resistor 40 and through ground conductor 28 is nonexistent or becomes broken, this corresponds to a loss-of-ground condition. A loss-of-ground condition can occur because the appliance is plugged into an ungrounded electrical outlet 22, or because the ground conductor 28 is broken or missing, or because the grounding prong on the plug 20 has been cut off or does not seat correctly in the electrical outlet 22. Under a loss-of-ground condition, the triac gate 38 will maintain a voltage potential very close to that of the potential of the MT1 terminal 42, and the triac 36 will remain in a nonconducting state. For an AC excitation, upon the occurrence of a loss-of-ground condition, the triac 36 will allow electrical current to flow for the balance of the AC half cycle. Upon the first subsequent zero crossing of the AC excitation, as the current drops to zero, the triac 36 will turn off and stay off until a subsequent time when the ground connection is restored. Accordingly, the maximum amount of time that will elapse between the occurrence of a loss-of-ground connection and the removal of electrical current from the load is one half cycle. For a 60 Hz electrical system this corresponds to 8.33 milliseconds. The user of the appliance will note the loss-of-ground condition because the appliance will not function.

[0070] The circuit in FIG. 2 does more than just detect a loss-of-ground condition and interrupt current upon the detection of that event. It also serves to detect the occurrence of transposed hot and neutral conductors. In FIG. 2, if the hot and neutral conductors are transposed, then the conductor 24 that is supposed to be the ungrounded conductor becomes grounded. In this situation, the triac MT1 terminal 42 will have the same potential as the triac gate terminal 38. The triac 36 will therefore not conduct and the load 30 will not be. powered. All of the following discussions regarding the detection of a loss-of-ground condition can apply equally well to the detection of transposed power conductors. Because gate resistance 40 limits the electrical current that can be drawn through the triac gate 38, the load 30 does not receive significant power if there is an open neutral connection. Accordingly, the load 30 will not operate in the case of an open neutral.

[0071] Although FIG. 2 utilizes a triac 36 to implement ground loss sensing, it would be apparent to one skilled in the art that another type of thyristor such as a silicon controlled rectifier (SCR) might be used or that another type of electronic switch such as a transistor might be used.

[0072] FIG. 2 portrays the simplest configuration that yields ground loss detection. With only two, readily available components (triac 36 and resistor 40), appliances which require proper grounding can benefit from this enhanced safety at a minimal cost to the end user.

[0073] FIG. 3 shows a ground detect circuit utilizing a sensitive gate triac boost. In this embodiment, an auxiliary sensitive gate triac 37 is added to the circuit in order to obtain minimal current draw from the ground conductor 28. When a ground conductor 28 is grounded, a very low level current at the gate 39 of the sensitive gate triac 37 will result in a higher level of gate current at the gate 38 of the triac 36. In this embodiment, the gate current at the triac gate 38 will not be sourced through the ground conductor 28 but will be sourced from the hot conductor 24 through the load 30, resistor 40 and sensitive gate triac 37: As in the discussion pertaining to FIG. 2, this circuit will respond in the same way to transposed conductors as it does to a loss-of-ground condition. In FIG. 3, the sensitive gate triac 37 serves as an amplifier. In a similar way, any electronic amplifier might be used to allow the control of the triac 36 by the momentary application of a Very low level ground current.

[0074] FIG. 4 shows a ground loss detection circuit that uses a transistor based amplifier to control the triac 36 based upon the state of the ground connection. When a ground connection is valid, a low level electrical current is drawn through ground current limiting resistor 57 to turn on one of the transistors 49 or 51. During negative half cycles of the applied AC source, the NPN transistor 49 is turned on if a ground connection is present, in turn triggering the triac 36. During positive half cycles of the applied AC source, the PNP transistor 51 is turned on if a ground connection is present, causing triac 36 to fire. Steering diodes 53 and 55 serve to block current flow in a reverse direction on whichever is the inactive transistor during each half cycle. At the beginning of each half cycle, once the triac 36 is turned on, the voltage at the triac gate 38 becomes very small in magnitude relative to the MT2 terminal 44. This causes the active transistor, either 49 or 51 to turn off, the result being that extremely low levels of electrical current are drawn through ground using this approach.

[0075] FIG. 5 shows a ground detection circuit in which a low current switch 46 has been added. Even though the appliance load 30 may require many amperes of electrical current, the on/off control of the current flow may be controlled by the triac 36 by using a low current switch 46. When the low current switch 46 is in the closed position, the circuit acts as the circuit of FIG. 2, and allows power to go the load as long as a ground connection is present. If the low current switch 46 is in an open position, this serves to remove the connection of the triac gate 38 from a ground potential. The triac 36 will go to a nonconducting state and no power will be furnished to the load. Desensitizing resistor 41 serves to prevent false firings of triac 36 when the switch 46 is in an open position. It does this by effectively forcing the gate 38 voltage to be at the same potential as the MT1 terminal 42. The advantage to using the low current switch 46 is that it can be designed for relatively low currents even though it controls (through the triac 36) relatively high currents to be sourced to the load 30. In this way it can replace a more expensive high current switch that might be located in electrical series with the load.

[0076] Also shown in FIG. 5 is an indicator that can be added to the loss-of-ground detector to indicate when a loss-of-ground condition has occurred. The indicator consists of a neon indicator lamp 50 in electrical series with a limiting resistor 48 and connecting across the MT142 and MT244 terminals of the triac 36. When the triac is placed into a nonconducting state, as happens with a loss-of-ground condition, then when power is applied to the appliance, the potential difference between the hot conductor 24 and the neutral conductor 26 will appear across the resistor/neon combination, causing the neon 50 to turn on. This neon indicator lamp. 50 serves to notify the user of the appliance of a loss-of-ground condition. When a ground connection is present, the triac 36 conducts, essentially “shorting out” the neon 50 and causing the neon indicator lamp 50 to be in an off condition.

[0077] FIG. 6 shows a ground detect circuit that uses a low current/low voltage switch 52. This circuit also uses a type of thyristor called a silicon controlled rectifier or SCR 47 to demonstrate a different approach to the ground loss detection. In this embodiment, the silicon controlled rectifier 37 conducts in one direction only and always prevents electrical current flow from the cathode 43 to the anode 45. When the low current/low voltage switch 52 is in an open position, the operation of the circuit is similar to that described in conjunction with FIG. 2 except that when the system is correctly wired the load receives power only during the negative going half cycle when the ungrounded conductor 24 has a potential that is less than the grounded conductor 26. When the low current/low voltage switch 52 is in a closed position, it forces the SCR gate 39 to have the same potential as the SCR cathode 43. This forces the SCR 47 to be in a nonconducting mode. Accordingly, the role of the switch 52 is to control power to the load if a proper ground connection is present. One advantage to this configuration for power control is that the switch 52 may be a low cost switch designed for low current and low voltage operation. It is low voltage because internal to all SCR's there is a low impedance connection between the gate 39 and the cathode 43. Note that in this configuration the load 30 is on when the switch 52 is open and off when the switch 52 is closed.

[0078] FIG. 7 depicts a loss-of-ground detection circuit that imposes a dead zone in the load current at each zero crossing. In this circuit, back to back zener diodes 54 that are in electrical series with the triac gate 38, serve to induce the dead zone. The dead zone occurs because the back to back zeners 54 will block any current flow while the voltage magnitude across the back to back zeners 54 is less than the zener voltage. Gate current is allowed to flow when the voltage magnitude exceeds the zener voltage plus a diode drop. When the gate current is allowed to flow through the back to back zener diodes 54, it triggers the triac 36, thus providing power to the load. Once the triac 36 turns on or “fires”, the voltage between the triac gate terminal 38 and the ground conductor 28 will drop to less than about 2 volts thus causing the back to back zener diodes 54 to turn off and cease conducting. As in the discussion relating to FIG. 2, if a loss-of-ground condition occurs, the triac 36 will cease to be fired, thus turning off the appliance. Accordingly, the circuit in FIG. 7 gives loss-of-ground detection and can detect transposed hot and neutral conductors in addition to imposing a dead zone at zero crossings.

[0079] The circuit in FIG. 7 may be desireable because in some electrical systems, the ground conductor 28 and neutral conductor 26 may have a potential difference of a few volts. Since the back to back zener diodes 54 allow current flow only so long as their characteristic zener voltage is exceeded, after the triac 36 is fired, there is no ground current drawn through ground conductor 28 until the next half cycle. Accordingly, only brief pulses of electrical current are drawn from ground to fire the triac 36.

[0080] The FIG. 7 implementation is particularly helpful if the appliance with ground assurance is to be used in systems having a ground fault interrupt or GFCI. Such systems monitor ground currents and trip a circuit breaker if those currents exceed a threshhold level, typically 5 milliamperes. With the FIG. 7 implementation, the brief pulses that are used to fire triac 36 are not of sufficient duration or overall energy content to impact most GFCI circuits.

[0081] FIG. 8 depicts the current flow vs. time, through the load 30, using the circuit in FIG. 7. In FIG. 8 the load current is seen to follow an essentially sinusoidal AC profile except for a brief dead zone 56 just after each zero crossing.

[0082] Using the circuit in FIG. 7, during the times of a dead zone (when current flow through the triac 36 is essentially zero), any current flow from the hot conductor 24 will be indicative of an unintentional path around the triac 36. This unintentional path may represent a potentially dangerous situation such as a ground fault. This information can be used by a shock protection sensing circuitry in the plug to give shock protection in addition to open ground detection and transposed conductor detection. This is discussed in conjunction with FIG. 10.

[0083] FIG. 9 depicts an alternative loss-of-ground detection circuit in which the dead zone for detecting an electrical leakage is implemented by adding a voltage triggered bilateral silicon device (diac) 58 in series with the triac gate 38. When there are low magnitude voltages across it, a diac will block current flow. When the applied voltage exceeds a characteristic voltage magnitude, in either polarity, the diac will act like a short and will allow gate current to flow between ground and triac gate 38. Once the triac “fires”, the voltage between the triac gate terminal 38 and the ground conductor 28 becomes small and the diac 58 turns off. The circuits in FIG. 7 and FIG. 9 operate identically.

[0084] When used with the plug mounted fault interruption device depicted in FIG. 10, either of the circuits in FIG. 7 and FIG. 9 can serve as part of an electrical safety system that not only detects an open ground condition or a miswired appliance but also protects against injury due to ground faults. In FIG. 10, the hot prong 25, neutral prong 23 and ground prong 21 represent the three prongs that would be plugged into an outlet. The plug 20 has a hot side triac 66 that controls power out of the plug 20 and to the load 30. A hot to neutral fault 88, hot to ground fault 86 and load to ground fault 90 are depicted with dashed lines to indicate that these connections are not made by design, but, represent different potentially dangerous occurrences that can lead to hazardous electrical leakages (faults). In FIG. 10, any or all of these conditions can be recognized by the electronics encased within.the plug 20.

[0085] In FIG. 10, on each half cycle, in the absence the faults 86, 88, or 90, the resistor 78 serves to charge capacitor 70 until a voltage in excess of the turn-on voltage for the diac 68 is obtained. At that time, the diac fires, causing the hot side triac 66 to turn on and supplying power to the load 30 through conductor 82 for the balance of that half cycle. At the beginning of each half cycle, the hot side triac 66 turns off as the current through it makes a zero crossing. This triac 66 remains in an off condition until the capacitor 70 charges sufficiently. If, however, the hot to ground fault 86 is present, then during this off time, electrical current will flow from the hot prong 60, through the voltage divider resistors 80, through the hot to ground fault 86 to ground. If the hot to ground fault 86 is sufficiently low in resistance value, the current flow will be sufficient so that the voltage at node 92 will be high enough to trigger one of the Darlington transistors 74 or 76. This will cause the Darlington transistors to conduct, thereby discharging the capacitor 70 and preventing it from firing the hot side triac 66. The result is that for the balance of the half cycle, current will be inhibited from flowing to the load. A similar analysis can be used to show that a hot to neutral fault 88 or a load to ground fault 90 would result in the hot side triac 66 being turned off.

[0086] In practice, the resistors 80 would be chosen to be of sufficiently high. resistance that current flow through them would be at a very low level. Two Darlington transistors are necessary because of the symmetry of the circuit. Alternating half cycles will be positive and then negative. For positive half cycles, the Darlington PNP transistor 76 can be activated to inhibit triac 66 tun-on. For negative half cycles, the Darlington NPN transistor 74 can be activated. The steering diodes 72 serve to select the active transistor during each half cycle. The dead zone provided by the control 34 is necessary to the workings of the fault detection circuitry in the plug 20. At the beginning of every half cycle, the electronic circuit in the plug 20 is looking for a significant leakage before it turns on the triac 66. If the back to back zener diodes 54 were replaced by a resistor, there would be no dead zone in current flow through the load 30 and to the electronics in the plug 20, the load 30 would look like a fault.

[0087] Adding the ground assurance circuitry of the present invention to fault detection circuitry can enhance appliance safety. In particular, the fact that the ground assurance circuitry also can recognize transposed conductors gives a measure of safety. For example, if the hot and neutral conductors are transposed so that conductor 84 has a hot potential referenced to ground 28, then the triac 36 will not turn on. Accordingly, fault 88 will not be dangerous because the triac 36 will not conduct. Faults 86 and 90 will not be dangerous because in a transposed system they are located between neutral and ground and there is little voltage between neutral and ground potentials.

[0088] It should be recognized that although the above discussion has been directed at having ground detection circuitry in an appliance and optionally, ground fault protection at the plug, the technology can be applied to any combination of source and load within an electrical distribution system. For example, the ground detection circuitry could be at an electrical outlet, in which case, the outlet and whatever was plugged into it would serve as the load. The fault detection/interruption portion of the system could be located at a remotely located distribution panel. One of the key advantages of the present invention is that it uses conventional wiring schemes without the need for adding additional wiring, either between plug and appliance load, or between an arbitrary source location and load location.

[0089] Although the invention has been described in detail with particular reference to these preferred embodiments, other embodiments can achieve the same results. Variations and modifications of the present invention will be obvious to those skilled in the art and it is intended to cover in the appended claims all such modifications and equivalents. The teachings of all applications, articles, patents and other references mentioned above are herein incorporated by reference.