Earth Fault Indicator


Posted on Feb 6, 2014

The security of many electrical devices depends today on the availability of an earthed mains outlet. We should remember that these are connected to the frame or to the metal housing of the equipment and so it routes to the protective earth (PE) connections. In this setup, mains voltage, however small, will cause the differential circuit breaker t


Earth Fault Indicator
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o trip. The circuit breaker is part of any modern electrical installation. This type of security device may however become defective due to common corrosion as we have seen many times on various older household devices, as well as on construction sites. Actually, since these devices are frequently in wet conditions, the screw and/or lug used to connect the earth wire to the device frame corrodes gradually and ends up breaking or causing a faulty contact. The remedy is then worse than the problem because the user, thinking that he/she is protected by earth, does not take special precautions and risks his/her life. However, all that`s needed is an extremely simple system to automatically detect any break in the earth connection; so simple that we ask ourselves why it is not already included as part of all factory production for appliances that carry any such risk, as we have discussed above. We propose it as a project for you to build using this schematic. The live wire (L) of the mains power supply is connected to diode D1 which ensures simple half-wave rectification which is sufficient for our use. The current which is available is limited to a very low value by resistor R2. If the appliance earth connection to which our circuit is installed is efficient, this current is directed to earth via resistor R1 and the rest of the circuit is inactive due to insufficient power. If the earth connection is disconnected, the current...




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