Ultrafast acting electronic circuit breaker

Abstract

- The smart ultra fast electronic circuit breaker is designed to work as an over current protection device. Conventional circuit breakers like miniature circuit breaker or a fuse is good at breaking the circuit when a short circuit fault occurs. But when an overload fault occurs, the tripping time is slow and depends on the percentage of overload. However, for sensitive loads it is very important to activate the tripping mechanism at the shortest possible time, preferably instantaneously. This project senses the current passing through a series element and the corresponding voltage drop is rectified to dc. This voltage is converted into a digital value and compared against a preset value by a microcontroller to generate an output that drives a relay to trip the load. The unit is extremely fast and overcomes the drawback of the conventional circuit breakers. It uses a PIC Microcontroller. The breaker will automatically reclose if itis a temporary fault and will alert the consumer via SMS if the fault is due to overloading. Furthermore, the breaker can be remotely closed by sending an SMS