A method to determine a state of health of an electrical control component of a vehicle, the electrical control component comprising at least two electrical contacts, the at least two electrical contacts being configured to be in a closed status when the electrical control component is activated, or in an open status when the electrical control component is not activated. The electrical component further comprising at least one sensor configured to determine if the status of at least two contacts is open or closed, the method being implemented by an electronic control unit determining, via the at least one sensor, that the status of one of at least two contacts is closed and that another one of at least two contacts is open; incrementing a value of a first counter; determining a first state of health of the electrical control component based on the value of the first counter.

Test device having a signal input with a positive pin and a negative pin, between which an-input signal may be applied. Test device has a separation unit which is connected to the positive pin and to the negative pin and is configured to separate a positive signal component in the form of a positive track from the input signal, to output said signal component at a first pin, to separate a negative signal component in the form of a negative track from the input signal and to output said signal component at a second pin. The use of the test device to test a control unit of the switching device is described, wherein the test device simulates the switching device, the signal input of the test device is connected to the control unit and the control unit outputs an input signal to the signal input.

Circuit test devices and methods are provided. The method includes measuring a voltage between first and second conductor points (CPs) of a circuit under test (CUT), and determining if the measured voltage is less than a low voltage threshold value (LVTV) indicative of electrical continuity (EC) between the first and second CPs. In response to determining that the measured voltage is less than the LVTV, the method includes: transmitting a test signal (TS) to the first or second CP, and determining if the test signal is received after being transmitted. In response to determining that the TS is received, a presence of EC between the first and second conductor points is reported, and in response to determining that the TS is not received, absence of EC between the first and second CPs, or a lack of electrical contact between the VMC and the first and/or second CP(s), is reported.

A branch fault analysis system is described that identifies a source of a fault such as arc fault or ground fault event in a communicating panel. The system comprises an application running on a mobile device is configured to display a physical location and conditions experienced by each electronic circuit breaker. The system further comprises an electronic circuit breaker including trip identification means to clearly identify a branch that resulted in a breaker trip event, record and relay this information to the mobile device for an end user and one or more proximity sensors to achieve the physical location of the electronic circuit breaker in a panel. A load current, a voltage and noise levels are continuously monitored and displayed in the application with time stamps. In an event of a trip condition, the application uses conditions of the time stamps to highlight the branch that resulted in a trip.

A load control device includes an energization circuit unit connected between a power source and a load and configured to switch ON and OFF of energization of the load, a failure detection unit connected to a downstream side of the energization circuit unit, a current interruption unit connected to an upstream side of the energization circuit unit and configured to interrupt supply of current of the power source to the energization circuit unit based on an input from the failure detection unit, and a control unit configured to supply an ON-OFF control signal to the energization circuit unit. The energization circuit unit includes a first semiconductor switch and a second semiconductor switch which are connected in parallel to each other. The control unit supplies a common ON-OFF control signal to the first semiconductor switch and the second semiconductor switch.

A high speed arc suppressor and method include a first phase-specific arc suppressor configured to suppress arcing across contacts of the power contactor in a positive domain and a second phase-specific arc suppressor configured to suppress arcing across the contacts in a negative domain. First and second high speed switches are configured to enable and disable operation of an associated one of the first and second phase-specific arc suppressors. First and second drivers are configured to drive the first and second high speed switches.

Method and device for monitoring an electrical load connected to a power supply, with first and second current paths, each having an actuating element, the current transmission capacity of which is alterable by an actuating signal, wherein the operating state of each actuating element is characterized by a voltage drop and the actuating signal. An open-loop control device is configured to activate the actuating elements, at least at measuring intervals spaced apart from one another in time, and evaluate values of the electrical variables obtained for detecting a malfunction of the actuating element, wherein one of the two variables is held at a prescribed value, and the values of the other variable are correlated with one another. A field-effect transistor is activated such that the transistor is not connected through, but rather that a greater voltage drops across the transistor than would be the case in the connected through state.

Disclosed is a chip for detection of basic electric leakage on a residual current protector. Basic electric leakage can be understood as an electric leakage signal which is generated during normal operation of an electrical appliance and cannot cause a residual current protector to trip out. The chip for detection of basic electric leakage includes a peak detection circuit, a 20 ms clock generator, a 60 ms delay circuit, a 2.5 V reference voltage module, a register module, a comparator module, a counter, a digital subtractor, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) module, a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) module, an analog adder/analog subtractor, a selection circuit, and a circuit for delayed resetting. The present disclosure can identify and eliminate a basic electric leakage signal from an input electric leakage signal, and will not affect normal operation of a load during detection, determination, storage, and output of the electric leakage signal.

An apparatus includes a plurality of surge protection devices (e.g., multiple metal oxide varistors connected in parallel) configured to be coupled to a power system, a plurality of mechanical actuators associated with respective ones of the surge protection devices and configured to indicate status of the associated surge protection devices, and a detector circuit configured to sense actuation of the actuators and responsively determine a protection status of the plurality of surge protection devices. The detector circuit may include a plurality of switches configured to be actuated by respective ones of the actuators. The detector circuit may further include a processor coupled to the plurality of switches and configured to determine states of switches and to determine the protection status based on the determined status of the switches. The processor may be configured to interpret the status of the switches based on a stored identifier.

An arc suppressing circuit configured to suppress arcing across a power contactor coupled to an alternating current (AC) power source having a predetermined number of phases, each contact of the power contactor corresponding to one of the predetermined number of phases includes a number of dual unidirectional arc suppressors equal to the predetermined number of phases of the AC power source. Each dual unidirectional arc suppressor includes a first phase-specific arc suppressor configured to suppress arcing across the associated contacts in a positive domain, a a second phase-specific arc suppressor configured to suppress arcing across the associated contacts in a negative domain, and a coil lock controller, configured to be coupled between a contact coil driver of the power contactor, configured to detect an output condition from the contact coil driver and inhibit operation of the first and second phase-specific arc suppressors over a predetermined time.