Instant Electric Circuit Breaker
The system aims to shut down the power supply as soon as it is overloaded. Current versions circuit breakers consist of MCB based circuits that operate on a thermal bimetal trip mechanism. The technique is quite slow and depends upon the overloading percentage.
The project is designed to sense system voltage drops and then constantly compare them with the default voltage drop presets using a level comparator in order to generate a load tripping output.
The electronic circuit breakers were built keeping in mind that MCB based systems take a quite long time to trip. So it becomes important that the trip time be as short as possible in order to protect the sensitive loads.
The project actively shows us how an instant tripping can be achieved. These load tripping systems are based on the concept of measuring voltage drop through a series element in proportion to load current.
The measured voltage is constantly measured by converting to dc and compared to predefined voltage by a level comparator in order to generate output capable of driving a relay through MOSFET for load tripping. The Instant circuit breaker system made using 8051 microcontroller is a lot faster as compared to traditional thermal MCB based system.