wireless ac mains detection circuit

I searched for " wireless ac mains detector circuit " using Bing and found a circuit that uses a CD 4033 . You probably have already found the same circuit. You could power it from your generator because you probably do not care about being able to know if you have mains power unless you are running your generator. I did not find anything already assembled

Dan.

Correction. I did not find anything that is intended to be used for mains voltage detection and priced under $10. Dan

Optical. Put a LED light across the utility power coming in (with a line as you are bridging before the main breaker) and a bit of plastic fiber-optic cable to bring the indicator to a convenient place to see if the light is on or not.

Joe Gwinn

So, to be clear, this is a WHOLE HOUSE genset?

In other words, you don't have electrical access to the mains at any point outside of the genset's connection (like if you were just powering a subpanel for PART of the house; or, a few specific appliances directly powered from the genset while the rest of the house stays dark)

But the GDO is not going to get any power when the mains return because you've isolated the WHOLE HOUSE, right?

What you want is to sense the field in the mains cable. IIRC, Home Depot makes sniffers that do that. Position it near the mains drop and "remote" the indicator(s) on the sniffer to someplace more convenient.

What does that involve, "rejecting the generator votage" ?

What output do you want? Lighting an LED or yanking a relay if AC is present on a wire is easy.

Prices vary from about $20 to $120. The higher end version include certifications required to convince your insurance company that the fire was not caused by the breaker interlock kit.

The interlock is designed to prevent BOTH the generator and utility power being connected together at any time. When your system is running on generator, and the house is connected to the generator, all you need is a 117VAC light bulb on the utility side of the interlock. Then the light is on, utility power is present. Actually, you might need two lamps if you're switching duplex circuit breakers, as is common in the USA. It is possible for only one phase power to return, instead of both phases. Also, you might want to include a voltmeter, which is useful for detecting a low voltage brown-out or when some idiot is backfeeding power to the entire neighborhood from his generator.

You will NEVER had both utility and generator power turned on at the same time. Even if the generator is running and utility power is present, the interlock will mechanically prevent a connection. Therefore, you will not have a situation where you have to independently detect utility and generator power. One (or two) lamps on the utility side is all you need.

Incidentally, if you do manage to connect utility power and generator power together, I have (somewhere) some rather impressive photos of what's left of the generators and inverters which might convince you that this is a really bad idea.

Optoisolator(s) and run battery powered lights to the house and/or control panel. You'll need some way to turn it off while the generator is running and you're waiting for utility power to return. An on/off switch to the lights is sufficient. Noisemaking devices will also work, but will probably be unpopular with the neighborhood.

How do you access the mains *upstream* of the main circuit breaker (because the main breaker is OFF while the genset is in use)?

Go online and look at the power company outage map. If it says, you're down, you're down, and if it says you're up, you're up. This is 2021 already, give it a try.

Thanks for the many response guys. I'll try to answer all of the question and clarify what I'm intending to do. This is simply so I don't need to look out my window and see if the neighbors lights are on if the outage is during the day.

I don't have a automatic transfer switch so when the lights go out I have to walk out to the breaker box (about a 20 ft breezeway walk into my detached garage), and flip the main breaker off. Then I can slide my the little aluminum plate that is blocking my 40 amp breaker that is connected to the 10Kw generator 240V output to the ON position. I switch off the big load breakers and leave only the lights switched on. then I have to go out to the generator and fire it up then enable the output switch. this energizes the light load (pun intended). Then once the generator has warmed up a little I switch in the higher current loads including the air conditioner (I have a Hyper Engineering soft start installed to reduce the startup current surge and make it generator friendly).

Once that is done, the wife and kids are happy.

Meanwhile I find myself walking outside to spy on the neighbors to see if they are still outside or have migrated inside. The biggest question when the lights go out is "are they back on yet?"

Looking at my breaker box I have easy access to a foot of each leg. The enter the box near the bottom and travel up each side then loop down towards the top of the bus bars that the breakers snap into.

I can easily wrap or tape insulated wire to this to "sniff" the AC coming in. My concern (I haven't done this yet) is the house circuit wires to cross the mains wires in the box. These circuit wires will have voltage from the generator which couple into the mains wire (not sure what the impedance if a mains line during an outage is. (open ckt at the meter or connected to transformer) set a threshold. All of this can be worked out during implementation phase.

At the end of the day I do not want to electrically connect to the mains but I'm OK taping insulated "sniffer" antenna wires to them. These can be brought out to a box that has the rest of the detection circuit. I was planning on adding a pigtail to my door level switch and simply velcro that switch to my new box and connect it in. This will give me a green or red light in my kitchen that I can just glance it and tell of the power is on.

I'm just pinging you guys for either a kit somewhere out there that does that same thing or another approach that is simpler. I will not electrically tap into the main line before the main breaker.....because I chicken. :) Anything connected to that, that fails and catches fire could burn the house down. Witness the 10 lizard carcasses in the fuse box. :) I left a few in there is a warning to self. EE degree only needs to be overuled by stupid for a short period of time before something bad can happen. :)

Ummmm... If he's offline he can't go online to check the map. If he's online he doesn't nee to check.

lol!

sometimes we have internet when the power goes down for extended times ans sometimes not. cable internet only last a few hours. verizon 4g. let etc gets jammed and is rediculous slow,

I might plug a shoplight into my neighbors outside outlet, :)

Yes, and I forgot that cellphones can get you on the internet as well.

Good idea. One could also use a neon light (or a few, in case of lamp failure) with whoppin' big resistors. For extra credit, mount a cheap WiFi camera where it can relay the light signal to your... phone, or pad, or whatever.

At my house the smart power meter has a display, a WiFi camera looking at it would tell me enough to inform a reconnect decision.

Can you access the drop *before* it gets INTO your panel? E.g., here, it isn't possible because our services are below grade; the feed comes *up* from the ground in a metal conduit. In other places I've lived, the SE cable was fastened to the exterior wall of the house, unarmored.

I have the same interlock as you. This is what you want:

Here's a youtube video of it: Ed

"The PowerBACK! Has a flexible eight-inch current sensor at the end of a

22-inch jacketed lead. When wrapped around one of the hot legs to the main circuit breaker, the sensor will detect the returning utility current and activate the sonic alert."

What returning utility current? The breaker is off - there's no current being drawn.

Sylvia.

You noticed that, too, eh?

It only works on setups that don't backup/isolate the WHOLE HOUSE.

I wondered whether they were using the term "current" rather loosely, and were actually detecting the electric field.

After all, even if the entire house isn't isolated, there may still be no current draw in the part that's still connected to the grid. At least, in any house not occupied by teenagers.

Sylvia.

It's the most reliable internet and communications method. Modern alarm systems use it extensively for intrusion detection, reporting, surveillance and uploading video to cloud storage. Hard wire, which can be cut is gone, cable is a holdover from the stone ages. The power company outage map is very reliable too. Smart Meters, which everyone should have by now, report loss of power to the utility base station wirelessly, meaning the power company has very detailed knowledge of the status of every single one of their accounts. People are not required to call into to report an outage. Maybe someone can hack the Smart Meter interface.