Off turns ON

Oct 06, 2007 4 Replies

Point 1: I wanted to build a simple device to tell if a single leg of a 240Vac



3-phase machine is dropping out momentarily. My first thought is a simple voltage divider (1/4watt resistors in series) across any two legs, pulling a small voltage off one of the smaller resistors, to a bridge rectifier, then to a flip-flop. I haven't figured out the rest but my idea was if the truth table on the flip-flop became odd (not even) momentarily it would light an LED from an SCR triggered by the output of the flip-flop. Point 2: I've encountered the dilemma of turning something on (an LED) if something else turned off (even momentarily) and never figured it out. This is for troubleshooting purposes, like say, I wonder if a 24Vdc powersupply fails, I want my LED to light up. Or if I lose a 5Vdc incoming voltage, I want my LED to light up. I know I'll have to build different boards for each scenario and power them with AA or 9V battery but I'm not sure where to start. I'll enclose each in a small sealed box with leads coming out and alligator clips on the end. If I suspect a 24Vdc problem, I pull that box out of my toolbox and hook the leads up to the + and - of the 24Vdc powersupply and then wait for the machine or whatever to fail, then I can go check my device and see if the LED is on, proving I lost 24Vdc at least momentarily. Any help is greatly appreciated, Bart

After you full-wave rectify the phase you\'re interested in, use that signal to trigger a retriggerable one-shot with a period slightly longer than one-half cycle. Then, if the one-shot times out, use that signal to trigger an RS flip-flop which will light the LED and keep it lit until you manually reset it.

Tried to email you. Thanks very much for the help.

I've tried emailing you twice at snipped-for-privacy@austininstruments.com concerning your offer for schematics. Is this the correct email address? Is there some other way of contacting you? Regards, Bart

I got your email this morning. Sorry for the delay, I\'ll get back to you some time tomorrow.

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