JAJU858 December 2022
This reference design implements a discrete version of residual current detection (RCD) capable of detecting two types of ground faults, AC current of 30 mARMS and DC current of 6 mA. This detection is enabled utilizing an auto-oscillation circuit along with a receiver filter circuit. For the auto-oscillation circuit, the DRV8220 H-bridge is used to drive the magnetic core in and out of saturation. In addition, a feedback circuit is used to determine when the core reaches saturation and switches the drive coil current in the opposite direction. This enables the design to detect small amounts of DC current with a single toroidal magnetic core. The receive filter stage is used to filter the auto-oscillation driving frequency and signal condition the fault current signal. This filtered signal is captured by the internal ADC of the MSP430 with a sampling rate of 25,000 samples per second. The signal highest and lowest values are stored over 10 ms to determine if the fault type is AC or DC. The AC and DC trip thresholds can be adjusted via software to support different regional specifications. If the stored values are above trip thresholds, the MCU outputs a GPIO high, which is intended to interface with a relay driver to trip the relay. The GPIO returns low when the fault current lowers below an adjustable hysteresis. A summary of the sub-circuits follows for the AC and DC leakage current detection circuit.
The following RCD description references component designators from the TIDA-010237 schematic. For a more detailed RCD description see the TIDA-010237 user's guide.