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Registered Member #610
Joined: Wed Mar 28 2007, 09:44PM
Location: Middletown, RI
Posts: 110
Thanks, that all makes sense to me.
The other application for wanting to know what the mains impedance is, is that I would like to make a circuit that is able to detect if the lightswitch(s) in line with an outlet form an open or closed circuit, even if there is a power outtage. The idea was to make a simple AM modulator, use the house mains as a load in a voltage divider, and have a threshold detector comparing the rectified AM. This assumed that the impedance changes drastically between the switch open and closed position.
However, thinking a little more about this, there could be an unknown number of impedances connected in parallel with the mains I am measuring (other light bulbs, ballasts, transformers, etc) so the load is really unpredictable. Plus, assuming most of the loads are transformers, then at a high frequency they will look like open circuits. If there are lots of these then one switch adding the powerline transformer (another "open-ish looking load") in parallel isn't going to change the net impedance by a large amount. The other idea is to use a microcontroller that measures whatever the impedance is when the switch is turned on, and then detects any measurable difference from this, meaning that the switch was either turned off, or something else was added/removed from an outlet.
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Powerline Transformer Question