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Off the top of my head; 4N35
sorry for not making myself not clear enough. I actually have a power strip with 3 outlets which I will integrate with automated control from a micro controller (via SMS). Hence, whenever either socket has been activated manually from the push of a switch, I would like to let my micro controller know that the 240VAC flow is going through that particular socket . (Hence, I would need 3 detectors for the respective 3 outlets)
MikeML
Another way is to use a capacitor as the series current limiter which uses a big high-voltage capacitor as suggested in the post above, but dissipates almost no power.
ADWsystems
You can then use a capacitor (make sure you get one spec'ed to handle atleast 240VAC peak voltage, 340VAC I believe) to limit the current based on the capacitors AC impedence using Xc=1/wC.
MikeMl
The one I posted just has an LED emitter, you would just have to use a 1000piV diode to prevent the LED from seeing reverse voltage, and a series resistor to limit the peak current to about 25mA. The resistor would be dissipating a fair amount of power.
ADWSystems
I've not time to find one, but I know if you look at the optoisolators page in the digikey catalog you can find an opto with AC input in a heartbeat.
that is indeed a clever way..however, I would be leaning more towards the optocoupled method due to academic reasonstcmtech
A very simple way is to use those little neon bulbs to trigger basic photo resistors or transistors. Each socket would have its own indicator bulb that also triggers a photo sensor that in turn relays the signal back to the controller telling it that the circuit is active.
4pyros
Sounds like maybe the OP whats to detect current flow not voltage present? Witch is it?