Patent attributes
A system and method for monitoring the health of a heater connected to a power supply by first and second power leads which conduct an inlet and outlet current, respectively. The system includes an injection transformer with a number of primary turns that are inductively coupled to the first power lead, a signal generator configured to generate and supply a time-varying injection signal to the primary turns thereby imposing the time-varying injection signal on the inlet current, and a signal reader configured to receive a diagnostic signal from the heater, filter the diagnostic signal to pass a frequency associated with the time-varying injection signal, and produce a heater capacitance signal that is indicative of a capacitance value of the heater, where the heater capacitance signal is indicative of the health of the heater.
