LED on mains voltage?

[KatieandDad]

I want to monitor the presence of voltage on each of the three phases in my house (230/415Vac). We suffer very frequent power cuts.
I can put in a diode followed by a resistor then a LED.
The resistor dissipates quite a lot of power. or
I could use a constant current source but it would need to be Hi Voltage. or
I could wire in three transformers & then LED at low volts.
I don't like any of my solutions.
Can anyone suggest a cheap, safe & simple circuit?
regards Andrew T.

You suffer very frequent power cuts, something wrong there. I've not had a power cut in the UK in the last 40 years.

 

[audiostrat]

That should be OK. Keep the holes a reasonable distance away from any exposed mains.

"Inflammable" is a strange English word: it looks like a negative (not flammable) but is actually a positive (very flammable). Safety people here are trying to get rid of the word and just use 'flammable' instead. I think you meant to say 'non-flammable'?

Yes, the holes should be about 5 cm minimum away from any mains circuitry.

Thanks for pointing that out, I meant non-flammable.

 

[AndrewT]

You suffer very frequent power cuts, something wrong there. I've not had a power cut in the UK in the last 40 years.

I had one this morning. Just 30seconds until the automatic retry succeeds.

The previous were 4th March, 26th February and twice on the 25th February for 3.75hrs and 4.9hrs.
The Power Supplier has never paid any compensation.

Thanks for bringing back an old topic.

I did not go ahead with designing and fitting the monitoring LEDs.
Instead I built a clock to monitor how long the mains is OFF on one phase. That's how I got the second timing on the 25th (I was out when it went off the second time).

 

[gmphadte]

100K resistor, 1N4148 and an LED is all that is needed to connect an LED on mains. Connect the diode anti parallel to the LED, resistor in series to these.

Gajanan Phadte