I'm shocked!!!

[Don Robinson]

Since I put a ceramic liner on the platen of my Square Wheel belt grinder I have a big problem with static electricity.

I did the same with my Burr King, but haven't had any buildup of static electricity with it.

Now all you guys talked me into changing from using graphite belting on my platens, so please tell me how to deal with static electricity.

No, I don't want to wear a cuff, I get up and down from the machine all day.

My work shoes (sandals) have rubber soles.

What do I ground where???

Come to think about it, the Burr King machine is sitting on rubber. The Square Wheel isn't!

Think that's the answer??

By the way, I'm going to put graphite belting on the ceramic platens. Too much friction and not enough cushion to suit me.

[cwp]

Don,

Look up Van De Graff generators. You have just built one, it would be best to try and figure out a way to get the charge off the ceramic platen and to ground besides yourself. My Grizzly was horrible on a plywood table, my KMG is not as bad on a steel table. A conductive brush would probably be the best.

--Carl

[Sam Wereb]

Don,

I think you need to position your grinder so that your belt is aligned to magnetic North.

Sam

[TexasJack]

If you can ground that part of the machine, it would help, Don. But the easiest solution would be some antistatic spray. Spray the belts as well as the platen. Doesn't take much. They sell the stuff in the grocery store ("Cling Free) or any computer place ("Endust for Electronics"). Also, wiping it down with some detergent - like dishwashing liquid - will do the same thing. (Antistatic spray is a form of detergent.) Dryer sheets may work as well.

[Don Robinson]

Originally Posted by Sam Wereb

Don,

I think you need to position your grinder so that your belt is aligned to magnetic North.

Sam

Which way is that, Sam? I lost my boy scout compass 60 years ago and the Army made me turn theirs in when I left.

I'm fortunate to know which way is up most of the time nowadays.

[Ray Rogers]

I had the same problem after I set up my current shop but not at my former location. It's much colder here and usually fairly dry here. I raised the temp in the shop a little and between that and rubber soled boots haven't had that problem over the last few years....

[Don Robinson]

OK, a conductive brush, ground the machine, wipe it down, etc., but where do I ground it? I have no exposed electrical conduit, and I surely don't want to drill a hole in the floor for a grounding stake.

Somebody real smart give me another idea.

If I insulate the machine with rubber under it will that worK? It seems to work for the Burr King. But that seems backwards. I'd be the only way to ground then. ???

Maybe I ought to take a bath and get some of this dirt off me. Would that help? Maybe my Mom will spray me down with that Cling Free stuff.

What if I run a ground wire from the machine to the ground in the outlet it's plugged into?
1 ph 220V. It may not have a ground wire itself.??

I'm wearing myself and my machines out making all these projects for the Knet classes and I don't need to be knocked off my stool every time I use the Square Wheel. It does get my attention, though. Every time I simply walk past the machine I can't help cringing. And that makes me pee my pants!!

So what's the easiest permanent solution?

[cwp]

Don,

Most likely your grinder is grounded to the ground in the plug. The problem is the belt running over the platen, with this you get a static charge built up on the platen from the belt running over it. When you get close, you are the shortest path to ground, so you get the discharge.

The graphite tape may actually help, since it is conductive, esp. if you get it to the metal.

--Carl

[Frank Niro]

Hello Don.
All you need to clear the problem when it happens is to spray the moving belt litteraly for three seconds with some of that anti startic for clothes. If you take that belt of but use it again it will not require being sprayed again. It does a super job ! I do believe you will find the glass platten a very helpful thing! Frank

[Txcwboy]

Maybe its just your electric personality ?

Dave

[Don Robinson]

Originally Posted by Frank Niro

Hello Don.
All you need to clear the problem when it happens is to spray the moving belt litteraly for three seconds with some of that anti startic for clothes. If you take that belt of but use it again it will not require being sprayed again. It does a super job ! I do believe you will find the glass platten a very helpful thing! Frank

Hi, Frank. Maybe I should just spray all the hundred or so belts I've got hanging on the wall and be done with it. Just kidding, my friend.

I put rubber under the machine and its steel table today and it didn't shock me but the light mounted on the machine base did.

I'll get some of that spray and do that. My thanks to you and TJ for suggesting that. Simple enough, but now I'll smell clean!

I have 4 outstanding orders for barlow linerlocks and started two of them today. I did some grinding on the blades, liners, and backspacers on this machine, and the light still doesn't like me.

[Don Robinson]

Originally Posted by Txcwboy

Maybe its just your electric personality ?

Dave

I guess so.

I'm going to take TJ and Frank's suggestion and have my Mom get me some of that spray stuff and spray the belts, platen, and the inside of the light sockets with it.

NO NO, don't anyone else spray their lights. you might get killed. It doesn't matter much to the world if I go, but I don't want to take anyone else with me.

[TexasJack]

Back in the days when small computers were the size of a car, we had a problem with a disk drive at work. (It was 18" in diameter - a removable 10 MB. Laughable now.) The technicians tried this and that, but it kept having random failures. One day they brought along a new tech who had just transferred from the factory. There was a small plastic shield that covered the retractable heads. He took it off and threw it away. Problem solved. Turns out that the small amount of air flowing past it as the heads moved built up static electricity and in the dry air of the over-air conditioned computer room it would zap the heads from time to time. The new guy said that when disks were returned to the factory with this problem, they wiped the plastic off with some Dawn dishwashing liquid (straight out of the bottle), and sent it back to the customer with a $500 repair bill.

In the Houston area, we have so much humidity that static is rarely a problem (except in air conditioning.) It is said this is the only city where you can tie a knot in a frito.

Dryer sheets are also antistatic. You can wipe off your equipment with that and it may do the trick.

Here's a woodworker's trick along the same lines: Get a box of those Swiffer refils (those things you can use to dry mop the floor). They do a great job of removing sawdust from wood before finishing it and they don't leave any sticky stuff like a tack cloth.

[Don Robinson]

TJ, your story about the computer reminds me of the days when I programmed an IBM 360 computer. As you said, the computer and its peripheral equipment took up all the walls in a large room, and the vertical disk drives sat on the floor.

And that was in Houston, too. Around 1959. 42 miles one way commute every work day.

[TexasJack]

When I was in college, IBM upgraded their 360 with a 370. Sometimes as a joke guys would steal the waste from the punch card machines and use the 'chads' to fill someone's underwear drawer. The engineering school had an 1170 that would overheat and suddenly output to the wrong device - like sending the plotter data to the card punch. When I took my first job, I was handed the project to make data acquisition computers out of all these board-level components (2 years before the IBM PC came out). It was a shock not to have a card punch!

It was fun being on the cutting edge of technology, but a $10 pocket calculator could run circles around those old machines. I had several conference calls with Microsoft back in those days - complaining that their software didn't work as advertised. I probably talked to guys that are now billionaires. Now if you call MS, you probably end up talking to someone in Sri Lanka who will never be a billionaire. (But the software still doesn't work as advertised!)

Static electricity was a huge problem because the old chip sets put out a lot of heat and so the rooms were always chilled like a meat locker. With no humidity, static discharges of thousands of volts were possible and chips could be destroyed by hitting about 20 V. When companies tried to replace metal PC cases with plastic, they lost both cooling and grounding. Hence, ground wires and antistatic sprays were everywhere.

Its the same basic technology to get rid of the static on your new Van de Graff generator! By adding the ceramic, you've insulated the moving belt and it's building up a charge. Antistatic sprays are nothing more than long-chain polar molecules that line up and allow the charge to reach ground instead of reaching Don.