static electricity and dust lines

allen levine

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Ive been using my dust collector for Id say 1.5 years maybe?
Have all the plastic lines grounded, never had any problems.
Today, everytime I walked over to get a piece of wood coming out of the planer, whenever I touched the metal wheel or handle I was getting a shock.
I figure all this static electricity is not good, something is wrong.
Could not figure it out at all.


This morning, my son had helped me move some wood, and the loose long dust line(4inch hose) that I move around for planer and jointer, and hang when not in use, he curled up in a double circle and hung it and I just took the end and put it in planer.
That must have caused it, cause when I uncurled the line, no more shocks.
Interesting to me, dangerous to me. I was going to shut down the dust collector I was getting a bit nervous.
Was that the culprit?
 
Maybe since it was wound in a cicle the dust was rubbing the flex for a longer period of time there fore creating more of a static charge. Atleast that sounds good to me. My shop vac is like that sometimes. Sometimes I'll get zapped and sometimes nothing happens but I will pay attention next time to see if the hose is coiled.
 
Any chance your ground is bad, and the metal wire inside the flex contacted metal on your planer, and made a ground?

FWIW, all my DC plumbing is plastic, and it's NOT grounded. I've never had a problem.

Interestingly, I get shocked by the shop vac (a Fein) all the time.
 
I'm just curious, not knowledgeable; does the coil wire in the flex hose connect to the grounding wire on the plastic pipe? If not the discharge has no where to go until it jumps to the nearest candidate.
 
I've had this happen to me on my thickness planer that is hooked up to about 10' of flex hose, but only in the winter, as it is that much drier here, and only if I used a certain plug that is NOT grounded (all my other plugs are..... long story......) If I plug the planer into a properly grounded plug, no problem.

BTW, you cannot "ground" your PVC pipes, it is impossible to ground an insulator.:wave:
 
...BTW, you cannot "ground" your PVC pipes, it is impossible to ground an insulator.:wave:

You're right!

But running a copper wire through the pipe will (supposedly) dissipate the static, and if you connect both ends of the spiral wire in flex tubing to a ground, it'll (supposedly) dissipate static, too.

I had the braided wire running through my 4" plastic piping for several years, but got tired of having to clear it of clogs caused by planer chips catching on the braid, so I removed it, and have experienced neither clogging nor static problems.

Several studies over the years have concluded that the dust buildup needed to produce an explosion far exceeds anything that could conceivably generated in a one person hobby shop. If I recall, for several years back references to these surveys/studies were posted at SMC (I'm not sure, and I'm not welcome on SMC any more, so I can't verify it).
 
I guess I'd be wondering if the ground on your planer was connected or not. Typically electricity takes the least path of resistance and that seemed to be you instead of the electrical cord. That or you were the one building up the static and the ground is just fine. :D
 
I don't run any wires through my hoses and haven't had any problems with static shocks..but part of my dust lines are those metal flex hoses used for driers.. it lays on the floor behind a work bench and goes through a metal wall to connect to the DC fan... maybe enough grounding there to prevent any shocks...

In the right circumstances, static electricity shocks can be fun... when I first left the airlines and when to work for a forwarding company in SF, my office had a cheap nylon carpet... if you shuffled your feet you could build up a static charge that would be strong enough that you could see the spark.... if we had a salesman coming, I would shuffle my feet just before shaking hands.... interesting reactions from the salesmen...
it would back fire though... if I reached for a file cabinet, I got zapped... I developed the habit of slapping a file cabinet before I opened it... did that until I retired almost 30 years later... got a lot of funny looks from that over the years.
 
since certain types of plastic will build -up static electric when it rubs together-do the plastic builds -up static when the dust rub against the pipe

I love static electric, when someone walks into my charge elbow
 
I don't run any wires through my hoses and haven't had any problems with static shocks..but part of my dust lines are those metal flex hoses used for driers.. it lays on the floor behind a work bench and goes through a metal wall to connect to the DC fan... maybe enough grounding there to prevent any shocks...

In the right circumstances, static electricity shocks can be fun... when I first left the airlines and when to work for a forwarding company in SF, my office had a cheap nylon carpet... if you shuffled your feet you could build up a static charge that would be strong enough that you could see the spark.... if we had a salesman coming, I would shuffle my feet just before shaking hands.... interesting reactions from the salesmen...
it would back fire though... if I reached for a file cabinet, I got zapped... I developed the habit of slapping a file cabinet before I opened it... did that until I retired almost 30 years later... got a lot of funny looks from that over the years.


I hear that shuffling your feet on the carpet and then touching you cats nose gets an interesting reaction from the cat :eek: But this is all hearsay, you can't possibly prove that I actually did it :wave:
 
nothing has changed with my lines or anything. I was getting some shocks again today. Funny stu mentioned dry, because the last few days its been as dry as it could be here, temps are up over 60 today, and not a bit of humidity.
Im going to plug it in to another ground outlet next time and see if that helps.
 
I hope that it is not your clothes that is causing the static
if your electric wires are run thru. metal conduit then touch the conduit first to rule -out the probal. that you are producing the static
 
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Go here and click on static electricity under the ducting section, I would link directly to it but Bill pentz asks to only link to the main page
http://BillPentz.com/woodworking/cyclone/index.cfm

If i remember right basically it says that even under lab conditions it is basically impossible to cause an explosion. I have 6" PVC ducting with NO grounding wire, I have only gotten light shocks when using a 2.5" shopvac hose on the small planer, I have since permanently mounted the planer and now use a less than 1' piece of 4" flex hose connected to 4" PVC pipe and now I don't have any problem. The more friction that is caused by the pipe or hose the more static that will build up, smooth walled pipe with long sweep elbows or 45s will create less static and also not reduce you C.F.M. therefore giving you better dust collection.
 
I have never understood grounding or why it is necessary. My generator has a place to connect a wire to be grounded. Never did. No problems. But, I think I'll do it, can't hurt.
BTW, somewhere, sometime on a forum, mebbe here, there was a long discussion about static electriks. Final conclusion was that it isn't powerful enough to set of explosions, even with gasoline fumes.
If my memory is wrong, I'm sure someone will explode :eek: on me.
 
I had to use the planer again, but didnt want to create any dust in the garage since I have the oil drying on wood in there.
I rolled it outside and without any hoses hooked up to it, and that 735 blew that maple dust 30 feet, ooooooooppppppps, my neighbors yard was in the direct firing path. guess hell think twice when he blows all his crap onto my property with his leaf blower. or Ill plane down 2000 bf of wood close to his kitchen window with all this nice window open weather.
 
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