Author Topic: static electricity  (Read 3186 times)

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Offline lewmed

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static electricity
« on: February 12, 2021, 01:10:52 PM »
 Has anyone here ever used a ESD ionizer to eliminate static electricity in their loading room ?

Offline Wobbly

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Re: static electricity
« Reply #1 on: February 12, 2021, 04:00:07 PM »
Once when I was in the Zargova galaxy, I was shot with an ionizer ray. But I don't think that what you're talking about.
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Offline SI VIS PACEM PARRABELLUM

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Re: static electricity
« Reply #2 on: February 12, 2021, 04:45:48 PM »
Has anyone here ever used a ESD ionizer to eliminate static electricity in their loading room ?
No it's not really a concern so much with primers and modern smokeless powders but if I was doing anything with black powder I'd make sure there was enough humidity to eliminate any static.

Offline lewmed

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Re: static electricity
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2021, 05:48:07 PM »
 The reason I was asking is last night my powder measure on my XL750 wouldn't drop the same powder charge twice it was + or - as much as .7 of a grain.  I've been reloading for over 40 years and have never had this happen before. I'm thinking it may be because I built a new loading room in my basement and my 96% gas furnace is in the next room and I have a return air vent over my loading bench. I've always had my equipment grounded the only thing that has changed is where I'm reloading. The humidity in that room is 16% and You can feel the static electricity the rest of my house is about 34%

Offline SI VIS PACEM PARRABELLUM

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Re: static electricity
« Reply #4 on: February 12, 2021, 06:31:16 PM »
The reason I was asking is last night my powder measure on my XL750 wouldn't drop the same powder charge twice it was + or - as much as .7 of a grain.  I've been reloading for over 40 years and have never had this happen before. I'm thinking it may be because I built a new loading room in my basement and my 96% gas furnace is in the next room and I have a return air vent over my loading bench. I've always had my equipment grounded the only thing that has changed is where I'm reloading. The humidity in that room is 16% and You can feel the static electricity the rest of my house is about 34%
Well you could try and humidify the room and see how it goes. I have heard complaints of static causing powder drop issues in the past. If you have a portable hotplate you could run a pan of water at a slow rolling boil to add moisture to the room and see what happens.

Offline lewmed

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Re: static electricity
« Reply #5 on: February 12, 2021, 07:11:59 PM »
 I did try running two small room size humidifiers in the room this morning and can't see any change I could see the vapor being sucked into the return air vent. That is why I asked the question about using a ESD ionizer I could direct the out put fan right on the powder measure.  Maybe I'm over thinking this whole thing and just need to wait for the weather to warm up. 

Offline bang bang

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Re: static electricity
« Reply #6 on: February 12, 2021, 08:08:38 PM »
did you try grounding the powder hopper too.  You can do it just as a band-aid and see if there is any change.

Also, look at wiping the outside of the hopper with some of those dryer sheets. they prevent static build up.

as far as the ESD fans, it may get spendy for a test.

If there was ANY static buildup you see it with the poweder/hopper.

good luck

Online M1A4ME

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Re: static electricity
« Reply #7 on: February 12, 2021, 08:37:53 PM »
When we lived in ND the winters were very cold, and very dry.  I remember my parents would keep a pan of water on one of the ducts coming off the gas furnace in the basement to add water/moisture to the air as the hot duct evaporated water.  Might try something like that.

My oldest son told me something that may seem hard to believe, but it has to do with gas furnaces/stoves and humidifiers.

He bought a humidifier to run in his condo due to the dry air issues this winter causing him some skin irritation (haha!  wait till he get to be old if he thinks dry skin in the winter is a problem when he's 40).  He got up the other morning and was going to cook some breakfast and when he turned the big burner on his gas stove on he noticed the flames were a weak yellow color, not the usual bright blue.

He suspected the air mixture adjustment for that burner and shut it off (yellow flame tips can result in increased CO being generated due to inproper burning of the gas).  Then he tried all three of the other surface burners and found the same thing on all of them.  He didn't believe he had somehow gotten all 4 burners mixture adjustments to go wonky all at the same time.

He sat down and began to surf the internet looking for reasons for yellow flame tips on a gas stove/burner.  He said the fifth article he found suggested high humidity can cause this issue.  The next night he left the humidifier off and the following morning the flame tips on all four burners were normal, bright blue.  After breakfast he turned the humidifier back on and left for work.  When he got home he turned the stove on again and it was back to yellow tips on the flames.

Something to think about if it gets "too" humid.  I'm supposing some of the better humidifiers my have a combination on/off setting with a gauge to read humidity and be able to control it within a range vs. "not enough" or "too much."  I don't know that as I've never bought one or fooled with one.
I just keep wasting time and money on other brands trying to find/make one shoot like my P07 and P09.  What is wrong with me?

Offline Wobbly

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Re: static electricity
« Reply #8 on: February 13, 2021, 12:12:48 PM »
I'm thinking it may be because I built a new loading room in my basement and my 96% gas furnace is in the next room and I have a return air vent over my loading bench. [snip] The humidity in that room is 16% and You can feel the static electricity the rest of my house is about 34%.

Something isn't right. How can a forced air furnace supply different grades of air to different parts of the house ?
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Offline Dan_69GTX

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Re: static electricity
« Reply #9 on: February 16, 2021, 09:44:30 AM »
The same way different students in the same class with the same teacher get different grades?!?   O0

But....
I guess the question would be what is the temp in that room vs other areas or how much air flow there vs rest of the house.   Is the measurement relative humidity or absolute humidity?  Also I've seen too many humidistats that are not properly "zeroed" and having them in the same room next to each other they show different numbers.

Or not enough coffee.....which is not my problem.

Speaking of which....time to pee.
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Offline bang bang

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Re: static electricity
« Reply #10 on: February 16, 2021, 01:23:03 PM »
The same way different students in the same class with the same teacher get different grades?!?   O0

But....
I guess the question would be what is the temp in that room vs other areas or how much air flow there vs rest of the house.   Is the measurement relative humidity or absolute humidity?  Also I've seen too many humidistats that are not properly "zeroed" and having them in the same room next to each other they show different numbers.

Or not enough coffee.....which is not my problem.

Speaking of which....time to pee.

true.

at work in our environmentally controlled environment, my lead gathered up all of those devices, put them on his desk and let them sit for a couple hours to acclimate.   Then took a photo and sent to upper manangment.  That stuff hit the fan big time. I was surprised at the variation.  Temps were close but the humidity was off.

but what it came down to is that Facilities that has the final say and the controls.  Also,  It makes it easy to read the reading at one source. 


Offline lewmed

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Re: static electricity
« Reply #11 on: February 16, 2021, 01:59:48 PM »
 I had a talk with my heating and air guy and he said I was the cause of most of the problem.  My new heat and A/C is designed to work with the fan set to run 24/7 it's a DC motor and will just kind of idle when the heat or a/c are not running to keep air moving through the house and I had set to just run when the heat or air were on. I had also closed many of the vents in the unused parts of the house a few months ago after my wife had passed thinking it would save energy. So I set the fan to run 24/7 opened all the vents and had a whole house humidifier installed yesterday. This morning I bought two new hygrometers and it looks like the humidity level is starting to balance out.
 The good news is the guy that installed my humidifier is a shooter and wants to learn to reload so we worked out a deal. I'll start teaching him to load on a single stage press and he can just pay for the supplies he uses. He was about to buy 500 rounds of 40 S&W for $705 I don't shoot 40 S&W anymore but still have about 20,000 brass cases and many 165 and 180 gr bullets this could be good for both of us.

Offline bang bang

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Re: static electricity
« Reply #12 on: February 16, 2021, 04:33:45 PM »
I had a talk with my heating and air guy and he said I was the cause of most of the problem.  My new heat and A/C is designed to work with the fan set to run 24/7 it's a DC motor and will just kind of idle when the heat or a/c are not running to keep air moving through the house and I had set to just run when the heat or air were on. I had also closed many of the vents in the unused parts of the house a few months ago after my wife had passed thinking it would save energy. So I set the fan to run 24/7 opened all the vents and had a whole house humidifier installed yesterday. This morning I bought two new hygrometers and it looks like the humidity level is starting to balance out.
 The good news is the guy that installed my humidifier is a shooter and wants to learn to reload so we worked out a deal. I'll start teaching him to load on a single stage press and he can just pay for the supplies he uses. He was about to buy 500 rounds of 40 S&W for $705 I don't shoot 40 S&W anymore but still have about 20,000 brass cases and many 165 and 180 gr bullets this could be good for both of us.

good deal...

its great you have/had a chance to do some testing and measuring....

from my classroom time in HVAC years ago now, the HVAC systems are designed to run "hot" so to speak or 80%+ capacity and they like it better that way and are more efficient.

If you live in a high humidity area, i can see why running 24/7...since humidity will ALWAYS be present and if you turn off anything, then it has to play catchup...

but it will be interesting to see how it works out in the end.


Offline Wobbly

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Re: static electricity
« Reply #13 on: February 17, 2021, 11:07:04 AM »
I need one of those DC blowers ! I love to 'stir the air' too, but my wife hates ceiling fans. She can be headed to  the basement for 4 -5 hours, but if she simply walks through the living room the fan gets turned OFF.
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Offline lewmed

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Re: static electricity
« Reply #14 on: February 20, 2021, 01:43:08 PM »
 Last night I reloaded some 124gr. 9mm jhp ammo and was still getting inconsistent powder drops with Sport Pistol I changed powder measures and that didn't help so this morning I borrowed a ionizer fan from a friends electronic repair shop. I placed it with it's fan blowing right on my Dillon powder measure and run three test of ten drops each of 4.2 grains of Sport pistol using my Gem Pro 250 scale the results were 42.71 - 42.36 -42.47 grains. My friend has run four of these little machines in his shop for a couple years and says he got them from E-bay. The machine is a Dr. Schneider PC SL-001 I'm buying one even if I only need it a few times it's worth the $60 investment.