Quote:
Originally Posted by JDNovak
Years before RFID was mainstream technology I bought and installed a series of antennas to read tags tied to material conveying hoses. They were used to identify where the hoses were plugged. Almost immediately I had lockups and failures. I finally determined that static discharges were being received by the antennas and were actually damaging the receivers.
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I'm not an electrical engineer but I have hands on experience with switching material lines in the dry air of a Wisconsin winter at the sheet extrusion plant I'm employed at. I have felt those static discharges and I can see where it could affect sensitive electronic equipment.
Our forklifts all have short chains making a connection to the ground. Some of our product is
corona treated to improve ink adhesion for our customers in the graphics arts industry. Naturally, this makes our finished product contain a charge in spite of our efforts to reduce this with static bar systems further downstream. The chains are there so our forklift operators aren't the ones completing the circuit when exiting the vehicle after lifting the finished product off the end of the sheet stacker.
This is a great thread with a lot of good information to absorb. Our team is weak on electrical and I'm just trying to help them out any way I can.
EDIT: Those of you looking to reduce ESD using a small chain dragging on the ground may want to look into using
Static String instead. We also utilize this string to reduce static buildup on our extrusion lines.
Copper tinsel works as well and both items should have fewer issues with snagging on obstacles than a chain would.