Static electricity in a studio...

They make floor mats specifically for dissipating static electricity buildup.

Da' ain't cheep though. :)

But well worth it if it's a situation like yours.

Hmmm $100 bucks for a floor mat ... or $3,000 for a DAW and 4 days of heartache setting it back up. Hmmm? :-)

I always discharge myself on a metal cabinet such as the chassy of a rack mount compressor or mic pre. Something solid state like that is relatively safe to discharge yourself on. I've blown so many things up over the years just by touching them, it's not even funny. I blew up a $7,000 copier one time just by walking up to it and tapping the touchscreen to wake it up out of sleep/energy saver mode.

Of course, you have to make sure you have proper ground at your new place. A rule of thumb is less than .3VAC between Neutral and Ground. Technically there should be none, but there is an accepted tolerance level, at least there was when I was working on sensitive electronics. .3 was what all the manufacturers say is the limit when you check the power source for copiers.

If you are using a power strip, check the ground at it's outlets. The #1 grounding problem I saw was power strips that start going bad, they have a tendency to cause the ground to go bad and I've seen them go as high as 5VAC from N - G.

Can ya tell I'm bored this morning and rambling on? LOL!

I really should go do something constructive. :)

Good luck with that!

It's just that time of year. I get sparks when I put my key in the lock sometimes. And touching an elevator button after having walked on carpet? Zap. Can't pet kitties either. 

Same thing here....

low humidity and dragging my butt outta the chair charges me up every time. 

So it's good practice to find something grounded.... in my case that is the chassis of an under counter light in the studio. Or the on/off toggle switch on my amp.... or anything else grounded. I get that little spark and then it's OK to proceed touching the laptop, the DAW, and anything else connected to the DAW.

I've forgotten plenty of times and nothing has happened but it really only takes one time to punch a hole in the barrier of one silicon transistor to screw things up royally. Surge protectors work on the power coming in from the wall.... not on the surge you introduced into the mic moving back down the cable towards the inputs..... 

Make it a habit to discharge during spark season. 

Herb has a great point,

Our PMEL Lab for equipment had a copper plates grounded and each entry used to discharge (by touching) prior to entering the calibration rooms.

That's a little more than a friendly static zap there Beepster. :)

If ya have access to a volt meter, I'd check out that neutral to ground voltage. :)

Oh and when that really bad one happened I was handling some blankets that get staticy in the best of conditions so it was like a double whammy. Cheers.

 Those baseboard electric heaters do a really good job of drying out the air and the surrounding objects. When the air is dry things tend to become more prone to static electricity. If you come in there wearing rubber soled shoes rubbing them on the floor it charges you like a big capacitor. Carpet is notorious for collecting charges. I'm guessing that Laminate flooring collects it too.

 I had a spark  jump off a microphone onto my nose one time after I had walked 30ft wearing a pair of big rubber sole sneakers. I don't know how much voltage I accumulated but it was enough to send a lightening stalk 2" into my nose. I had a little red circle on my nose for awhile, made a little popping sound. I thought maybe I had experienced the holy ghost for a minute there ;-) The slow motion photography would have been interesting to watch with me wailing in one of those deep low kung foo voices right before the punch.

 I'm sure glad toilets or loos aren't made of metal.

Here's a tip I learned because I hate the same thing:  Keep one of those dryer sheets (like Bounce Free) with you and rub yourself or other things down.  I like to wear fleece coats and, when I take them off, I'm ripe to get zapped so I just do a quick wipe down with a sheet I keep in my pocket and... no zaps!

The charge that builds up is just like lightning..... caused by the friction of two objects passing each other. It just has a much lower voltage potential in your room.... it's still capable of a few hundred to over a  thousand volts.... but with very low current. 

In my case it's cotton jeans sliding across a polyester chair's seat cushion.... it drags enough electrons loose to make a > 1/4" or so spark on the other end.  Still, that's a several hundred if not a thousand volts or more,  rushing to ground through my equipment. If the gear is on, when this occurs, you will hear the "pop" in the speakers.... that indicates it got into the audio path..... 

Just touch something grounded. 

Or, it is really bothersome.... do what they do in many labs..... go to an electronics store and buy a grounding strap and put it on before to start working.  It is a bracelet kind of a thing with a wire attached to a clip. The clip attaches to a grounded item.... could be with a screw or with an alligator type clip. It is constantly discharging the static build up in your body to ground. If you have the kind of chair I do, it might be worth investing in one of those things.... a few dollars at most. 

Didn't some of those bracelets come without a grounding wire though? A friend of mine got one when he bought parts for his computer. It was just a bracelet with no wire. I always wondered how in the hell it was supposed to work. 

I seem to recall the cheap ones having a lead with a sticky part that you'd stick to the grounding point. Been so long since I've seen one though I can't remember. That was before I actually made any building attempts.

urgh... intercom issues and hanging curtains. Static light shows are always cool... but not near gear.

Why no more avatars, bub? Are you still out of love with us? :-(

Oh... I didn't mean the intercom and curtains were getting screwed up because of static if that's what you meant. I was just moaning about other annoyances. 

But yes... it is extremely dry in here. I think I might snag the infrared heater and see if using that instead of the baseboard heat helps. I worry about that thing though. It supposedly permeates everything in the room and heats it up. Doesn't sound good for gear but it didn't asplode anything in my old room. 

Beepster



I got one zap yesterday that went through my jeans and long johns into my knee that felt like I got tap by a doctors medical hammer. Crazy.

That's pretty intense for static. Reminds me of our room in Spain. I'm sure the wiring was totally messed up in that place - it was living inside a giant electro-magnetic-whatsoever. 


How's your guitar doing? My usually relatively quiet humbucker was buzzing non-sense in that room. I remember one time I heard this weird noise just before both of the lamps on each side of the bed went poof!

Keeping my hand a few millimeters over the laptop (one of those those aluminum MacBook Pro), I could actually feel the static. I'd get shocks from kissing my wife whenever she had the laptop on her.

Beepster

Why no more avatars, bub? Are you still out of love with us? :-(

Fixed.