Just had the opportunity recently with another sign professional to have conversations with a professional with extensive experience designing / constructing /maintaining large scale data center environments regarding controlling work environments and the obvious benefits of doing so. There are many levels of controlling your environment and some will simply be too cost prohibitive under most instances, but he was a wealth of info. We spoke in depth about Static Electricity. His short answer in regards to miniimizing static electricity was to
-Control the humidity in your environment; Maintaining Relative Humidity around 60-70%
I have never seen a sign company maintain their environment on the levels that his industry demands nor would it be realistic to go that extreme in my opinion but it was obvious that any improvements would only improve a variety of common challenges. So if budget was no concern a totally controlled environment and ionized air would be at the foundation.
I have had to fight static many times in my sign career, especially when operating high volume UV screen printing equipment printing coro, acrylic, styrene, etc. we used a variety of techniques:
-ANTI STATIC MATS (in my opinion these kept operators from being subjected to sometimes painful static discharges but personally I didn't see any great reductions as a result of their use).
-on a fully automatic machine, we installed multiple in process options with various levels of success including a SHEET SEPERATOR and STATIC ELIMINATION BARS at feeding and stacking stages. It was a worthwhile investment but there were times of year that required additional efforts.
-for acrylic we used an IONIZED AIRGUN after the protective film was removed obviously not necessary for a low volume operation but at high volumes it was a time saver and minimized the static problems associated with acrylic.
-many people opt to use DRIER SHEETS as a low cost way to wipe down individual substrates and I have had success with this method but I have also had problems with contamination as a result of using them so it depends on your processes and levels of perfection required.
-on a dedicated machine for acrylic we also installed ANTI STATIC BARS (from Fraser) and IONIZED AIR.
-for individual sheets of substrate instead of DRIER SHEETS i have had success wiping with a damp rag.
-I have used various ANTI STATIC SPRAYS and have had wildly unpredictable results. Some work great some not at all but above all make sure to test your finishes (paint, print, etc) to make sure that they are compatible, some leave residues (slightly oily) some I have been unable to detect any residue but still had adhesion issues after use.
