Static when Touching Printer - how to remove..

[wolf]

Hi there I have an issue with my printer. I am getting white spots when printing. Its not fish eyes. Its started happening when I changed dampers I remember touching the on button on my Roland printer when I got zapped when I touched it.

There is lino on the floor and I have now connected a permanent earth connection which is connected to the printer and to my brick wall.

I did notice there was lots of tiny dust around the print heads when I checked it so I am thinking there could of been a static discharge.

Is there a way of removing static from the printer which I caused when I touched and zapped the printer?

Thanks

Joe

 

[Techman]

ground it

 

[Bly]

The power supply has an earth wire in it so unless your shop wiring is faulty the machine is already grounded.
Dry air will give a human body a static electrical charge. When you touch something metal which is grounded the static from your body will discharge to the metal. If you are going to touch sensitive electronic parts ground yourself first by touching the printer's frame.

 

[Techman]

cases are not grounded. He is shocked from the case.

 

[Bly]

cases are not grounded. He is shocked from the case.

Maybe, or more likely the case is grounded and he has static in his body.

 

[wolf]

Thanks for your help guys.

Joe

 

[Salmoneye]

If you have a concrete floor you can always work in your bare feet. I have seen printing presses where they hang strung garland like the crap that comes on a string and some folks wrap around a Christmas tree. This foil is hooked to something that is grounded and lies across the media path where it contacts a substantial portion of the surface and basically soaks up and conducts the static away. Might want to give something like that a try. I was going to hook a copper wire from my concrete to the top of my laminator and then hook the foil string to that and drape it horizontally against the laminate path somewhere. Or we could go out and buy a big humidifier.

 

[SoCalN8V]

This is not the exact product we've used (forgot the name) but it's very similar. http://staticure.com/?page_id=525

We use the static elastic cord that attaches across the back of our printer. It's fairly inexpensive and got rid of our static problem - no more shocks when we touch our printer and no more ink feathering on our prints.

 

[parkcityprinter]

The Staticure products do work. They also sell a wand that 3M uses in their plants. You can use it to ground yourself prior to touching the printer. If the operator's body is charged up with static, the only way to discharge is to metal. The wand attaches to the machine and can be used to discharge the operator. Fairly inexpensive.

 

[genericname]

For this very reason, we've set up conductive anti-fatigue mats in front of the control consoles of all of our printers, and when static is an issue, I wear conductive boot straps.