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Anyone Else Have an Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) Problem in the Winter?

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J-Mac:
As soon as winter arrives and the heat goes on, I turn into "Electro-man"!

My family avoids me like the plague.  I don't even have to touch anyone;  if I just get too close the blue sparks fly, loud snaps are heard, and people are screaming at me!  "Snnaapp!! Oowww!  Get away from me!"  I look like a complete nut (in reality I am nowhere near complete, but I am trying hard) when trying to put my key in the door lock.  I try to turn on a light switch and it takes me forever, because I am putting my finger close and then pulling it away, until finally I flip it and get a giant blue spark jump out and try to take my finger off.

I purchased a little device that can go on a keyring, but I just carry it around my little finger like a ring.  If I touch that to something first it gets the shock, though occasionally it jumps right out the back and gets me too.  I have a "wireless anti-shock wristband" that doesn't help at all.  In every room I have a small electrostatic release pad attached to a receptacle's ground plug, so I can touch that before anything else in the room.  Whenever I wash my hands I get a blue spark jump out of the water stream when I get close to it.  All that anyone in the house hears from me during the winter months is, "SNAP!!  OUCH, @%^$$!!@&^!*^@*!&@^*!!!!!!".  Over and over again.

But I can still be destructive.  So far this year, even with me taking great care, I ruined a relatively small floor fan, the kind that oscillates and has a small remote control?  It was locked in a stationary position and someone had apparently bumped it so it was facing the wrong way.  It has a cage coated with vinyl or something, so I did not expect what happened next.  I reached out to reposition the fan by turning it a little and as my fingers got to within about two or three inches and a blue flash jumped out and met my fingertips.  Yeeooww!  Except the fan immediately turned of and has not started again.  I have no doubt that it is fried and will never work again.  It is still much better than past years, though, when I have fried a digital cable box, a Panasonic AM/FM receiver, CD/DVD multiplayer -- actually part of my home theater set up -- and a 40 GB Seagate pocket drive.  Sometimes something that I thought I fried will work again after a day's rest, but too many are ruined for good.

Has anyone else ever had such a problem?  I actually mentioned this to my physician once and he simply laughed.  One of these days I will reach out and touch his nose - see if he laughs then!   ;D

It sounds funny, I know.  But it truly is maddening!

Thanks.

Jim

app103:
Sounds like you need a humidifier of some sort in your house. I prefer the evaporative type.

Outside of your house, there isn't that much you can do.

Carol Haynes:
I have lots of static problems with my car (and have with all the different cars I have owned in the past) - the discharge strips you can dangle off the car don't seem to do anything for me so I presume it is me discharging rather than the car!

I also wear a lot of outdoor sports type clothing and find I get zapped nightly as I get ready for bed ... (not in a pleasant way I might add  :-[).

My cats also get shocks from me (which doesn't go down well but they forgive me pretty quickly for my quirky behaviour).

Don't know what the solution is - short of spending your life with bare feet on a floor that conducts to earth!

tinjaw:
Ditto what app said. You should also look at what you wear on your feet while walking around the house. If you can wear something with pure rubber soles.

J-Mac:
Sounds like you need a humidifier of some sort in your house. I prefer the evaporative type.

Outside of your house, there isn't that much you can do.
-app103 (January 08, 2008, 04:43 PM)
--- End quote ---

Got it via a central air conditioning unit that also controls humidity. Any more and we'll all be dripping!

Thanks.

Jim

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