LocostUSA.com

yes i know that with many modern cars you can "get a jolt from my electrode" when you get out.

that is only part of my problem, the car is a chrysler but it happens to most cars out here, being in a desert, there is a lot of sand, this stuff seems to leap on to my car even when its parked in my shop with the doors shut, you could shovel the stuff out of the door shuts and inside the rear lights.

in my locost it fills every appeture and sticks to the car like it was covered in wet glue, the bodywork and the interior will be covered every time i take it out, it even gets into the instrument cluster.

so i think i will get a california duster but the parafin wax dries out in about one summer so that isn't the solution.

now we are getting strange here when i ask, has anyone heard tails of peoples kids that won't go to sleep unless they are in the car, and they go right off to sleep.

well it seems that having asked several of my friends who live here, they do seem to think they fall asleep at the wheel more often than would be normal but put it down to,
a. being old.
b. a long boring drive from the nearest town to home,
c. it is usually at the end of the day

but when pressed, they will admit to it happening in the morning or any time of the day and it doesn't just happen towards the end of a journey so this eliminates the "long boring drive" and "the end of the day" as reasons and given that they are not all old farts like me, there goes the last excuse.

i had considered the change in altitude as a potential customer with the associated change in barometric pressure but this happens when the altitude doesn't change very much.

so i ask the question, "does the team know anything about positive ions and their effects on fategue while driving and its associated links in an extremely dry climate and vehicles in motion or just parked and their occupants perpencity to fall asleep".

dudes, the dust thing is so bad, that i tack ragged a hood to paint it and it was covered in dust and anything else in the air before i could pick up the spray gun, it was a calm day with no wind inside the shop with the doors and windows closed.

this is an indicator of how dry it is, my shop had the electrical ground connected to the rebar in the footings but was not a good enough ground and now i have 3 10 foot earth spikes for my shop and house spread over my property interconnected with 1/4" solid copper.

the dryness and the dust are indicators of very high levels of static electricity, therefore, high levels of positive ions.

of course, i could just be tired old fart who can't keep awake.

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this story shall the good man teach his son,
and chrispin chrispian shall ne'er go by,
from this day to the end of the world.
but we in it shall be remembered.

John, you don't live close to Area 51 do you?

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Cheers, Tom

My Car9 build: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=14613
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Ultima Spyder, Northstar 4.0, Porsche G50/52

I would look into your local area do you live near a large power source such as a power station/plant. Power flows from +ve to ground so when a huge amounts of power is generated the ground can be affected.

Back in big school we learned about how Elephants living too close to a power station could get electrocuted due to the potential difference in voltage between there legs. I think it may be an extreme example (Probably not possible). However I do seem to remember calculating how long a far apart a birds legs would need to be for it to get electrocuted by standing on power lines.

Not sure that info helps you much. Is the problem local to you or does it happen 20 miles away too?

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2015 & 2016 EMod Florida State Autocross Champion
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Scrap Metal Build Log viewtopic.php?f=35&t=14558

Wow! I thought I was reading a letter from a friend stationed in Afghanistan. At least you can get a cold beer anytime.

That sounds pretty dry. Honestly for someone who lives in a wet climate it just sounds scary. Do you stockpile water in your basement just in case? Hmmm, you probably don't have a basement either... Where do you hide from hurricanes and tornadoes and giant sci-fi monsters?

In these parts the streets are rarely straight and level for any distance at all. Not being killed by a tree more or less requires constant attention. It is dangerous, in your area you probably always have the choice of using a road or just driving in a straight line to get where you want.

They used to sell things that you could attach to the cat that grounded it. A strap or chain that hung down from the frame somewhere.

For your shop maybe you can use a humidifier when you're going to paint?

Grounding is probably a pretty general problem that will be hard to fix. Dry earth doesn't conduct well. So the ground coming from the power lines is probably bad too. Sounds like a worst case kind of place to work on electronics. Even just doing things like plugging in USB cables, SD memory cards etc. must expose systems to a lot of static.

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i have no carpets in my house and usually have bare feet when in the house, and have no problem.

i have 4 cats and if one jumps on the bed at night he sparkles.

my wife who wears flip flops most of the time gets shocks from people and appliances all the time.

yes i do live in an area where power is generated, the hoover dam is about 40 miles away as the crow flies.

and as far as the area 51 thing, no i don't live near there but in 1953, a ufo supposedly crashed in the area where i tend to go to sleep while driving, its known as the kingman crashsite.

all the roads have power lines running alongside them and the power to my house is also above ground.

but i think all of that is moving off topic somewhat, its the static generated in the car body that is the problem, prior to painting the hood, i wiped the area down with panel wipe and followed that with a dry cloth and a tack rag, all of this wiping may have generated static in the body and the actual paint being sprayed may have picked up a charge from being atomised at the gun nozzle.

i remember when i built my house, i was going to use an airless sprayer to paint the interior, my walls are veneer plastered and smooth not textured, however, when i tried to spray them, they came out textured due to dust and dirt being picked up by the spray, so i had to sand the walls back down and roller them.

if i ground the car body to the electrical grounds in the wall outlets and connect a grounding wire to the spray gun itself again connected to the outlet grounds, this may resolve the issues when painting.

but its the buildup of dust on and in the vehicle and the effects on me that are the major concerns.

does this happen to light aircraft.

out of interest, in my spray booth, i use an hvlp gun, the paint, especially dtm primers tend to fall to the floor which is concrete before the extractor can draw them out, vapors clearly do make it out the extractor but particulates not so much, i wonder if they are actually being drawn to the floor.



is all of this is due to the generation of positively charged ions looking for a ground?

and do positively charged ions cause me to fall asleep when driving.

_________________
this story shall the good man teach his son,
and chrispin chrispian shall ne'er go by,
from this day to the end of the world.
but we in it shall be remembered.

I once bought a piece of food packaging equipment from a respected manufacturer located in Faridabad in northern India. When it arrived here in Canada and we uncrated it, I was very disapointed to see how dirty it was, particularly for a piece of equipment for a food plant. It was so dirty and dusty that I suspected that it was a used piece and not new as I had paid for. I called the manufacturer and complained and was told "I can assure you that it's new, all of our equipment looks like that because it is so windy and dusty here, we can't help it, don't worry it will wash off". Well, it did wash off, it did function perfectly and it did end up costing only 25% of what a North American machine would have been.

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Bill H
Winnipeg, MB, Canada

John, while I know nothing about the effects of positive ions, I can offer this bit.

Negative ions are a definite high. A few years ago, we were watching a freighter go through the locks at Sault Ste. Marie. A storm was brewing at the site, but no one gave a damn. The freighter cleared the lock, an announcement was made about the storm and safety. Not one soul of 30-40 people moved. A very chatty, friendly crowd that finally dissipated just a minute or so before the rain started. Several got wet on the way to the sales area, but once again, no one cared. A very happy, if damp crowd. An amazing experience and I have no reason to doubt that positive ions have equally powerful effects.

Falling asleep at the wheel. Up until I hit my sixties, it was a battle any time I took to the road, especially in the 2:00 - 3:00 time slot. The really strange thing, a "nap" of perhaps as short as 15 seconds would do the trick. I'd pull off the road and drop off. Sometimes my wife was not even aware I had gone to sleep. Now (at 72), it never bothers me. But if I'm home and not very busy, I get so sleepy and drawn out I can't stand it. Its like I'm in a fog and things start to seem surreal. Kind of a Reverend Jim, "Oh, am I here?" sort of thing.

Painting. I would not even try it under the conditions your describing. At high temps and low humidity, the paint dries before it hits the panel, regardless of thinner used. The result is a sandy, non slip finish. You'd swear it was dirty paint. Paint shops do not even try to paint under these conditions unless they have a climate controlled paint booth. All this is in Indiana, where 90 is hot and 50% humidity is low. Several years ago I had a car repainted for our youngest son while we were having a heat wave. The body shop held the car for a week, waiting for decent atmospheric conditions. Conditions improved to the point he felt it was okay to paint at night, finally shot it at 2:00 A.M.

Bill

The "good" earth ground is there, it's just farther down in the soil. Either get chemical grounds or go deeper. If your shop is metal framed or skinned, the frame uprights and horizontals need to be bonded together and grounded every so often.

My shop's swamp cooler takes care the dryness for me.

Tom

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Sometimes, I'm as confused as a baby in a topless bar.

My short term memory is absolutely horrible and so is my short term memory.

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