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truly amazing stuff in fridays news…
Thought I’d share this with you from our news here
Fri September 16, 2005 10:30 AM ET
SYDNEY (Reuters) – An Australian man built up a 40,000-volt charge of static electricity in his clothes as he walked, leaving a trail of scorched carpet and molten plastic and forcing firefighters to evacuate a building.
Frank Clewer, who was wearing a woolen shirt and a synthetic nylon jacket, was oblivious to the growing electrical current that was building up as his clothes rubbed together.When he walked into a building in the country town of Warrnambool in the southern state of Victoria Thursday, the electrical charge ignited the carpet.
“It sounded almost like a firecracker,” Clewer told Australian radio Friday.
“Within about five minutes, the carpet started to erupt.”
Employees, unsure of the cause of the mysterious burning smell, telephoned firefighters who evacuated the building.
“There were several scorch marks in the carpet, and we could hear a cracking noise — a bit like a whip — both inside and outside the building,” said fire official Henry Barton.
Firefighters cut electricity to the building thinking the burns might have been caused by a power surge.
Clewer, who after leaving the building discovered he had scorched a piece of plastic on the floor of his car, returned to seek help from the firefighters.
“We tested his clothes with a static electricity field meter and measured a current of 40,000 volts, which is one step shy of spontaneous combustion, where his clothes would have self-ignited,” Barton said.
“I’ve been firefighting for over 35 years and I’ve never come across anything like this,” he said.
Firefighters took possession of Clewer’s jacket and stored it in the courtyard of the fire station, where it continued to give off a strong electrical current.
David Gosden, a senior lecturer in electrical engineering at Sydney University, told Reuters that for a static electricity charge to ignite a carpet, conditions had to be perfect.
“Static electricity is a similar mechanism to lightning, where you have clouds rubbing together and then a spark generated by very dry air above them,” said Gosden.
http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml … EnoughNews
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15 Replies
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shocking 😮
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wow… it does happen, I have to wear a t-shirt to operate the digital printer and some of the banner stocks are ‘cling-filmed’, when rotating and pulling off the cling film I have to hold onto a metal part of the machine or I get a big jolt of static electric.
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Electrifying….. imagine if he was also flatulent?? (hot)
Simon
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Talking of lightning, a house near me was struck by it last year in a street called “Sparks Close”!
We used to get massive shocks from our sprocketer (the machine that cuts sprocket holes into vinyl) as it ran thousands of metres through every day and built up a huge charge. We found a solution by hanging some Christmas tinsel from the frame of the machine dragging onto the vinyl.
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We get the same in our place – nylon carpets and then the static from peeling off the backing film from pvc board. It gets so bad it makes the hair on head stand on end?
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quote Chris Hooper:We get the same in our place – nylon carpets and then the static from peeling off the backing film from pvc board. It gets so bad it makes the hair on head stand on end?😮 I’d like to see that actually 😛
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If you ever go to Las Vegas, push the door open with your hip or you will probably get shocked. I always get shocked from walking on the casino carpet.
-Marek -
so why do I get it ? no nylon carpets !! tile floor start pulling film off fomex etc. hair stands on end feel the buzzing and I know I am going to get zapped how do you stop this? running away dosn’t help it still gets you
😥 Lynn
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quote Lynn:so why do I get it ? no nylon carpets !! tile floor start pulling film off fomex etc. hair stands on end feel the buzzing and I know I am going to get zapped how do you stop this? running away dosn’t help it still gets you 😥 Lynnuse christmas tinsel from bench to floor 😉
nik
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have non will get some but how does that work (?)
Lynn
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hi lynn 😀
stick it too your work bench with a bit tape and let it drop so it touches the floor 😀
nik
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I will try it Nik,
but I am an electrieid person walking in a supermarket one day Peter touched my shoulder I thought he;d stabbed me obviously he hadn’t I’m stil here and so is he sometimes anything I touch shocks me 🙄 and I can not were a watch they will not work on me from cheepy to expensiveLynn
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Shane – its the two centre hairs on the head really – the ones that I normally brush to the side Bobby Charlton fashion!
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quote Chris Hooper:Shane – its the two centre hairs on the head really – the ones that I normally brush to the side Bobby Charlton fashion!
:rofl: … nutter :lol1:
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quote Lynn:I will try it Nik,
but I am an electrieid person walking in a supermarket one day Peter touched my shoulder I thought he;d stabbed me obviously he hadn’t I’m stil here and so is he sometimes anything I touch shocks me 🙄 and I can not were a watch they will not work on me from cheepy to expensiveLynn
Lynn, I have been told you need more moisturiser on your skin, and it would help if you drank more water.
I was told that many years ago. I added more water to my scotch, but drew the line on the moisturiser 😮 Didn’t work for me as a result
The static discharge is pretty painful I know, do you wear rubber soles on your shows? Niks explanation will help too. Gives the static something to discharge by, so it is not jumping from you to Peter or anything else.
Most computer stores sell a static strap. wouldn’t hurt to try it.
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