Static electrical shock eliminators

Now that it's winter my wife and I often times get zapped by static electricity while exiting our vehicle. Does anyone have any experience with ground straps designed to help eliminate this? How well do they work? Can I just make one? Thanks.


Here's a place that sells them: http://www.stopzap.com/

(I could be wrong but...) I seem to recall that its the person, not the car, that builds up the charge, usually due to the movement of clothing when you walk, or moving around in the car seat, etc, especially if you have rubber-soled shoes.

The zap happens because you are grounding yourself to the car.
If the car was grounded better, you would still get zapped, because you are not grounded until you touch the car.

Maybe it might be better to buy one of these ground straps and tie it to your ankle instead of to the car bumper. :smile:

I could be wrong, and it might work, depending on where the charge is building. It's worth a try.

once you exit the car touch the key to a bare metal part of your car before touching it with your hand, you won't feel the zap when the arc jumps from the key to the car. the ground straps that you are refering to are probably similar to the ones for electronics work, they have a 1 megaohm resistor in the ground lead to prevent electrocution and a bracelet that holds a metal plate to the bottom of your wrist ($5 at the computer store).

hell man, why would you want to stop that from happening? i love getting zapped like that... but honestly though, on older mazda mx3's there was a "touch" pad on the door panel that served such a purpose. i think all it consisted of was a resistor connected to the body via a screw. all you had to do was touch the pad on the panel before you got out and it dissipated your charge

The resistor served to limit the rate of current flow, which prevented the spark. Simple!

As zagrot mentioned, you might also ask your wife to try grounding herself to the car with a metallic object, such as her car keys. The increased area of contact between her skin and the metal object will serve the same current-limiting purpose. There will still be a spark but the "shock" sensation will be much more subtle, if there is one at all.

Of course, the static charge is likely from the rubbing of clothing against clothing and/or the seat materials. There are various anti-static fabric sprays for clothing that might help, and for emergency use you can rub an anti-static dryer sheet on the seat fabric before you get in (but over time this will result in a waxy buildup, since those dryer sheets literally lubricate the fabric to prevent the static-causing friction!)
=Smidge=