Monday, June 2, 2008

Static electric shocks when getting out of car

Many people experience shocks when they get out of their car. That is caused by static electric discharged from the person's body or clothes to the metallic car body.

When sitting in the car, electrostatic charges are generated on the car seat and the person's body due to contact and movement between the clothes and the seat. The charges is accumulated if the person is wearing a good insulating shoe. It is observed that fabric and true leather seats normally generate more static charges than PU leather seats. If you wear synthetic fibre clothing, you also have more chance to accumulate higher level of static.

Having the air-conditioner blowing directly at you will also accumulate more static, as the air blown out from the air-conditioner is full of charged particles. If your car is full of dust and dirt, static will also be generated as a result of such particles "rubbing" with the air flow as you drive.

An ionizer can help to neutralize some of the static charges in the car. If you still experience the shocks when getting out of the car, you can hold the car key and let the key contact with the metallic car body first before you touch the door. This will discharge the static through the keys instead of your fingers, and you could hardly feel it, therefore avoiding the shocks.

3 comments:

Anonymous said... Reply To This Comment

谢谢分享。
我想买你说的那个ionizer,不过我的cigarette plug已经插着FM modulator了:(

Voyager8 said... Reply To This Comment

Hi,

你可以用 double plug adapter/splitter 来把它一分为二的。

Anonymous said... Reply To This Comment

Great info here. Just wondering why the air blown out of the air conditioning system would have an electrostatic charge. I used to experience painful shock when getting out of the car and solved the problem by installing an antistatic car strap mizter.
http://www.mizter.com

Post a Comment

Hint: Click on the "Older Posts" link to continue reading, or click here for a listing of all my past 3 months articles.