Posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.153.112] on Monday, March 03, 2014 at 21:14:28 :
In Reply to: Dave Sherman in Paradise posted by ChrisH in the desert [70.211.23.162] on Monday, March 03, 2014 at 20:01:05 :
Where are you at that it's so dry you're getting static this time of year? You must be down in the desert somewhere missing all this snow and rain. Wallace is nothing but slush all over today and the viaduct was blocked by a semi wreck until just recently.
I remember those conductive rubber drag straps, but mostly just on gasoline tankers. It seems like there were some people who put them on their cars. I kind of lumped them in with "curb feelers", but I was just a kid. I was told that at one time long ago, gas tankers were required to have drag chains, so the conductive rubber was an improvement on that.
As for you and your camper, which is the one getting charged up? If it's you that's charged up, grounding the camper won't help. Only wet boots will keep you from getting charged. A drag strap won't really do much either (on you or the camper) unless it lands on wet ground.
Folklore aside, good grounding, metal pack frames, ski poles, etc don't have much to do with whether or not you get hit by lighting. When there's enough voltage to jump thousands of feet through the air, the additional resistance or lack of it between you and the ground isn't something a lightning bolt will even notice. As far as lighting is concerned, anything sitting on the ground is an equally good target, although sharp pointy things are definitely more attractive than rounded things.
If you want to be a real geek, you can dissipate static without giving yourself a shock if you hold something metal in your hand (keys are usually handy) and touch it to the door frame or whatever. That distributes the current over a wider area of your hand so you generally won't feel the shock. I remember long ago seeing an ad in Popular Mechanics for a ring that had a small neon light bulb in it. The copy said, "Static Shock Problem Solved -- miniature lamp flashes as charge dissipates!" The idea was you wear this ring and touch it to things first to get rid of the charge. Of course a plain ring would work equally well, but this special one would flash, which is kind of neat.
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