Grounding, not what you think

MattS

MattS

Oh no, another engineer!
Hey gang! First post, thought it might be of interest.

When I detail my cars, one thing I have noticed is significant lint, dust or other contaminants collecting on the car. The source of the materials is obvious, but the fact that they are sitcking to vertical surfaces as well as horizontal surfaces led me to conclude that in the "rubbing" process, a charge has developed on the car. With no means to discharge, the vehicle has been collecting these airborn particles.

Here is what I do to solve the problem: I ground the vehicle. You mileage may vary but it seems to help, depending on how good a ground connection I can get. I have several methods. Sometimes I use the ground circuit inthe vehicle, accessed through the 12V plug inthe car with an adapted plug having only the ground connecting and then connecting that with a "safety" plug to a 3 plug outlet (only has ground as a metal prong.) Another way I do it is to connect to the lugs of one of the wheels when it is a direct metal-metal contact and then connecting this to my water spiget. I use a single side of jumper cables for this.

Safety: If you are going to connect to ground of your three prong outlet .. MAKE SURE .... you are only connecting ground.

Has any one else tried this, a quick search did not yield a whole lot of results and I am just curious.

Will be testing this further this weekend on an '03 black Lexus GS400 with a wash/clay/(AIO or UCP)/UPP exterior detail.

Thanks and have a good week.

-Matt
 
wouldnt that affect the power in your battery? I had a flad tire on a car once that I left alone and the brand new battery died. My mind was boggled until a mechanic told me how the battery is usually grounded to the frame. When the rim gets close enough to the ground it drains:(
 
Should not drain battery ....

Phil,

I would not expect that to drain the battery as we are not creating a closed circuit for the battery to discharge to, only connecting to a ground point of the vehicle. I do often drain the battery of my car when I detail it, but that is mostly because I have the radio on most of the time :D

On a serious side, I will ask some auto technical types I know about the possibility, even though I have never experienced it, and lets just say I am slow about detailing (call it picky if you like) and have had cars grounded for nearly two days with now adverse effects to the charge status.

-Matt
 
*puts on electricians hat*

Ive had my suspicions about vehicles picking up a charge when buffed for a while.
Seems S100 is particularly good at building up and holding an electro-static charge, then attracting Uber-Dust within hours

:eek:

So.

Grounding it in theory SHOULD drain any charge thats built up, and a domestic earth pin is the best point as that drains straight to the star point of the local 3-phase transformer in the supply cabinet.

All vehicles nowadays are negative earth (old vehicles used to be + earth, so if u own a classic, CHECK before ya do this) and therefore earthing from the Negative battery post to the domestic earth pin should do the trick. I would also selectively earth other parts of the vehicle as sometimes when a bolt or panel gets some corrosion it wont earth properly to the rest of the car (like when someones stop light flash with the blinkers) to make sure you get all the charge.

It wont drain the battery as long as nothing is switched on, the current flows from + to -, so as long as no switches are made (i.e. nothing is turned on in the vehicle) then no current will flow and the battery will remain fully charged.

If by mistake you ground the + terminal, then best be ready to un-weld the ground lead :) a decent battery will instantly dump around 200 amps thru an un-fused connection, down the ground pin and probably black out yer entire block.

Kids, DONT try this at home.

Gotta love DC

:)
 
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