Everytime I run my shopvac (the actual brand with the metal canister and handle) I get shocked when I touch it. Just a quick bang and thats all. Usually it’s not so bad but yesterday I got hit my finger was hurting for a while. Is this common with shopvacs?
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Replies
It is common - but only for the ones that actually kill somebody.
Get it fixed, or even better, cut the cord off it, throw it away, and buy a new one.
So then it's not just static buildup from the motor? It doesn't happen unless it is running for a little while. It is fairly new so if this is abnormal, and worse dangerous, I will take it up with their company.
With the motor running, does it bite you once, or every time you touch it?
If it only shocks you once, it is static. if it shocks you everytime you touch it, there is something wrong and it needs to go back.
just once, but man does it
is this your friends shop-vac........I hope this doesn't turn into another screamfest like the time with the drill.........;>o
I try not to get people too fired up these days. I can't take the abuse : )All I can tell you is this is not a case of tool abuse.
well good.........now try a different pair of shoes and see if the problem changes...
.....well??
I'll let you know. I'm not at my vac at the moment. Can't wait to repetedly shock myself as I conduct my little experiment. Maybe I should try touching it once wearing sneakers and then take my shoes off and stand in a puddle of water for comparisons sake.all kidding aside, you were kidding about the different shoes thing right?
...no I was not....there are workboots that are supposed to dissipate / prevent static build-up...perhaps you need to put a ground strap on yourself while walking around that thingor wear gloves......I've spent many hours working on scissor liifts, and have gotten knocked silly by touching building steel...it might be caused by driving on tile or because we used to wrap duct tape around the tires to prevent scuffing up the floor...but after an 8hr.day of constantly being zapped you get a little goofy......
Edited 1/19/2006 5:33 pm by maddog3
well, you learn something new every day... especially around here.
My shop vac with the stainless steel canister does the same thing. Makes me wonder why they didn't make the dumb things with a grounded cord. I often roll mine up against the metal on my table saw when I use it in the winter. It's grounded and disappates the charge as I use it.
If the world was a logical place, men would ride horseback sidesaddle.
I added a grounded cord to mine, ran a alum. tab from the ground mounting screw to one of the clips that holds the plastic top to the can. No more zapping. :-)
PHM
If you have a metal canister, try attaching a piece of wire to it, or perhaps a short piece of chain, so that it drags on the floor. All of the carts they use for shuttling electronic parts around our plant have pieces of chain dangling from them.
If ignorance is bliss why aren't more people
happy?
Got a blue print machine in the office that in the winter, will accumulate quite a static charge from running mylar film through it.
The worse is when you turn to grab a sheet and lean up against one of the flat file drawers that are about 32-34" high. Arcs right through the darn pant zipper.
Man what a ZAP?
It's probably static. Some of them will just about knock your socks off if you vacuum carpet in the winter. I dont know if this will work, but try a small drag chain from the vacuum to the floor
I'm figuring static as well. Good idea with the chain, thanks. I don't mean to sound like a wimp, just that after I got wolloped yesterday I was nervous there was a short somewhere.
Edited 1/19/2006 2:20 pm ET by xosder11
I would suspect static, too. But he should get it checked.
This time of year I hate to get out of the car because everytime I close the door I get a static shock.
"All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone." Pascal
When you get out, hold a metal part of the door with your left hand and don't let go until both feet are on the ground. Works. Someone explained it to me, but if I tried to guess why (grounding?) I'm sure I'd get it wrong.
"I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul." Invictus, by Henley.
the flow of energy through you is not what hurts, it's the huge resistance and heat that occurs when the charge builds to a peak, then arcs from the metal to your finger that hurts. if you stay grounded while you generate the charge, it flows smoothly through your hand into the ground.
Sounds like static. The static could be on the vac or on you. For you, try bare feet or more conductive soles (not rubber). For the vac, a chain may be hard on the floor. Get a graphite-impregnated rubber drag strip made for vehicles. They are made to ground vehicles containing flammables because the tires insulate the vehicle from the ground. The straps are attached to the chassis and drag on the ground.
DG/Builder
I would go put a volt meter on the vac and a good ground. If I saw 120v AC, there is a serious hazard.
I've got the 10 gallon Shop-vac with the stainless canister for about 10 years. I always get a click from the handle, never thought much about it till now.
me neither, but yesterday the actual pad of my finger got a little scorched
You may have one of the earlier prototypes, originally named "ShockVac"
yeah, it really sucks.hardy har har : )
Until you fix the problem, try this:
Use a key, pliars, pocketknife, screwdriver, etc. to touch the thing with first. You will feel very little then.
I get the same thin happening when going down the plastic playland tube slides (with my kids) when the dry winds blow here. One pair of shoes I can feel my big toe getting shocked INSIDE my shoe as I go down. Otherwise I have a key in my hand the whole time - usually I can get at least a 1.5" spark off the exposed carriage bolts at the bottom. Better the key than my butt!
Rebuilding my home in Cypress, CA
Also a CRX fanatic!
My boys loved those because they could shock each other as they emerged from the tube. They had long hair that would stand straight up as they slid down. Their favorite was the ear shock, next was the back of the neck shock.
What are you touching when you get shocked? The unit should be double-insulated and would be incapable of shocking you unless it had become wet or some such, so I'm guessing it's static.
Oddly, if you've never used it to suck up water, I'd suggest doing that. Follow instructions to change out the paper filter with foam, plug the unit into a GFCI-protected outlet, and then vacuum up, eg, rainwater from the driveway, water used to wash the garage floor, etc (ie, something slightly dirty). This should be sufficient to coat the inside of the hose with an "antistatic" coating and eliminate the static buildup.
happy?
It is static and yes pretty common. The dust particles that you vacuum up create an electric charge. Your shop vac acts like a Van De Graff generator and stores the charge that is created from the passage of the dust particles. This is a pretty strong effect high amounts of charge can be built up pretty quickly in this way.
hurting for a while
Had not opened this thread before, but the above comment caught my eye. I have been shocked many times (only bad one was 3 kV, no pain, but in mental state of shock for 5 minutes or so) and no aftermath pain can recall ever.
What exactly do you mean by "hurting for a while" ? Really interested, as this is pretty much an unreported phenomenon in the literature except for really severe stuff where there are burns, etc.
One time when I was installing some switches, I had the switches connected and before I screwed the box I energized the system to check it out. In a momentary lapse I turned around and my elbow hit the side of the switch. Felt like getting stung by a couple of bees and made me scream like a woman, mostly out of shock. That was scary and sobering, and I learned to respect electrons a little more that day. Thank god I was wearing rubber and my other hand was not touching anything else. In that case, the skin outside my elbow felt like I had been stung by a bee for a little. the switch kinda stuck to me a bit. The tip of my finger felt the same way in this case as the spark litterally jumped to my finger. I don't want to make it more than it was, just that I have never recieved a painfull static shock like that before. I was kinda rubbing my finger a little afterwards like "damn that hurt"
>>>>Thank god I was wearing rubber and my other hand was not touching anything else.Do you always wear a rubber when working with your shop vac ?;o)
Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength. ~~ Eric Hoffer
Hmmm... I used to test rubbers for the Air Force, but never used a shop vac to do it.
If ignorance is bliss why aren't more people
happy?
What a dream job !But not one I care to hear about. LOL
Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength. ~~ Eric Hoffer
Sorry folks, I had to delete my responce. I think I was getting a little crass. I re-read it and was worried about offendending. I have a tendency to get carried away. Toilet humor is one area I can really excell in =)
Thats ok Xo toilet humor is the American standard you can give it to us en toto
While I didn't get to read it, I am assuming that it was probably a smart move.While the majority of us have no problem with "toilet humor", we also all have different limits to what we find acceptable. And Taunton has lower limits than most. If xosder11 himself thought it warranted deletion, then deletion was probably the better part of valor, and of keeping from getting a strike.=0)
Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength. ~~ Eric Hoffer
Probably a smart move.=0)
Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength. ~~ Eric Hoffer
It's winter, and there's lots of dry air being drawn through a non-conductive (plastic) pathway isolated from ground by a set of casters- it's going to zap you with static every time you touch it while it's running. It's that darned metallic sheath they put on the outside of the otherwise plastic unit that is the problem.
Connect a piece of lightweight steel chain to the cannister sheath and dangle it down to the ground, such that it drags on the ground when you roll the shop vac on its casters. Or take off the casters and let the unit sit on the ground. These should take care of most of your static shocks.
This is why you should place gasoline containers on the ground when you are filling them and keep the nozzle touching the opening. If you have ever seen then filling airplanes you notice they clip a ground wire on first.
Good safety tip. Do not fuel up your shopvac.
...or use it to vacuum up the fuel you spill when you're filling your lawn mower!
Might end up with some moltenmetal if you vac gas.
But, maybe if you reversed the air flow you'd have a home made flame thrower?
Couple of years ago a crew was removing vinyl tile and they were using a lot of solvent to clean up the mastic. Someone turned on the shop vac and the spark from the motor (commutator-brushes) ignited the place. One worker didnt make it out.Another story...2 workers at a printing plant were pouring a highly flammable solvent out of a can and didnt use a ground clip. It blew up and they both got 3rd degree burns and lived a couple of hours.
There was an infamous lawsuit, I believe here in Canada, about twenty years ago. A guy sealed or finished a basement floor with a flammable sealant or coating. Warning labels on the can clearly said: "vaporus are extremely flammable- use only in a well ventilated area, keep away from sparks, flame all other sources of ignition" etc. etc. It was the furnace pilot light that did him in- very serious injuries and damage to the house. He sued the company for not including "pilot lights" amongst the list of sources of ignition, because apparently another manufacturer of similar sealants had done so on THEIR can. Because it was a civil case, the paint mfg. was assigned some part of the liability and had to pay up.
Clearly if you have a flammable atmosphere for a protracted period, it will find a source of ignition. Whether that be a static discharge, a spark from a shop vac or a squirrel carrying a smoldering cigarette butt*, the result is the same. Flammable vapours need to be treated with enormous care. Fire prevention for these materials has to be focused on keeping the vapour levels from reaching the flammable limit, because sources of ignition are everywhere!
*that's what they figured started the fire in my wife's uncle's attic. Fire started in the attic with no electrical, no mechanicals and lots of squirrel nests...fortunately no injuries either
Obviously it was static from all the squirrel cages.
If ignorance is bliss why aren't more people
happy?
"If you have ever seen then filling airplanes you notice they clip a ground wire on first."
One of the guys I was in the army with ran our fuel truck. And it had a retractable wire and clip that you were supposed to use to connect to a vehicle before you fueled it up.
He used to back the (loaded) fuel truck up to the fence in the motor pool and hook that line/clip up to the metal fence.
His reasoning was that if lightning ht the fuel truck, it would travel down that little bitty wire to the fence, and not hurt the fuel truck.
Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
Look up "Great Moments" in FHB No.114, March 1998.
Herrick Kimball of Moravia NY tells a funny one about a Sears vac that gave him wicked static shocks, until he set it adrift on a local stream. But the vac is rescued by another tradesman...and lives to shock again. The interaction between the two men - they meet at a gas station - is priceless.
Glad I have the all-plastic Shop-Vac, the black QSP. When I turn it off, it wails loudly. Greasing the motor bearings quiets that down for a few weeks. What a waste of time. lol.
The newer red QSP seems tippy, narrower at the bottom than at the top, so I'm not sure what the replacement will be.