The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls

emorritt · Joined: 09 Nov 2006 Posts: 63 Location: Louisiana

Anyone know a quick and dirty way to control static when cutting plastic blanks? All the chip wants to do is stick to the disc even with high suction... If suction pipe too close to disc - disc gets sucked too! Any ideas out there?

mossboss · Joined: 01 Jul 2007 Posts: 19

cuttercollector · Joined: 11 Jun 2006 Posts: 268 Location: San Jose, CA

There is/was a device called a Zerostat that used a piezo element in a gun like device. You pointed it at a vinyl record on a turntable and gently squeezed the trigger for a few seconds to send a high voltage low current charge toward the disc which neutralized the static charge on the disc.
I am not sure if you can still buy them. They were marketed through the same company that made the Discwasher record cleaner.
I also think Vestax had a device they used with their cutter that did the same thing in principal, though it was mounted to the unit rather than hand held.

emorritt · Joined: 09 Nov 2006 Posts: 63 Location: Louisiana

Yes, they're still available, but I'm not sure the field would be strong enough to neutralize this kind of static. The action of the cutting stylus against the plastic generates charge constantly - guess I could stand there repeatedly discharging the Zerostat. I have looked at industrial static control devices; they run on around 5000 volts and generate an ion field.

I tried de-gutting one of those plug-in air purification devices that uses an ion field and making a device with two antennae that created the field, and held it up close to the surface of the disc - again, not enough to control the static and all it did was stink up the cutting room with ozone. And that's supposed to be *healthy*??? (According to the purifier box.)

Even tried hooking one lead to the turntable well ground and one to the suction tube - still not enough. I see why nobody likes "Harmodiscs" or other plastic disc derivatives. They're a pain to cut, putting it mildly. Give me a reference lite any day...