Static Electricity and automated switches.

[nightwalker]

I've just had a HAI UPB 8 button keypad go south, worse was I watched it go and could do nothing.

My nephew was visiting this weekend and seemed to have built up some static electricity in his body from draging his feet and then touched one of my keypads to turn on a light. I saw the slight spark just from his finger to my keypad and then the keypad put on quite the light show, flashing one led at a time then to all at once and finally settled down. Now it only works sometimes locally, it does show status of the devices it's tied to correctly. Operating it locally it sometimes works, sometimes not.

My question is, is there someway to prevent this?

Those things get pretty expensive to have to change to often. I opened the switchbox and while it's a grounded box I the keypad itself is not grounded and has no provisions to ground it, it's a completely plastic/fibre body with only the two leads for hook up.

I don't know if grounding it would help anyway but there has to be a way to prevent it, without give all persons here a grounding strap. Anyone have any thoughts?

 

[Rupp]

I've just had a HAI UPB 8 button keypad go south, worse was I watched it go and could do nothing.

My nephew was visiting this weekend and seemed to have built up some static electricity in his body from draging his feet and then touched one of my keypads to turn on a light. I saw the slight spark just from his finger to my keypad and then the keypad put on quite the light show, flashing one led at a time then to all at once and finally settled down. Now it only works sometimes locally, it does show status of the devices it's tied to correctly. Operating it locally it sometimes works, sometimes not.

My question is, is there someway to prevent this?

Those things get pretty expensive to have to change to often. I opened the switchbox and while it's a grounded box I the keypad itself is not grounded and has no provisions to ground it, it's a completely plastic/fibre body with only the two leads for hook up.

I don't know if grounding it would help anyway but there has to be a way to prevent it, without give all persons here a grounding strap. Anyone have any thoughts?

I've had this happen to 2 of my HAI UPB switches and a Z-Wave switch that are in carpeted areas last winter. I turned up the humidifier on my furnace and it's not happened since.

 

[Smarty]

ummm....... raise the humidity in your house.

During the winter season, the cold air holds less moisture. Moisture helps the electrons (not our Electron) "re-balance" and prevent charge build-ep. Charge build-up leads to ESD (eletro-static discharge)...ie sparks!

 

[drozwood90]

Moisture helps the electrons (not our Electron) "re-balance"

Who said Dan's not balanced?

--Dan (Not Electron)

 

[nightwalker]

Hmmm, it all sounds so simple,... that alone makes me nervous. I'll give it a try and see, now to figure out how to turn up the humidifier.

Thanks for the suggestion guys, it's not often you get a consensus here, or anywhere for that matter.

 

[drozwood90]

[sarcasm] I agree! [/sarcasm]

Sorry, this thread just keeps setting me up!

--Dan

 

[nightwalker]

A smart a** like myself can certianly understand that.

BTW turning up the humidity seems to have solved my problem. Somehow the dial got turned down to 0 during the summer so while it was on, it wasn't really doing anything.

Thanks everyone!

 

[beelzerob]

Somehow the dial got turned down to 0 during the summer so while it was on, it wasn't really doing anything.

Thanks everyone!

Hello there. I'm pretty heavily involved in something called "home automation", and that problem of yours sounds like a perfect candidate for using it. There's even a site devoted to it called cocoontech.com. They do neat things there like turning down humidity during the summer and then turning it back up over winter...automatically!! Head over there and see what you can find out, maybe youll find it interesting!







oh what, you guys had the lock on sarcasm??