Static Electricity - something or nothing

In the early days of PCs in the office we had to use grounded static mats under our chairs. I can't help but think having a "ground button" to touch before handling electronics are a good thing since you know you are producing a charge.

My basement isn’t carpeted but, if I wear tennis shoes or Hey Dudes down there, for some reason they generate static electricity. After zapping myself on the front truck of an MTH PS3 diesel and damaging the front motor, I leave both types of shoes off when I’m in the basement running trains.

Curt

Both of my model railroads are in the basement on a carpeted concrete floor. I wear slippers with rubber soles and never have noticed any static buildup or effect on locomotives. I run conventionally from transformers - no remotes...

MELGAR

@MELGAR posted:

Both of my model railroads are in the basement on a carpeted concrete floor. I wear slippers with rubber soles and never have noticed any static buildup or effect on locomotives. I run conventionally from transformers - no remotes...

. . . and I think that sums it up -- if you are running PW conventional (as we both are), I doubt there's anything to worry about. OTOH, if you run and handle anything with a circuit board or other modern electronics, taking steps to avoid and/or discharge any static buildup would probably be prudent, as others have documented.

Your outside rails should be grounded. Touch them to discharge static. I do not have a static problem on my layout.

@GMICH posted:

I have a carpeted basement floor and every once and a while get a little poke touching something - is there any concern touching a locomotive or a cab-2 controller when carrying a charge?????  Something or nothing

Thank you Greg - Brighton Mi

There's certainly a minor risk, but it's not as great as most people imagine.  I've never killed anything on my trains or layout with static discharges, and I've had plenty of them over the years.  Even working on my bench on PC boards, I haven't had any fatalities from static.  I don't even think about it when I'm handling locomotives, etc.

That being said, it is possible to damage sensitive electronic boards with static, but even that issue is not nearly as prevalent as it was years ago, components have improved a bunch over the years.

@juniata guy posted:

My basement isn’t carpeted but, if I wear tennis shoes or Hey Dudes down there, for some reason they generate static electricity. After zapping myself on the front truck of an MTH PS3 diesel and damaging the front motor, I leave both types of shoes off when I’m in the basement running trains.

Curt

How in the world did you damage the motor with static?  I can see damage to the electronics, but I'm having difficulty with the motor!

John; I’ll have to offer a “shrug” in response. The engine had run perfectly from the time I first bought and placed it on the layout. The day after I experienced the static snap when touching the front truck, the front motor quit working. Took the engine to my nearby MTH repair guy. He tested it and the front motor was cooked. He replaced that motor and the engine has worked just fine since.

Curt

@juniata guy posted:

John; I’ll have to offer a “shrug” in response. The engine had run perfectly from the time I first bought and placed it on the layout. The day after I experienced the static snap when touching the front truck, the front motor quit working. Took the engine to my nearby MTH repair guy. He tested it and the front motor was cooked. He replaced that motor and the engine has worked just fine since.

Curt

I have to believe there was something else afoot with the motor, I can't even conceive how static discharge (short of a giant Tesla coil) would damage a can motor!

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I have to believe there was something else afoot with the motor, I can't even conceive how static discharge (short of a giant Tesla coil) would damage a can motor!

I gotta go with GRJ on this one -- I suspect a static discharge large enough to kill a can motor would have done more to impair the *OP's* functioning than it would the relatively simple and robust motor. You'd need quite a few amps to damage the simple coils and connections in the motor, far in excess of what the human body could tolerate (spoken by someone who still vividly remembers discharging a 600 volt power supply capacitor with his finger some 60 years ago! ).

I agree with gftiv. I simply touch the track first.

@Steve Tyler posted:

I gotta go with GRJ on this one -- I suspect a static discharge large enough to kill a can motor would have done more to impair the *OP's* functioning than it would the relatively simple and robust motor. You'd need quite a few amps to damage the simple coils and connections in the motor, far in excess of what the human body could tolerate (spoken by someone who still vividly remembers discharging a 600 volt power supply capacitor with his finger some 60 years ago! ).

Guys; I won’t question y’all’s expertise when it comes to static charges but; you’ll have to excuse me if I opt not to test the theory by donning my Hey Dudes, shuffling across the basement floor and touching another engine truck. 😉

Curt

@juniata guy posted:

Guys; I won’t question y’all’s expertise when it comes to static charges but; you’ll have to excuse me if I opt not to test the theory by donning my Hey Dudes, shuffling across the basement floor and touching another engine truck. 😉

Winky face not withstanding, I just want to be clear that no one here is *advocating* for static discharge (any delicate electronics in the vicinity would definitely be vulnerable), merely that some of us are skeptical that something as durable and basic as a motor could be burned out by a consumer-level static discharge.

@gftiv posted:

Your outside rails should be grounded. Touch them to discharge static. I do not have a static problem on my layout.

If you run TMCC/Legacy then your outside rails must definitely not be grounded, or your engines won't operate because they won't receive the radio signal from the base.

Consequently, if you reach out to touch an outside rail in this situation, and draw a static discharge as your finger approaches the rail, you might fry the base.

Mike

@Mellow Hudson Mike posted:

Consequently, if you reach out to touch an outside rail in this situation, and draw a static discharge as your finger approaches the rail, you might fry the base.

I just got one of my TMCC buffers back for repair.  It suffered from a static discharge event, it cooked both chips in the amplifier section.  It was a big static event, sometimes we call it lightning.