Peter L. Peres wrote:
>>The car has enough mass that even with the grounding resistor in the
>>nozzle you would still have an ignition spark when you touched the car.
>
>
> Cars are supposed to have static draining devices built in. This can be a
> static grounding strap under the body or something else. They are not
> supposed to work themselves up to high potentials.

I think the problem is not the car but the human. I've seen TV footage of
a gas station fire caused by static electricity. Most of the time the
fire is 'caused' by women. What I mean is that the material used in
many of the women's cloths and the cars seats cause the problem. The
women get up out of their car, don't ground themselves and touch the
pump handle. Next thing you see are flames. I'm not pointing the
finger of blame just pointing out some of the observations.

As a side note, I recently destroyed a Cisco PA-4T. One night while
working in the lab I generated a static discharge that I would
compare to touching both prongs of a 120VAC cord while plugging it
in. It was loud and extremely painful. Weird thing was that the thing
I touched on the router was the console cable which is nowhere near
the PA-4T. I am now in the habit of touching ground every few minutes
sort of like that Monk character on TV. I've narrowed it down to
a particular jacket that I've had for years. When I wear the jacket
I can generate lighting bolts that are visible and loud. The people
I work with require I ground myself by touching ground before I work
with them (I think they like to torture me ;-).

BTW, this is in my lab at work where we have a climate controlled
environment. The lab is kept cold all the time (~65F) and we have
it checked for humidity and temperature periodically. I would also
venture a guess that it's the combination of the jacket, shoes
(Thom McCann) and other cloths (cotton and poly). I typically
wear the same type of clothes. No not the same one! ;-)

--
Linux Home Automation         Neil Cherry        ncherry@comcast.net
http://home.comcast.net/~ncherry/               (Text only)
http://linuxha.sourceforge.net/                 (SourceForge)
http://hcs.sourceforge.net/                     (HCS II)

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different
ways.  See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.