Static buildup on lunchbox planer

[Trent Shirley]

I get a lot of static shock from my Dewalt DW734 planer. Is this normal?
I would have thought the housing of the planer would be grounded and allow the static to drain away. I get little zaps every time I grab a piece off the outfeed table.

[glenn bradley]

I have a DW734 and have never gotten zapped off of it. It is on a mobile flip-top stand and is well insulated from the floor so the only path is via the power cord. Are you sure your outlet is properly grounded?

My floor-standing planer would zap me now and then as it has an integral mobile base. Although the wheels are metal, somewhere the path to earth is broken. Taking a hint from days gone by I attached a small piece of chain to it near the bottom of the base and allow it to just touch the ground; problem solved.

[Trent Shirley]

The outlet should not be a problem though I will have to remember to test it when I get home. I wired the wall myself and have lots of experience with electrical. Every outlet was tested but who knows.
Maybe the shop vac is causing the static rather than the planer but either way the planer chassis should be grounded and I should not be getting zapped.
It is minor little static sparks but very persistent.

[ray hampton]

are you by any charge wearing WOOL SHIRTS ? or standing on a carpet ? if the electric shock are cause by static electric then you could see the discharge

[Grant Wilkinson]

I get zapped with my DW735, but it's always from the PVC adaptor to 4" hose that gets me. All those chips rubbing up against the plastic walls of the pipe are bound to create static.

[Josiah Bartlett]

If its anything like the Delta planers, the power cord runs directly into the carriage/motor housing and grounds somewhere in there. It is possible that there isn't enough conductance between the height adjustment mechanism and the body of the motor housing to dissipate the static charge. You can run a wire from one of the screws on the outfeed table or the body of the planer up to one of the screws on the motor housing to see if that helps.

Otherwise, check to make sure your electrical outlet and panel is properly ground bonded.

When I bought my house, the detached garage had the neutral and ground bonded at the sub panel, and the neutral was fried between the house and the panel, and the ground rod wasn't properly installed. The first time I turned on a big motor the lights got really bright and then blew out, and I got a good shock because I was touching some supposedly grounded metal. I was not happy about that.

[Kent E. Matthew]

If you'll allow a little thread drift. All you 734 owners. Can you run 10" wide red oak through your 734? Thinking about getting one.

[Bill Huber]

That is somewhat normal, static is funny, you do not have to have a ground for it to jump to, it will jump to what ever has a different potential.

If you hold you had on top of the unit while it is running then there will be no difference in potential and you will never get a spark, both you and the unit are at the same potential.

If you really want to gone, about the only thing you can do is to put a spark gap on it. One side attached to the units plastic and the other side to ground, then adjust the gap to the point it will spark off. But even at that you can still get a little spark at times.

[Jim O'Dell]

When I finally hooked up my Delta lunchbox planer to the cyclone and used it the first time, even with ear protection, the cyclone and the planer running, I could hear this rhythmic ticking noise. It took a while, but I finally saw the blue ark going from the metal infeed table to the wire in the flex hose. I made a quick disconnect wire attached to the table under a mounting screw and to the wire in the hose, problem solved! Jim.

[Ted Wong]

I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one with this problem. I've gotten some real zappers over the years from our Makita 12" planer. It's a real annoyance and is worse in the winter of course. I can pretty much avoid getting zapped by keeping a hand on the planer at all times when it is running. I might try the wire to ground trick mentioned earlier.

[Neil Brooks]

Would standing on a rubber floor mat ground you ?

[glenn bradley]

If you'll allow a little thread drift. All you 734 owners. Can you run 10" wide red oak through your 734? Thinking about getting one.

No problem at all Kent.

[glenn bradley]

Would standing on a rubber floor mat ground you ?

The opposite.

[Neil Brooks]

The opposite.

What about mats of this (http://www.allmats.com/site/439205/page/2615037) sort ?

[Bill Huber]

What about mats of this (http://www.allmats.com/site/439205/page/2615037) sort ?

It would make no difference what you stood on, the difference in potential is there. You have to get it off the planer.

Think about your car, it is NOT grounded, it has rubber tires. You slide across the seat and get zapped, you are not grounded, that is because there was a difference in potential.

You had high levels of static on you and the car did not so they have to equalize.

[Phillip Pardue]

What about mats of this (http://www.allmats.com/site/439205/page/2615037) sort ?


I think you may be misunderstanding. As said previously, static electricity (any electricity for that matter) "wants" to travel from a higher potential to a lower one (just like water likes to fall with gravity). If you were to stand on the mat (or any mat) with your planer grounded, you probably will not solve any of your problems.

You need to be at the same potential as your planer (as would occur by holding your hand to its case as stated above) or a fininte current will flow which may or may not manifest itself as a shock (all dependant upon the potential difference).

The key here is not isolation but actually conduction. The ideal would be for your planer to be at ground potential and you to be at ground potental as well with as little resistance (skin, shoes, gloves [plastic, dirt, etc in the planer's situation]) as possible between you and ground. This ensures that neither you nor the machine develop a stored potential which can equalize, painfully, through contact.

[Neil Brooks]

Thanks for the feedback. Though I was a EE major ... way back when ... I never used it ;)

[Phillip Pardue]

Thanks for the feedback. Though I was a EE major ... way back when ... I never used it ;)

I'm currently an EE major just regurgitating all my book learnin'

The shop really is an excellent place to understand how many facets of physics work. I understand and built a rotary phase converter to run my tools. My peers (2nd year) have never even heard of three-phase power.

One of the best hobbies I have ever picked up.

[Trent Shirley]

If its anything like the Delta planers, the power cord runs directly into the carriage/motor housing and grounds somewhere in there. It is possible that there isn't enough conductance between the height adjustment mechanism and the body of the motor housing to dissipate the static charge. You can run a wire from one of the screws on the outfeed table or the body of the planer up to one of the screws on the motor housing to see if that helps.

Otherwise, check to make sure your electrical outlet and panel is properly ground bonded.

When I bought my house, the detached garage had the neutral and ground bonded at the sub panel, and the neutral was fried between the house and the panel, and the ground rod wasn't properly installed. The first time I turned on a big motor the lights got really bright and then blew out, and I got a good shock because I was touching some supposedly grounded metal. I was not happy about that.


It is common for the ground and return to run together at the main panel and then the main panel goes to ground. This is how my house is wired.
I will have to check and see if the earth ground has been affected but I have had no problems with any other devices, just this planer.
The chassie should be grounded directly and thus dissipate any static charge as well as any possible short of the electrical system.

Assuming the ground is good and the device is grounded the only thing I can think of is that between the planer and the shop vac something is throwing up a lot of charged ions into the air that are collecting on me and dissipating as soon as I touch a grounded device. I feed a board through, step around back to grab it, get shocked, feed another board, grab it and get shocked, etc. The culprit could be the shop vac as I do not believe it uses a grounded cord and would not dissipate it's own static. But it is the outfeed table I touch when I get shocked which should be directly grounded so it seems to point to me being a carrier of the oppositely charged ions and I recharge in seconds while feeding through these 24" boards.