BHO and weather

Someone once told me its dangerous to blast large amounts unless it is a nice sunny day with a small breeze. It's winter time and its been kind of cloudy and rainy =( . Does the cloudy weather/humidity somehow increase chances of explosions? (if its being done outside)

who ever said that is a moron do not take any advise from them. Dry weather is more dangerous because you have a higher chance of static shock and causing an explosion. The weather you have described you will be fine, even in dry weather outside you would have to try rather hard for an explosion.
I would say you are safe.

Bro_Montana said:

Someone once told me its dangerous to blast large amounts unless it is a nice sunny day with a small breeze. It's winter time and its been kind of cloudy and rainy =( . Does the cloudy weather/humidity somehow increase chances of explosions? (if its being done outside)

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Risk of static electricity goes up as the humidity goes down, so temperatures below freezing produce the most static charge build up.

Breezy is good, though wind blowing across an object builds static charge, and if we don't have a breeze, we create one with a fan.

Don't wear or use plastic, cause they build static charges, and don't forget about your socks. I wear cotton when extracting, which isn't prone to building static charges. Don't wear wool, cause it will.

If in doubt about static electric conditions, and are open blasting, you can ground the can and column to a common bond, such as we did here on the first column we built.

http://skunkpharmresearch.com/butane-safety/ covers more of the details.

Fadedawg said:

If in doubt about static electric conditions, and are open blasting, you can ground the can and column to a common bond, such as we did here on the first column we built.

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As one who has worked as a licensed electrician in multiple states, I will mention the predictable nature of electricity to take ALL paths to earth, ohms law decides the amount but this phenomenon convinces me that earth bonding of blasting equipment should be done 100% independently of the electrical / water....

Also, worth mentioning, bonding equipment to earth or earth"ish" as I like to say, you create a greater potential between the earthed equipment and any unearthed personnel in the vicinity.

Equipotential bonding should be considered as well where stray neutrals could present themselves such as pool surround patios and the like. Stray voltages can stop dairy cows from lactating and blow up your rig.

good to see you stop by.

Twitch. said:

good to see you stop by.

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I never left, simply didn't sign in or post. The implicit safety concerns related to grounding / ufer grounding made me cringe.

Herb Ufer invented equipotential grounding back in wwii for a good reason, prevention of premature detonation, specifically regarding ammunition storage depots in the desert southwestern United States (Arizona).

SnapsProvolone said:

As one who has worked as a licensed electrician in multiple states, I will mention the predictable nature of electricity to take ALL paths to earth, ohms law decides the amount but this phenomenon convinces me that earth bonding of blasting equipment should be done 100% independently of the electrical / water....

Also, worth mentioning, bonding equipment to earth or earth"ish" as I like to say, you create a greater potential between the earthed equipment and any unearthed personnel in the vicinity.

Equipotential bonding should be considered as well where stray neutrals could present themselves such as pool surround patios and the like. Stray voltages can stop dairy cows from lactating and blow up your rig.

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To put things in perspective, wind blowing past an object will deposit electrical charges on it and that charge isn't exactly the same for all objects it passes by.

Those charges are looking for a path to ground and the only thing stopping them is the resistance to electrical flow to ground.

If something else provides a better path to ground, even with a spark gap, if voltage is high enough, it will jump the gap and go to ground.

When we install a metal building, we bond the building members to one another, as well as to the electrical service, and to earth ground with rods driven into the ground, and to the piping coming in.

The electrical service of course is grounded to the electrical ground as well, so that everything is tied together.

As SP notes, earth ground is not fixed, because the conductivity of the ground is not constant, so is just one leg in the equation.

Fadedawg said:

To put things in perspective, wind blowing past an object will deposit electrical charges on it and that charge isn't exactly the same for all objects it passes by.

Those charges are looking for a path to ground and the only thing stopping them is the resistance to electrical flow to ground.

If something else provides a better path to ground, even with a spark gap, if voltage is high enough, it will jump the gap and go to ground.

When we install a metal building, we bond the building members to one another, as well as to the electrical service, and to earth ground with rods driven into the ground, and to the piping coming in.

The electrical service of course is grounded to the electrical ground as well, so that everything is tied together.

As SP notes, earth ground is not fixed, because the conductivity of the ground is not constant, so is just one leg in the equation.

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My problem rests with two truths:

Current will take all paths to ground. hypothetical : you and your rig are solidly grounded, energy discharges from another point, into your GEC, it will take all paths to earth. Now, by tying your rig to this GEC you / your rig present another path to earth ground (boom).

Secondly, by firmly "grounding" your rig, you increase the voltage potential between either any ungrounded objects/persons and stray voltages caused by a neutral tied to ground at a significant distance from distribution xfmr.

The later being a double headed beast.

Basically, the predictable nature of electricity makes for a situation where we need to consider PV between any/all two objects and not assume grounding alone is a solution.

Good point, that something firmly grounded and bonded, is a path to ground for something with a higher voltage, because it isn't bonded or has more resistance to ground. Like us'ns for instance.

With a closed loop system, that raises the question of effect from a typical static discharge to the outside of the machine, unless it is leaking, or the static discharge is a bolt of lightening, with enough current to heat up the system.

Without buildup, an ignited leak would be more like lighting a bunsen burner, so important to not forget about ventilation with closed loop systems, in case something does go wrong, go wrong, go wrong.

The components are metal to metal clamped tight enough that internal sparks, from different component potentials are unlikely, but if it were to occur, the atmosphere inside would have to be in the 1.8 to 8.4% air fuel mixture, which is unlikely to be present in such a butane enriched atmosphere, but does point out the importance of keeping your tanks burped regularly and atmosphere free (extremely low).

Flow through thermo plastic lined and PTFE lined hoses can build up static charges, which is why WolfWurx uses stainless overbraided PTFE hoses, to bond both sides of the equipment together so as to minimize charge differences.

I also recently had the experience of operating one of WolfWurx's automated machines on a clients circuit that had a reversed hot and common, plus no ground, so static charges are only one of the electrical concerns. Check your outlets for polarity and ground before plugging in...........

No sparks in this case, but buzzed son and client enough to get their attention. Fortunately, it didn't blow any of our electronics.