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Stainless Steel Floor Mat

B

Brian Bowers

Frequent Participant
As many of us know, rugs, underneath radio station studio chairs, sure take a beating. Years ago, at a former facility, I measured, ordered, and installed, metal-shop cut pieces of stainless steel, measured and cut for each particular studio, to be used as a floor mat underneath the main on-air chair positions. They were absolutely perfect for these studios, and IMO, worth every cent (and looked great too). To help with static electricity, I tied each one of these stainless steel mats to the main ground system in the building. Was that a bad idea? I admit that it completely cured problems with static electricity (DJ's touching the board, and getting a static shock, during dry winter months), in every studio that I put them in. Here's where I question what I did. We had a 460 ft. self supporter about 30 feet from this studio/office building. The tower obviously would be struck by lightning numerous times per year. From what I know, you want your ground system to discharge that strike/those strikes, into the ground, as quickly as possible, otherwise, the strike will start branching off into the ground system around it (going into the studio/office building ground system). I've operated by that theory for many years, so I hope that it's close to being right. After I walked away from that facility, I noticed some office type chair/rug mat protectors (out in the real world) had a wire connected to them (to connect to ground), which looks like it basically did the same thing as what I incorporated into my stainless steel protectors, only I noticed a little embedded resistor or diode in the wire. With my stainless steel mats, would it have made much more sense to incorporate a diode into my connection to ground, so that if a lighting strike found it's way into the building, it wouldn't electrocute someone standing on a metal mat? I say this because once, when I was working there, we had one of the most intense electrical storms that I've ever seen in the area, and the female DJ told me that at one point, she felt some type of electrical taste in her mouth. We came out of that storm OK, except for a burnt component on a studio phone board module (in the same studio that this female DJ allegedly tasted an electrical taste). I'm thinking that that surge may have come in via a phone line, but not completely sure.
 
Brian Bowers said:
As many of us know, rugs, underneath radio station studio chairs, sure take a beating. Years ago, at a former facility, I measured, ordered, and installed, metal-shop cut pieces of stainless steel, measured and cut for each particular studio, to be used as a floor mat underneath the main on-air chair positions. They were absolutely perfect for these studios, and IMO, worth every cent (and looked great too). To help with static electricity, I tied each one of these stainless steel mats to the main ground system in the building. Was that a bad idea? I admit that it completely cured problems with static electricity (DJ's touching the board, and getting a static shock, during dry winter months), in every studio that I put them in. Here's where I question what I did. We had a 460 ft. self supporter about 30 feet from this studio/office building. The tower obviously would be struck by lightning numerous times per year. From what I know, you want your ground system to discharge that strike/those strikes, into the ground, as quickly as possible, otherwise, the strike will start branching off into the ground system around it (going into the studio/office building ground system). I've operated by that theory for many years, so I hope that it's close to being right. After I walked away from that facility, I noticed some office type chair/rug mat protectors (out in the real world) had a wire connected to them (to connect to ground), which looks like it basically did the same thing as what I incorporated into my stainless steel protectors, only I noticed a little embedded resistor or diode in the wire. With my stainless steel mats, would it have made much more sense to incorporate a diode into my connection to ground, so that if a lighting strike found it's way into the building, it wouldn't electrocute someone standing on a metal mat? I say this because once, when I was working there, we had one of the most intense electrical storms that I've ever seen in the area, and the female DJ told me that at one point, she felt some type of electrical taste in her mouth. We came out of that storm OK, except for a burnt component on a studio phone board module (in the same studio that this female DJ allegedly tasted an electrical taste). I'm thinking that that surge may have come in via a phone line, but not completely sure.
Click to expand...

I would (as soon as possible) put a 100KΩ resistor in series with your mat to ground. This will still allow the charge to bleed off, but it will keep the jocks safely 100KΩ above ground. That's what you probably saw on the other mat, which probably was made out of conductive plastic. The anti-static wrist straps worn when working on static-sensitive equipment also contain this resistor, for safety purposes.
 
Thanks. I knew I was missing something from the equation. I'm assuming that wattage of the resistor is not important?
 
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