Especially in wintertime I get shocks all the time. Some days ten times or more. It is driving me crazy!
Has someone a good remedy against this?

Thanks.

__________________
Not because it is easy, but because it is hard...

There is no way to happiness,
happiness is the way.

Who are we to question when He finally hits the target?

Seriously, up the humidity a bit, that should help. Excessive heating dries the air out severely, creating ideal conditions for charges to build up. Going barefoot might help too, socks are notorious for helping the charge build up shuffling and scuffling on carpet.

__________________
I'm not completely heartless, the doctor who removed it told me he'd never be able to get it all.

You could walk around with a wire connected to ground, but it would be impractical.

You could keep a metallic object handy (a pen, a spoon, a nail, whatever) and use it to discharge yourself on grounded (metallic) objects. At least you would keep the point of discharge from your skin.

__________________
papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

I tend to get a nasty shock when I step out of my car and touch the door in the wintertime. I've taken to touching it with my key first, and sometimes even that is painful.

__________________
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Thanks for your tips so far.
What I do now is slapping the object I want to the touch with the backside of my hand? But I don't think that's healthy behaviour.
The worst thing of it is, that it always catches you by surprise.

__________________
Not because it is easy, but because it is hard...

There is no way to happiness,
happiness is the way.

I've had huge hail hitting me yesterday, still static discharges are a more painful natural phenomenon IMO.

__________________
To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Colorado has very dry air, especially in the winter. Static electricity is something I've had to get used to even though it can be expensive. I've blown out a TV tuner and two electronic thermostats due to static electicity.

Adding humidity helps but only to a point. I try to touch something else before touching something that could be damaged. For example, touching the screw on a switchplate of a light switch or electrical outlet will let the static electicity discharge without harming anything. My wife and I learned long ago to touch hands before kissing. Static electric discharge on the lips hurts!

I was in hotel room once (low humidity and carpet optimized for static charging), and I had use a key to touch anything, so strong was the pop after walking for any length. I turned down the lights, and slowly brought the tip of my key to a piece of metal, and I swear it first jumped over 1".

What I've noticed that really builds up static when you get out of your car is the shuffling around across the seat as you get out. What I do when it gets bad is to open the door before I move, reach out and grab the sheet metal and hold on as I get out. That does the trick most of the time.

-Richard

Wash your hands, or at least keep them damp. Even if you can't keep the air damp, you can keep your body's local environment that way.

__________________
I'm not completely heartless, the doctor who removed it told me he'd never be able to get it all.

I wonder if there would be a way to carry around a resistor and use it to slowly equalize yourself with an object like a light switch before you touch the thing bare skin.

You could try wearing an ESD wristband and touching the grounding clip to the object before touching it with your hand- that would discharge you through a 1 meg or so resistor, hopefully limiting the current to a level below the "OW! @#$%^&!" level.

A few things I can recommend trying- using a humidifier to keep the relative humidity near the top end of the comfort zone- say 50%- is a good idea. Use a good dose of fabric softener when washing your clothes and a dryer sheet when drying them. If the problem is mainly in a space you control, like at home, there are anti-static treatments available for carpets and furniture- a carpet cleaning company can probaly inform you about that. Or you could try the homebrew static treament we used to use in the studio when I lived back East- take some liquid fabric softener like Downy, dilute it with about 8 parts water to 1 part softener and use a spray bottle to mist the rugs and upholstery until the surface is damp. If you use a commercial or homemade treatment you'll probably have to repeat it a few times over the course of the winter.

__________________
Please enjoy your trip through this door.

It's not so much the current that causes the discomfort, but the arcing. Some people are very sensitive to currents well below my own threshold for feeling, so I won't argue with 'em. I once ran into a case where a woman was claiming her refrigerator was shocking her when she touched it (and happened to be touching something that gave a decent conducitive path to the sink area, too, but she wasn't aware of that detail), and he husband thought she was nuts. I did too, really, but my instruments told me there was something there.

It was an ungrounded refrigerator, using an adapter to plug in an old two-prong style outlet. There was some significant leakage to the frame there. I say significant, but only relatively. It was on the order of well less < 1mA when grounded, and I really don't trust my meter with uA anyway. The case was obviously "hot" to my meter, but the slightest grounding, such as through one's own body would kill it.

I tested the woman by alternately grounding and ungrounding the frame when she wasn't looking. I pretended I was "troubleshooting" and asking for her help, so she wouldn't really know I was testing her because I doubted she could feel anything that low. But she could, scoring 100% "ground/no ground". When she touched it, I barely saw a change in case to ground voltage (this is through a 10MOhm meter, now).

That woman was a human microcurrent detector. And oh boy, how she rode her husband that I actually found and verified what she was claiming. TO console him, I told him off the record I didn't believe her either until I saw with my own two eyes and meters.

-Richard

Whoops, posted to the wrong thread, and I note I can't delete the whole post. Sorry
-Richard

Where is this happening mostly? In the house, at work, somewhere else?

You can get anti-static sprays or make some with anti-static softeners and spray it on carpets (obviously test on a small area first). That could help. Anti-static mats can help too.

__________________
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Duh. Read this after posting. Ah, well.

__________________
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Sure you can, there's a delete post function in the edit command.

Down on the bottom right, third button from the left, it'll give a drop down where you can explain why you're deleting it. I've occassionally had a double post, and that's helped bury the evidence, but I'm guessing posts you ask to have deleted get some kind of que for moderator review if you don't explain why.

__________________
I'm not completely heartless, the doctor who removed it told me he'd never be able to get it all.

Well, I'll be. I see that delete button, which expands up the "reason for deletion" thing. I swear that thing comes and goes. Once I posted something, had the wording all screwed up, and I was just going to delete and start over. There was no delete that I could see, and so I had to just edit it. But now that delete button is there.

-Richard

This sounds familiar.

See topic My new fear of doorknobs in which I pointed out: Stop Getting Shocks

__________________
0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0....

Delete works until someone posts a reply, then you can't delete anymore.

__________________
"God bless thee, my son; I will give thee the greatest jewel I have ...
"The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible."Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.