SEC Pro Tip - SMC Ionizers

How many of you remember from elementary school science class where you learned about static electricity where you rub your feet on the carpet walk up to your friend and shock them? Well, it was funny back then in elementary school, but not so funny in a manufacturing plant these days. In fact, there have been a number of cases where static electricity has not only shocked people, but damaged components or damaged a finished good, and in some cases is even started fires.

What we are going to show you today are some products from SMC corporation that will allow you to not only detect static electricity, but also to remove it. To start with, I want to show SMC’s ESD meter (IZH10), ESD stands for electrostatic discharge, which is static electricity. You can use this device by turning on the orange power button, taking the ESD meter to an area where you think you might have static electricity. With the ESD meter, you can measure static electricity in kilovolts on displays, you will know just how much static electricity you have present in your application. And once you determine that, you can then choose from a variety of SMC products.

The first one is the SMC ionizer gun (IZG10), which has an emitter cartridge on the end, you turn the IZG10 on by pressing the button and it admits ions into the environment. You can also monitor the static electricity with your ESD meter determine how much of that static electricity is being dissipated. Press it again, to turn it off, it is that simple.

If you prefer to have a permanently mounted ionizer, SMC has the IZN10E. The SMC IZN10E ionizer allows you to use 24 volts and compressed air much like the IZG10 ionizer gun, you can put it here and this nozzle supply 24 volts. And then you have this nozzle on the front which allows you to, in this case, spray a spread of ions into the environment. If you want, you can change out the nozzle to different types and there are several dozen to choose from. This will allow you to point the ion spray into a specific area. Additionally, there is another nozzle type that has holes drilled in the circumference. You can use it to give a larger spread or array of ions into an environment. This nozzle looks something like this.

I also want to show you SMC’s fan type ionizer (IZF21/31). This is the only one of the ionizers that does not need compressed air to operate, the IZF21/31 uses 24 volts, has an on off switch for the fan and there is a blow speed knob potentiometer here on the bottom right that allows you to control the fa speed. The SMC IZF21/31 fan ionizer can provide as much as 4400 liters per minute of volume through the fan. You can easily remove the louvers to point those in a different direction or to clean them. And there is even a filter here on the back that can be cleaned. The IZF21/31 is very handy when you do not have compressed air in an environment, and you still want to be able to remove static electricity.

And last but certainly not least, is my favorite, the SMC bar type ionizer (IZS40/41/42). This bar type ionizer is pretty cool. It comes in a length of anywhere from 160 millimeters. This one I believe is a 340-millimeter length. They also go out to 2500 millimeters or 2.5 meters which is about 8.2 feet. The range on SMC bar ionizers is about six feet. So, you can be six and a half feet above a conveyor belt that you want to deionize a product. The IZF21/31 has a range of about four feet, the IZN10E has a range of about two inches.

Another cool thing about SMC ionizers is that these products have an emitter cartridge and the one thing on any ionizer you will have to replace from time to time is the emitter cartridge because it can become contaminated. It is a straightforward process, you turn the meter cartridge 90 degrees (a quarter turn), and you can remove the contaminated cartridge, you can easily put it in a new one and you are up and running again.

The SMC bar ionizers also do auto detect so if you have more positively charged ions than negatively charged or vice versa. This allows SMC bar ionizers to autodetect the balance and adjust their ion spray accordingly to help sure ensure that you remove that static electricity.

Thank you for listening and if you have any questions about SMCs ionizer products, please reach out to us here at Scott Equipment Company in beautiful Charlotte, North Carolina.

Thank you for your time.