A "shocking" way to ground your shop dust collection 

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"Smarter than the people on the internet." That's quite the low bar James.

"Who has an extra outlet in their shop anyway". ( Truer words, were never spoken. )

I cannot believe how timely this video is. I started the process of finally setting up my dust collection system today and was definitely confused about how to ground. Thank you!

I've never been concerned about a static-dust explosion in my small shop, but I do have a Rockler flex hose that kept zapping me over and over when it was connected to my sander. I wrapped an exposed copper wire around it, duct taped it and then connected it to a pipe in my ceiling. It worked like a charm. Thanks for the great content!

James, as always great detail! I have to say, up until recently I’ve run my 4” dust collection system through PVC pipe then through some metal blast gates to short 4” flex hoses to the machines. I seldom got shocks as I didn’t really need to handle the flex hose or pipe during normal operation. If I switch from machine to machine with the blast gates the blower is almost always shut off as it’s just me not a production facility. I recently upgraded my DC on my CNC to 4” and decided to plumb my PVC pipe further across the shop ceiling and drop a 4” flex hose to the CNC. When I did I was getting shocks non stop and killing my CNC controller mid carve a few times. I installed Ferrite Ring Cores on most of my CNC cables and solved loosing carves but it did nothing about the shocks I was getting! I skeptically decided to do something similar to what you show in this video and to my happy amazement NO MORE shocks! So for the folks that say grounding PVC pipe is not going to help, I say, oh yes it certainly does! I never once thought my shop was going to blow up but the never ending “ZAPS” were getting, well, very annoying! Thanks again for your informative, clear and valuable videos!

The one style you use in your topic selection - frequently talking safety - is much appreciated. Hopefully, we all have younger craftsmen & women in training, wanting to spend time with us in the shop. Thank you for regularly finding safety topics we may have forgotten, neglected or just simply didn't know. Another excellent course offered at Dr. Hamilton's Wood University (aka Wood U).

Great advice . I wish I had this information 30 years ago when I was setting up my current shop. I opted on running the ground wire inside the pipe. Most runs have been fine, but one has an occasional blockage. I routed the piping under the concrete floor, so redoing is not an option. Your explanations were great.

James, saw this video yesterday and took it to heart. My planer has shocked me for years and wasn't sure how to ground it. I swap the port with my band saw with a Rockler thingamajig so I had to engineer a solution to allow me to connect/disconnect when I change tools. I happened to have some 18 ga. copper wire in the cabinet and wrapped it to a post on my planer then connected it to the flex hose wire as it exited the planer. Three feet away at the DC blast gate, I connected another pigtail to the flex hose wire as well. I put a quick connect male end on that pigtail. I had another piece of wire from the DC to the blast gate that will remain always connected and I put a female end on that piece. I just ran some wood through and NO static discharge at all. Thanks so much for the tip. It's greatly appreciated.

My first system was 4" plastic pipe sprayed with conductive paint. You can get carbon, copper, nickel, or silver.( Right). It doesn't take a good conductor like copper to drain the very low current static charge, so the paint works fine. As long as the path is continuous and unbroken to ground it works. If you are familiar with electronic work you probably know that the "static dissipative mats" have resistivities in the thousands of meg ohm range. Quite effective at getting rid of static but no danger of conducting dangerous levels of current. I make two stripes down the length of the pipes on opposite sides. Covering the pipe will waste paint. Some types of paint will tend to flake off the plastic eventually so keep extra around for touch up. Wrap a few turns of small wire around the pipe near the ground point and spray over it and the paint for solid contact. This probably won't work for flex pipe.

I am using a cnc machine in my home shop and I have noticed that milling MDF produces a lot of static charge. I guess this may be the case when cutting MDF on other shop tools. I chose to ground my dust collection to prevent getting a good zap when working with MDF. Great video. Thank you for all of your very helpful and informative content.

Love how often you post n really preciate cause it's the main stuff I like to listen to while piddling in my shop, you my boy blue

nice vid! i've just put up a dust collection system in my (very) small shop. i used some self adhesive copper tape (the stuff gardeners use to keep slugs / snails at bay) on the outside and put a small screw through it every few feet. attached a wire and clamped that to my copper plumbing pipes that are grounded. just another option.

James, I agree the danger of a fire/explosion is virtually nil for a home workshop from static discharge. There is valid concern regarding static discharge and electronics, like the electronics controlling a CNC. A buddy of mine ran into this recently where the dust collection was discharging onto the CNC. Once he realized it was happening, he properly grounded the dust collection pipe and a possible expensive repair was avoided. With more and more electronics in the shop, dust collector static discharge could be a valid concern. Love your videos, keep up the great work!

Well, I am in HVAC distribution and was able to get metal spiral duct. It was still expensive but it addresses any static charge concerns. Dust collection has changed my shop experience. I even bought a Stealth mask and extra filters. I have learned a lot from this channel!

You have many great informative videos and this is no exception and it is nice to see you address the issue of static in dust collection systems. I've worked in a few CNC shops, mostly cutting metals, and also a couple of food product factories that dealt with transferring powders used in the production. I don't know if its due to OSHA standards but they always used metal duct, grounding flex hose, and the dust collectors themselves were never inside the building with the workers, always outside. Having the collectors outside (I'm guessing) is not just a protection against explosions but also means little chance of microparticles contaminating the air people are breathing if the collector has an issue where it is leaking either due to improper seal or deficient filters for whatever reason. I don't know if its a danger to home shops but the dangers of explosion caused by dust collection in a production environment are real and every once in a while you will here in the news of a major explosion at a factory caused by the dust collection system. Seems the same people who expect employers to follow every safety precaution they can, throw that to the wind when they themselves operate their own manufacturing equipment at home, whether its regular wood shop tools, CNC routers or 3D Printers. Clean air is a must if you want a good quality of life from your 50's through your 90's and beyond.

Great video. I grounded our built in vacuum pipe where it goes along the garage ceiling because the static charge attracted dust and dirt and turned the pipe and wall brown. After cleaning it I spiraled wire around it and grounded it to the vacuum. Ten years later it still looks clean.

Thanks for the tips! Going to have to try grounding the wire in my 4in flex hose that's hooked up to my dust collector and a Dewalt 735 planer. That's the only machine I have that constantly zaps me when using!

Man you are the greatest teacher ever, I was so frustrated trying to solve this grounding situation. Nothing like an expert explaining all the in’s & out’s 👍

I live in a dry climate and the static build up from my shop vac is terrifyingly painful but as you say is pretty easy to ground, never worried about an explosion though.

I'm glad you suggest running the ground wire outside the duct. In many jurisdictions, it's a code violation to run any conductors inside ductwork.

Thanks. This will help me design my dust collection system as i continue to build my small work shop.

I keep reading that static electricity and other EMI will start to interfere with the CNC machine I just bought, causing skips, controller problems, and screen flickers. I was planning on implementing some sort of grounding for it, and your video has given me great insight. Thank you!

Nice video. I found the euro screws to be perfect for this as they provide a smooth blunt end just inside the inside surface of the pipe.

Well thanks for verifying the system we have hooked up at my job. We have everything you mentioned here except for the foil tape. Love your vids.

Good info! 2 use cases where this was important to me. 1. My planer connected to the vac system through a flexible hose. Shocked the crap out of me a couple times. Connected the internal wire to a local outlet box. No more flopping around on the floor for me. 2. My CNC machine's shopvac. Static was building up in it quite a bit. I accidentally touched it while the CNC was running - it shocked me and the CNC shut down. Copper through the plastic hose connected to the ground on the router support and also to some conduit and all is well. Just where I need it...I'm not going to run wire through my entire vac system.

Love learning from this Guy!!

I have used this system for years with no problem. That dame shop vac used to get me all the time until I put a bare wire on the hose so it would drag on the floor, problem solved. Good video brother

Static electricity can be an issue for people with some medical implants. I had an LVAD (Left Ventricular Assist Device) for about a year and a half. I wasn't supposed to use vacuum cleaners or unload a clothes drier because a static discharge could affect the controls. So this may be another reason the ground your system.

bought the sharping set advertised at the end of the video, wow, never had a wood chisel this sharp.

Great info/video! Thanks.

As alwaysa great scientific advice. So Ive grounded my system just because I don’t like the shock I get especially when using my thickness planer in my home, hobby , escape shop. Doc

Love this! Thank you for saving me time and money 👏

Years ago I had a Craftsman 2” W/D vac that produced a nearly constant zap until I connected the wire wrap on the hose to a body screw on the vac to drain the static. It was at its worst when cleaning my table saw.

Liked the original video. LOVE THE NEW THUMBNAIL!

I was going to use S&D 6" plastic for my dust system, but it was not available reasonably in my area. You could buy all the 4" you could want but no 6". So I bought some spiral pipe and fittings, and for any more pieces needed I found I can get 26 gauge snaplock pipe at Ace Hardware. And if I need a fitting for the spiral, I can remove the crimp from snaplock fittings and use them with spiral pipe by using couplings. Glad I did it 20 plus years ago, as the cost has gone up significantly.

As soon as you said you talked to an MIT guy, I liked and subscribed. Awesome!

Great video! I'll just recommend using stranded copper wire wherever hoses flex, as a single solid strand is subject to fatigue and breaking off. The heavy stranded wire going into the plug was probably for mechanical strength.

I recently got a Dust Deputy for my mall shop, and the instructions suggested attaching a wire to it with a large flat washer or nut on the other end to lay on the ground/floor.

Explains why I was getting a shock when using my DeWalt planner. NOW I can go take care of this.

Another great video James, as a retired BSEE (and wood wood worker/turner) I would add that the final grounding should be to a single point ground and only a single point to mitigate "Ground Loop" issues due to the difference in potentials that could be hazardous in some situations.

As an Electrical Design Engineer that has had experience in hazardous classified locations that require explosion equipment and wiring methods, I absolutely agree with you. There is no way to get the amount of dust necessary dispersed into the air that it would explode.

Thanks for the video. I was just wondering if there was a new shop tour yet. Keep up the good work.

Stumpy, I have a Shapeoko CNC machine connected to a Jet 1.5 HP collector. I need to ground my system to prevent disconnects of the controller of the Shapeoko to the computer. On the C3D community forum folks that live in dry climates and in the cold winter months get a lot of static discharges from the moving air and router moving on the projects. So grounding of dust collections is not to prevent shock to people but to prevent disconnects of their machines mid project.

Good information Thanks

Good Stuff Thank you!

Try crimping a spade connector to the integrated hose wire on the flex hose. Makes it easy to unhook if you ever need to. This worked well on ditching the static on my collectors hose that occasionally produced a shock.

Getting a little shock doesn't bother me, but when my dust collector is connected to my cnc machine which is connected to my computer where a little bit of static discharge causes my cnc to stop in the middle of a cut, it needs to be grounded! I've never had issues once I grounded the pvc

Great info….thx

Great info, James! Thanks!!! 😃 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

Love the Red Wings Mug!

I have 1.5 hp jet dust collector plugged into the same circuit as a 12 cubic foot freezer in the garage. Right after I installed the dust collector it sometimes tripped the GFCI on that circuit. I since have grounded my pvc pipe exactly as stumpy shows in this video and I haven't tripped the circuit since then.

thanks for posting this, this has been a subject i have been intending to cover on my own channel for some time but now i can link to your video instead whenever the subject comes up in the comment section in my videos on dust collection. i have watched many a prominent youtuber screw up their dust collection systems six ways from sunday. some of them even got extremely indignant when i would point it out to them they should ground their system and would give them pointers on how to do it. it's pretty crazy to think someone who has hundreds of thousands of subs, in one case even over a million would get this so wrong... and in spectacular fashion wrong to boot, and then be all bent out of shape when you try to give them a pointer or two. the thing you are talking about is called "capacitance" in the PVC pipe. the static charge doesn't migrate thru, but it does flow around all of the surfaces of the pipe. PVC and ABS can have some really crazy capacitance properties depending on the air velocity, volume and type and size of dust particles moving thru it. the finer the dust particles get, the faster and higher a static charge will build up. MDF dust is extremely fine grained and thus explosive. and lots of woodworkers are increasingly reaching to MDF as a raw material because it is cheaper and easier to work with than particle board or OSB. this is the real reason you should ground your system if you use any appreciable amount of MDF in your shop. wood chips off of your planer or table saw don't generate the kind of static charge that MDF dust does, although they do generate some. MDF is essentially nothing more than dense paper as it begins life in a similar process, which means it has been thru a digester and the fibers have been separated in the manufacturing process which makes them easier to to ignite when the air/fuel mixture is right because of their dispersal pattern. the outfit i work for had an MDF dust explosion occur in the collection tower last year. the investigators never could adequately pinpoint the source and cause of the ignition. static electricity discharge was ruled to be the most likely suspect in spite of the system being more than adequately grounded. don't take this subject too lightly folks.. dust explosions are no laughing matter

Years ago, one of our schools 2 stage exhaust systems for the wood shop caught fire, burned the exhaust unit, flash lit all the dust accumulated in most of the shops metal ducting. Now systems have UV watch sensors in the duct system reporting to a local FA system in the shops, it reports to the schools main system as a zone

I agree not too worried about fire, but that static does make a ton of dust build up inside the duct.

Thank you!! Genius!

I’ve been hit pretty hard by the flex hose on a commercial CNC running aluminum composite panel. ACM oozes static if you look at it wrong! It’s actually funny to watch new guys and gals get zapped until they figure out how to handle it. Anyway the hose has the copper wire and whoever set it up didn’t connect it. I did. Totally worth it.

I ran a constant line of aluminium tape along the outside of the ducting on mine which works well. I quite agree the risk of generating a dust explosion is very very remote in a domestic setup. The reason I grounded mine was mostly to reduce the amount of dust that is attracted to the pipe work due to the static charge and it's made a noticeable difference.

Love it!

Thank you :)

I was getting heavy duty static shock using a vacuum and a drywall sanding pole. I used some stripped wire in between the vac pipes and grounded it on the baseboard heater

I worked at a tire company, they were always concerned about the dust from the tires catching fire as it went through the exhaust system. I have also worked at a plastic plant, I tell you what. If you push a metal pipe into a box of plastic beads you will find out all about static.

yeah my friend is an electrician at a grain mill and they are wild about explosion safety there. but that is a giant operation with ultra fine microscopic powder that has been industrially dried, not sawdust that is full of moisture that will clump. you'll be fine from explosions ;)

Thanks for yet another good video James! You can save money with no impact on performance by using steel wire instead of copper. Copper wire is is used for electrical conductors to minimize voltage drop (and power loss) when current flows. Static electricity has very very high voltage, but extremely low current. The voltage drop of steel wire vs copper for static charge draining in a dust system is unnoticeable.

As he says, the ducts are insulators and do not conduct electricity. The external ground wires have only limited effectiveness as charge will still float on the surface of the insulator as the distance from the wire increases. That is particularly noticeable in dry climates where there is no moisture in the air to help , conduct the charge to the wire.

I have an opportunity to try something not possible unless you're building a shop from the ground up. In our new home, my shop will be the entire space under a three stall garage. I'm going to bury 6" PVC sewer pipe under the slab. That gets the venting out of the way and it will be naturally grounded. The 6" vent branches will transition to 4" at my machines and I'll use flex hoses. I've planned for cleanouts in case something get sucked in that might clog the 6" vent pipe. I have a Harvey G700 and the dust port on it is about 12" off the floor so very little vertical lift, which decreases CFM. The concrete floor will have radiant heat with 2" of XPS under it. I shouldn't have condensation issues in the winter months here in Minnesota with well insulated walls down to the footings. The sewer pipe will be around 12" below grade. I'd like to hear about any drawbacks I might encounter. Thanks.

I grounded my system by running the copper wire to the concrete slab and wrapping it around a short chain link that sits on the ground. It works.

I say it's always better to be safe than sorry 👍👍

Just a thought (in addition)... Some areas have building codes that require (by law) buildings be grounded by framing... It's worth a look for some of us, and if such a law applies, you CAN just connect the loose end of the wire to some bolt or screw (even a self-tapping machine screw) in the frame... AND if you've hastily assembled a metal framed building (often sold in "kit" forms) then you CAN (and probably should) go ahead for the grounding wire, block, and post to ground it properly...{instructions can be found online, if you have trouble with directions coming with the grounding hardware}... and you can then "hardwire" grounds for just about anything inside, very much the way shown in the video... again wrapping or connecting the end of the grounding wire(s) to screw(s) or bolt(s) in the frame directly...AND yes, it's alright to connect more than one grounding wire to the same machine screw or other hardware to the frame for grounding... "Ground is always zero in electrical/electronics terms"... ;o)

I have a HUGE static shock phobia, so if I ever get a dust collection system, it will be grounded for static shock. Thanks for the tips!

Good Talk.

I used 3M copper tape and applied it inside with a narrow paint roller on a stick for the longer pipes. Super easy.

here in Colorado, at 16% humidity in my shop, I can absolutely get shocked....but, if you mix a bit of fabric softener into a spray bottle with water and spritz your ducts and hoses every once in a while all the static goes away. the little bit of water goes away quickly when its dry. Obviously don't spray your cast iron tools with water.

Thanks for the info. My issue with the static electricity is not based on fear of getting shocked. It is purely about cleanliness. I find that my PVC ducting gets completely covered (fairly thick layer) of very fine dust. Its more of an eyesore than anything else. Do you have any simple solutions? Thanks again.

When I was about 14 years old, we lived in Bakersfield Calif. About 200 yards from our house was a cabinet shop on the corner. One afternoon, after everyone had gone home (about 10 men), the cabinet shop caught fire and burned to the ground. Of course everyone was sure it was spontaneous combustion due to all of the sawdust, but the insurance and fire investigators report said it was due to static electricity buildup in the duct work of the exhaust system. This was in 1957.

Good video J

The biggest reason i have found for grounding PVC pipe in a dust collection system is to prevent the static charge from collecting dust on the pipe and the walls where the pipe runs. It just makes it cleaner in the shop.

Interesting video James. Would your ducting support brackets not be adequate for removing any static if you put some screws through the holes in the band. The support leg goes to the roof? or is it attached to a wooden joist. I'm going on my own local experience where most over head attachments in a commercial shop would be to a concreate roof structure. I know a huge proportion of buildings in the Stares are of wooden construction, but where I live 99% are brick and concreate so earthing is very easy.

I worked in sugar production and static electricity explosion is definitely an issue. In a woodshop, i'm not convinced it is an issue, as you said

I have gotten some pretty amazing shocks from my dust right flex hose. I've definitely need to ground mine.

Static discharge from my ungrounded pvc ducting fried 2 power supply units to my ivac blast gates. They sent me out replacements and advised me to ground my system and theyve been good since. It was especially bad on my drum sander. The flex hose would periodically arc about an inch to the machine body. The hair standing up and unpleasant jolts is all gone now. much more comfortable to work and wasnt nearly the pita that i thought it would be. I was never concerned about a fire though. oneida supercell dc system. another plus, the pvs seems to retain less dust now. maybe static cling was a thing.

Great information James, thanks for sharing with us. Fred.

instead of trying to prevent a fire inside the dust collector, i'd love to see one that uses the cyclone as a combustion chamber and the draft of a chimney instead of a fan to power the whole thing. it would be nice and quiet, no filters to replace or bags of sawdust to throw out and it would reduce both the electric and heating costs of your woodshop.

5:50 "; and who has an extra outlet in their shop anyway?" Now that's funny ! and true - in my shop.

I decorated my plastic ducts as Jim shows. I used half-inch sheet metal screws with wide heads to attach the wire. I think the screws are called truss heads. I don't trust the grounding in devices, so I did not merely connect the dust wire to the frame of the dust collector; rather, I ran it to the copper wire that grounds the well's water pump. This is about 80' of 18 gauge bare wire running to about 40' of 8 gauge. I hope it is actually a ground, and not an antenna.

Great video , what if my dust collection unit as no metal , my Rigid vaccum is all plastic? where do I connect the end of my wire ?🤔

I used screws into pvc and ran aluminum tape instead of copper wire. Teal pipe with a silver racing stripe.

Another option to find ground when your shop is in your house... use a nearby copper water pipes. By code, copper water pipes are supposed to be connected to the main electric panel ground... assuming yours is (check before assuming that - you will typically see the connection at your water service entrance, usually both sides of your meter, and a heavy line running to your electrical panel). Just use a ground clamp made for this type of connection (it wraps around and has teeth - just like the one at the meter).

I deal with combustible dusts at work. It can be very tricky to risk assess. You would have to know the minimum ignition energy (MIE) of wood dust to make a claim that a static spark isn’t capable of igniting it. But there’s a lot variables that could make the conditions right: different wood types, moisture, particle size, velocity of air in duct, etc. It’s hard to claim that it can’t happen but I tend to agree that it’s unlikely.

would you need to use anti static hoses and gloves when using a hepa dust extractor vacuum in house while sanding walls with a small orbital sander? thanks in advance

You can also solder or otherwise connect the wire to a metal O ring, and then hook that around the ground lead going into any socket (the round middle plug on a three-prong power connector in the US).

ME: Has tiny work room and uses a shop vac for all my dust collecting. ALSO ME: Watches every Stumpy Nubs dust collector video religiously.

Love your work 👍

The dust collection network in my cabinet shop avoids this problem by running through metal ducting

Guess that's the nice part of having a sheet metal guy that can get all your pipe for cheap. 😂 I bought some tools off a guy once and when I was in his shop he helically wrapped his whole pvc system, he was a full time custom woodworker, and you could see a 3" bar around wherever the copper wire was wrapped and the rest of it was covered in sawdust. So I say if your going to be running a lot of material continuously through you system use metal, if you just don't want to spend more time cleaning than working on the weekend use pvc.

I should have used an insulator before going to Amazon to look at the grounding wire. I DEFINITELY got shocked when I saw how much a small spool of copper wire is going for now.

Fortunately, there has never, I repeat NEVER, been one single documented case of a home dust collection explosion from static electricity.

My (shop)? is in a easy up canopy in my back yard. I use a shop vac and a 5gal bucket dust collector. My dust collection is all flex hose. Is running the copper line inside the hoses between the tools-shop vac-dust collector-ground, OK? Can I attach the copper wire to a heavy nut and let it drag on the ground, or do I need to drive a stake into the ground? Thanks

Good video, I grounded my system and have not been zapped since.

I just put in a new d/c setup in my shop. Supply near me is such that PVC is stupid expensive. Galvy pipe was way cheaper.