Dear James;

The air from the airknives is most likely at high relative humidity doe 
to the nature of it's environment, however, low cost precaution of 
grounding the stainless steel (assumption) knife bodies is prudent. A 
quick check with a handheld static meter can produce some level of 
confidence. 

Another area to assess is the curtains making contact with the 
assembly. Most OEM's are providing systems with neoprene curtains, 
which are not dissipative. We can provide static dissipative curtains, 
but I'd hate to sound like I'm trying to advertise, so let's not get on 
that bus at this time.


Regards, 

Ed Popielarski
QTA Machine
714-364-6614


You wrote: 
>
>     Has anyone experienced damage to component on circuit boards that 
have 
>     gone through a water cleaning system.  We have a number of fets 
on a 
>     board that have been damaged at our board supplier during 
assembly.  
>     The fets during testing have shown damage with as little as 20 
volts.  
>     The Electrical Engineering guys in our company think the damage 
might 
>     be caused at the exit end of the water cleaning system by the air 

>     knife that is drying the board.  They have asked our assembly 
house to 
>     investigate the addition of an air ionizer inline with the air 
knife, 
>     to eliminate the possibility of creating a static charge during 
this 
>     process.  The cost to do this is $20K,  I could use a little help 
if 
>     its out there  to convince them this is not required.  My 
contention 
>     is the assembly house which never handled this sensetive of a 
>     component before has a handling problem which they have addressed 
and 
>     corrected.  but the EE guys here still want them to address the 
>     airknife situation on the cleaning system
>
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