Paint sprayers use electrostatic
charges to get an even coat
Bikes and cars are painted in this way
Method:
1. The spray gun is
charged, this also
includes the small drops
of paint
2. The paint drops repel
the others; this makes them
spread out leaving the bike
with an even coat
3. The object to be painted will be given an opposite
charge to the electrostatic gun, this attracts the
negative paint in the gun to give a fine spray of paint
You can use electrostatic
sprayers in other ways; such
as insecticide sprayers
Using this method, hardly any paint is wasted in the
process which makes it cheaper and in some ways
quicker; mainly because you don't have to spend
along time trying to get an even coat when the
positive and negative charges are doing it for you
Disadvantages to Electrostatic charges:
When filling up the tank of a
car with fuel, it can easily
lead to a spark which might
cause an explosion. This
could occur in fumed places
such as when filling a car
with petrol in a petrol station
This happens
when fuel
flows out of a
pipe and static
charge builds
up
However, if you
earth charged
objects this would
not happen
Earthed objects can stop
electrostatic charge from
building up
This can prevent dangerous
sparks from occurring, you do this
by connecting a charged object to
the ground using a conductor
You could use a copper wire for instance
This provides an easy route for the
static charges to travel into the
ground; which means no charge can
build up and give you a shock
The electrons flow down the conductor to the ground if the
charge is negative, and up if the charge is negative. Either
way, the object will become earthed with a neutral charge
Earthing objects such
as an aircraft are very
important to prevent
charge building up in
one place so there
aren't any sparks
which could lead to an
explosion