How does the antistatic chain work?

[guitarchitect]

I'm working on putting together a separator for my CT26, and since I will need to use some PVC I wanted to ensure I preserve some anti-static qualities. I got a grounding kit which should be fine, but I was curious about the conductivity of the festool hoses.

My thinking was - if they're anti-static, they would be conductive. I checked the resistance between the ground tab in the hose inlet on the CT26 and the ground on the plug - all fine, the needle jumped the way I would expect. When I checked the two ends of a hose - nothing. When I plug in the hose, and touch a probe to the outside of the hose and the ground plug... nothing.

So - am I confusing grounding with anti-static? Is the benefit of the hoses that they dissipate static charge rather than ground it? Or is there something else at work that I'm missing? We have very dry winters and I do get a lot of static (and shocks) on my PVC flex hoses to my dust collector, so I definitely want to ground the PVC.

 

[wpz]

Hi [member=64037]guitarchitect[/member],

Have a look at this thread:https://www.festoolownersgroup.com/...rge-issues-with-festool-dust-extractor-s/?all

wpz

 

[AlexThePalex]

Every part of the hose is conductive and connected to the ground.

 

[guitarchitect]

Every part of the hose is conductive and connected to the ground.

Yes, I understand that. I just don't understand why it doesn't register on a multimeter the same way the ground strip to ground plug does.

However, there's a clear explanation in the link [member=66126]wpz[/member] posted, so thank you for that! didn't find that thread when I searched for it!

 

[Coen]

Multimeters use a too low test voltage. If there is the tiniest gap... it will see no connection at all between test terminals. If you apply a higher voltage you can bridge small gaps.

That's exactly what was done in the linked topic with an insulation tester at 500V.