Bond-Rite Static Bond Indicating System

Manufacturer: Newson Gale Ltd

Applications:

In many branches of the process industries, fires and explosions can result from electrostatic discharge in hazardous areas. Even a relatively small discharge (sparks) have sufficient energy to ignite many flammable vapours, gases or even airborne dusts. In situations where such risk exists static earthing and bonding clamps are required – in all situations where mobile or portable conductive plant items are used (such as barrels/drums and containers, etc.). In these applications, it is necessary for the clamp to make a low resistance contact with the object, to enable any static to be safely dissipated to ground via a suitable conductor before the energy available for discharge builds up. If the correct clamp has been selected for the application and the object to be earthed does not have surface insulation, then it should be possible to make good enough contact to prevent static accumulation. However, in practice, many barrels/drums, containers and other types of equipment have coated surfaces (even when new). This problem is compounded in use, due to the build-up of additional insulation layers, such as paints, resins, adhesives and other substances inherent to the processing environment.

In tests, many standard earthing clamps in use today show very high resistance readings when clamped onto conducting objects with insulating surfaces. This may result in the clamp appearing to be physically attached, but not actually performing its intended function (safe static dissipation).

Specification:

• ATEX certificate: Ex II (1) GD EEx ia IIC T4
• Power supply: 9V lithium-manganese battery U9VL-J ULTRALIFE (supplied with unit)
• Monitoring set point: normally set to 10 Ω
• The Bond-Rite Remote version has a LED on the wall-mounted enclosure. The Bond-Rite Remote (EP) version is powered externally from the mains.