Ionizing air blower for anti-static effect in lens and camer repair?

eli griggs · Jul 28, 2020

Does anyone here know if working in the near air stream of an Ionizing filter/blower will reduce or even eliminate static and dust from their work piece, either camera or lens?

I just saw some Pin Point" ionizers, much too expensive for my piddling needs, at $500-$600+ range, with some ganged with space between for what I believe is a production line, and this got my curiosity up.

Insight would be very welcomed.

Be Safe, Be Well, and Godspeed to all and your Loved ones.
Eli

AgX · Jul 28, 2020

I even bought an ionizing hair dryer to experiment with this as a cheap alternative to commercial ionizers you pull film strips through. But that thing still is waiting boxed for that to happen. And I am not confident on the results.

But maybe someone here already did such tests.

eli griggs · Jul 28, 2020

Let's hope.

Kodachromeguy · Jul 28, 2020

Many decades ago, Kodak sold deionizing camel hair brushes to clean negatives. A box was attached that you plugged into the mains. In the 1980s, Zone VI sold a similar plug-in brush.

seall · Jul 28, 2020

I think an ionizing blower would do the opposite of what you are after.

Maybe try to remove the dust from the environment using a good quality hepa filter system. I have a hepa / ionizer system and never use the ionizer.

AgX · Jul 28, 2020

Kodachromeguy said:
Many decades ago, Kodak sold deionizing camel hair brushes to clean negatives. A box was attached that you plugged into the mains. In the 1980s, Zone VI sold a similar plug-in brush.

These devices all work the same: a source of very high voltage and needle electrodes to ionize the air and by this de-ionize/dis-charge material surfaces in direct vicinity. Then a brush or airstream is added to wipe-off/blow-off/suck-off dust.

eli griggs · Jul 28, 2020

Radioactive strips were also used with camel hair brushes, I had a couple, on about an inch wide, the other about 3 inches wide. They were great in the dark room and worked beautifully on negatives and slides being printed.

I wish I could find some now, as I considered them perfect for that task.

I do have a small HEPA vacuum for computers keyboards, etc, but I have no wanted to bring that around my repairing table because of the blowing out of filtered air.

I guess I can try this as an last resort, perhaps using a drinking straw onboard the small keyboard attachment, to try to suck out dust, but it seems to me that all that'll do is just invite more dust in.

Addendum; is it possible to wire up an attracting electric probe, hopefully battery powered, that could fit a large straw like tube attached to a small vacuum, to attract dust up and to it or into the airflow away from the work piece?

I'm no electrical engineer so it's have to be simple to build, and sketches would help.
IMO.

AgX · Jul 28, 2020

The idea of combining an ionizer with a suction unit, or rather the other way round, is that static makes dust cling to surfaces, and the suction unit on its own would be ineffective.

AgX · Jul 28, 2020

Radioactive material sends out ionizing radiation. As it the name indicates, that does the same as the high voltage electrodes. I have not come across such brushes, not even them being mentioned in photo-literature over here, but a german radiation authoritiy hints at them, thus they might had been spread here nonetheless.

eli griggs · Jul 28, 2020

AgX said:
The idea of combining an ionizer with a suction unit, or rather the other way round, is that static makes dust cling to surfaces, and the suction unit on its own would be ineffective.

Cheers, that's why I added an addendum to my latest post asking about a simple electric probe that might be easy to build and use.

I appreciate your viewpoints on this matter.

Eli

Nodda Duma · Jul 28, 2020

Yes, it helps. We use those at work on the production floor... but keep in mind they are used in clean rooms. De-ionizers won’t eliminate the dust, but help reduce (not eliminate) the chances of the dust sticking to your lens.

Filtering the air (like in a clean room or in a clean air laminar flow booth) is more effective.

Donald Qualls · Jul 28, 2020

The polonium insert ionizing brushes were commonly sold for cleaning record discs, for those old enough to remember what those are. Removing the dust from the groove both improved playback sound (fewer pops and crackles) and increased the longevity of the record itself (kept the diamond stylus from gouging those dust flecks into the relatively soft vinyl of the record surface and making a permanent pop-crackle). In fact, there was at least one of these that mounted to the cartridge itself, brushing the surface of the record several turns ahead of the stylus as the record was played.

AgX · Jul 28, 2020

Nodda Duma said:
Yes, it helps. We use those at work on the production floor... but keep in mind they are used in clean rooms. De-ionizers won’t eliminate the dust, but help reduce (not eliminate) the chances of the dust sticking to your lens.

Filtering the air (like in a clean room or in a clean air laminar flow booth) is more effective.

The idea in darkroom use was to just get rid of the dust at certain locations. Typically the filmstrip, before inserting into the film stage, maybe the film stage itself too.

AgX · Jul 28, 2020

Eli, there are various approaches, search the net for DIY instructions on ioniser or Ionisator. But remember you are handling high-voltage apparatus, so you should know what your are doing,especially when applying high-voltage apparatus intended for other uses.

Nodda Duma · Jul 29, 2020

AgX said:
The idea in darkroom use was to just get rid of the dust at certain locations. Typically the filmstrip, before inserting into the film stage, maybe the film stage itself too.

I don’t think it helps much outside of a clean room. 10% of 100,000+ particles per cubic meter is still a lot.

eli griggs · Jul 29, 2020

The name of those brushed was and is, "Static Master" and it seems there still being made, as well as 'refills' containing the radioactive strips.

That said, what was a common and effective tool, at a low to moderate price, is outrageously high price of $99 U.S.for the 3 in. and, $45 U.S. for the refill.

They are still being made and a quick google for "Static Master" will show you what they are, and how they are used.

One thing I noticed was a recommendation to change the 3 in. refill about every nine months.

Is I recall, a new 3 in. brush would do quite well for three years or more; I can no recall how long the one inch brush worked but it seemed forever.

Thanks for the feed back, I hope this thread will bring more input, as others recall how they used, liked or disliked these anti-static brushes.

Eli

eli griggs · Jul 29, 2020

Nodda Duma said:
I don’t think it helps much outside of a clean room. 10% of 100,000+ particles per cubic meter is still a lot.

Short of making a clean box with both ionizing air forced in and a HEPA Vac. sucking out dust, with gloves sleeves to keep the outside dust out, a clean room likely is the best option almost none of us have access to.

Actually, a small hobby plastic pInt kit might be adapted to a clean box or sealed, metal paint cabinet, connected to a copper plate, and an insolated anti-static mat lain into a flat shelve/floor for the camera and lenses being reassembled.

That might be quite affordable and durable... Or would it... ?

Eli

Nodda Duma · Jul 29, 2020

Yes, Eli... to help reduce dust during reassembly, keep the parts under lint free cloth like Kim Wipes, have a duster can nearby to blow particles off, and just realize essentially there’s always going to be some small amount of dust on the lens and there’s not much that can be done about it.

But that’s ok because to actually affect the image, there would need to be a massive amount of dust on the surfaces. Better to focus on keeping smudges, fingerprints, fungus, etc off the surfaces.

Donald Qualls · Jul 29, 2020

There was also a squeeze operated piezoelectric tool (maybe also from Static Master) -- squeeze the handle, and it would spray high voltage from a point inside a shell -- essentially a hand-powered ionizer.

Mr Bill · Jul 29, 2020

eli griggs said:
They are still being made and a quick google for "Static Master" will show you what they are, and how they are used.

One thing I noticed was a recommendation to change the 3 in. refill about every nine months.

As I recall, the radioactive element, Polonium 210 (encapsulated in a ceramic (?) bead), has a half-life of less than 1/2 year. (More correctly, after looking it up, every 4.5 months.) Meaning that the ionizing effect on air, a result of alpha particle emission, is gonna be reduced by half every (roughly) 4 1/2 months. So in 9 months that's two periods of being cut in half - the ionizer is at 1/4 strength. In three years it's down below one percent of the original strength.

AgX · Jul 29, 2020

Aside of a pen-type ionizer with its inherent hygienic problems, Polonium and other radioactive ionizers are only benefitial to the industry, as they yield no risk of arching and thus they can be used in explosive atmospheres. And Polonium here has the additional benefit of only emitting alpha-particles.

Kilgallb · Jul 29, 2020

I have a static master brush designed for vinyl records. Scratched the hell out of a negative.

MattKing · Jul 29, 2020

Mr Bill said:
As I recall, the radioactive element, Polonium 210 (encapsulated in a ceramic (?) bead), has a half-life of less than 1/2 year. (More correctly, after looking it up, every 4.5 months.) Meaning that the ionizing effect on air, a result of alpha particle emission, is gonna be reduced by half every (roughly) 4 1/2 months. So in 9 months that's two periods of being cut in half - the ionizer is at 1/4 strength. In three years it's down below one percent of the original strength.

If I had seen this post without the poster being identified, I would probably have been able to guess that it would have come from someone like Mr. Bill.
Some posters seem to have a particular style ....

Mr Bill · Jul 29, 2020

MattKing said:
Some posters seem to have a particular style ....

Just the public forum style... just passing the important info the way I would have wanted to see it when I was a youngster. In regular life... big fan of sly practical jokes, and I learned long ago that if people don't know me well that I have to tell them when I'm being sarcastic - else they'll say, "oh, I thought you were being serious." On the internet... well it just takes away the fun of a joke. Plus, there's always someone from somewhere who is gonna be genuinely offended.

Btw, my familiarity with anti-static goes much deeper - we used to use several dozen 3M polonium 210 devices in our lab ops - yearly leases, individually licensed by the (US) Nuclear Regulatory Commission with my name on the license. And if I don't know what I'm getting into I don't go there. If the devices were under a certain rating, like Static Master, no license was required, which always amazed me; you could buy a handful and be in the same place, but evade record keeping requirements.

Ps, our standard demo, when someone says, "how do you know it's even DOING anything?" used to be to take a strip of scrap film, wipe it against another such piece, maybe a couple of wipes, then pass it over a well-used ashtray. If the humidity is fairly low ashes will just jump up and stick to the film. Then, as you bring the ionizer closer the ashes will just start falling off. Or if you have a static meter the reading will go way down. If the ionizer is small, or older, it mainly just takes longer (or you have to get it closer) for the effect to happen.

eli griggs · Jul 29, 2020

Kilgallb said:
I have a static master brush designed for vinyl records. Scratched the hell out of a negative.

Really?

Ionizing air blower for anti-static effect in lens and camer repair?

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