Fans use on the floor

Are fans typically permitted on factory floors? What are the common reasons for allowing or prohibiting them?

From an ESD control point of view, anything greater than 300 mm from ESD sensitive items is allowed. Air movement by itself generally does not cause any issues.

Some of our operators use fans, but we ask them to be mostly metal based, as from our verification checks during internal audits the more plastic based units can be high charging (>-1500V) and often these fans aren’t fixed, so can be moved. We also say that if one does have plastic but is fixed over 300mm away from all ESDS items, then it would be ok.

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Hi Santiago.
Be careful that the air flow of the fans does not interfere in the neutralized zone by ionization

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This is a good point guarfj and should be considered by the compliance verification testing. For ionization, the measurements for ionization should be done where the ionization is suppose to be effective. Measurements should be done without any adjustments or before the emitter tips are cleaned.
This will be a good indication of proper selection and placement of ionization.

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