Can an Ionizer be calibrated or perform preventive maintenance when in use?

[Vash Stampede]

Hello Everyone,
Is the Ionizer can be calibrated or perform preventive maintenance when in use? How about if we declared this ionizer to be not in use? How can we depend this situation in our external auditor? Please advice.

Thanks in advance.
Vash Stampede

 

[CJacobsen]

You can declare ANY instrument or equipment to be WORKING EQUIPMENT and not requiring calibration. It should be identified as such with a label. You can buy standard labels that say "Working Equipment" or "Not in Calibraiton System" or similar. As long as it is properly identified you will not have a problem. That is as long as you can clearly demonstrate that the instrument/equipment IS NOT used to measure or verify any specification or tolerance on your product or within your process that could affect the quality of your product or process.

[This message has been edited by CJacobsen (edited 21 November 2000).]

 

[Jerry Eldred]

I recently audited a company that uses iar ionizers as part of their ESD control program. They were not calibrating them. I reviewed the manual, and as I am also trained as an ESD instructor and have calibrated ionizers, I reviewed the manual, and determined that the ionizer needs to be calibrated. If you can be audited on your company's ESD program, I recommend you at least consider calibrating the ionizers.

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[blueicecube]

Jerry,

Can you please describe/explain/share the method to be used to calibrate ionizers?

Thanks!

 

[Yerbero]

Far as i know, the "calibration" of corona discharge air ionizers is really just cleaning the tips of the needles then testing for balanced output using a static field meter. Put a charge on the plate, turn on the ionizer, it needs to neutralize in so many seconds. Repeat for positive and negative charges. TR20.20 says the details of the test are in ANSI/ESD STM3.1.

 

[blueicecube]

erm. the only "trouble" is that i do not have access to ANSI/ESD DSP3.3...hahaha... nor the ESD handbook, oh, well...

any other "general" standards available?

 

[Candi1024]

I recently audited a company that uses iar ionizers as part of their ESD control program. They were not calibrating them. I reviewed the manual, and as I am also trained as an ESD instructor and have calibrated ionizers, I reviewed the manual, and determined that the ionizer needs to be calibrated. If you can be audited on your company's ESD program, I recommend you at least consider calibrating the ionizers.

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Our Ionizers feature a visual alarm, that is to alert the user of an out of balance condition. They claim this eliminates the need for repeated calibration. Do you think this is sufficient? I don't currently know of any way to test this alarm. If that is sufficient, do you think we should be doing an initial calibration? It was sold as calibrated, but we don't have a certificate. (Yeah, I think that will be a yes)

erm. the only "trouble" is that i do not have access to ANSI/ESD DSP3.3...hahaha... nor the ESD handbook, oh, well...

any other "general" standards available?

Here is the procedure I found online for our ionizers.
http://www.descoemit.com/pdf/calibration/pm318.pdf