High voltage gloves

[Faringdon]

Hi,
An engineer, who will work on 400V PFC outputs, has requested high voltage protection gloves, in case they touch the 400V.
Are there any of these that are ESD friendly?
None i search for are ESD friendly.

[Slh]

Your engineer isn't touching live 400V stuff is he? He shouldn't be messing with probes on live 400V either because that's just asking for stuff to blow up in his face. Arc flash isn't a joke.

It should be in an enclosure and probes should only be attached or removed when it's dead (confirmed dead with a decent multimeter). Obviously diff probes and isolated current probes are necessary.

If you only touch it when it's dead then there's no need for HV gloves. They're necessary for things like HV batteries where you can't turn them off.

Footnote, I know who I'm replying to. I'm just responding in case anyone else finds this useful.

[coppercone2]

lol the risk of shorting something out or bending a energized part (say cracking a ceramic thats live) is too big, thats why you don't do active probing of HV circuits (even with those probe covers)

A HV battery should honestly have a disconnect switch or jumper too, you should only need it during installation, not during engineering work. Like a terminal block jumper. Everything before that jumper should be touch safe, so you just need some insulated pliers to remove it (after a switch is turned off preferably).

imo high voltage gloves in corporate engineering is a liability, because someone is gonna be too cheap to replace them when they are ever so slightly damaged and there will be alot of figuring by a bean counter that knows jack and shit about electricity and voltage to figure out that its still safe and that the employee is whining and some employee is going to think they found the gloves of invulnerability also when they start skipping training sessions etc.

[themadhippy]

He shouldn't be messing with probes on live 400V either because that's just asking for stuff to blow up in his face.

Meanwhile back in the real world often the only way to fault find is to work live,but off coarse we all don  our face mask ,apron ,gloves,ear defenders and hard hat first.And 400v isnt HV as its well below 35kv,its low voltage as far as the regs governing this sort of thing are concerned

[coppercone2]

repair alloted time period too short and too cheap for proper probes, clips, multichannel scope, etc.

of course it will happen, like that electrician apprentice standing on top of a 25 foot tall ladder like a statue of apollo over a concrete floor because his boss yelled at him that time is running short

[The Soulman]

Hi,
An engineer, who will work on 400V PFC outputs, has requested high voltage protection gloves, in case they touch the 400V.
Are there any of these that are ESD friendly?
None i search for are ESD friendly.

So you want gloves that isolate and at the same time conduct electricity? 

[coppercone2]

Hi,
An engineer, who will work on 400V PFC outputs, has requested high voltage protection gloves, in case they touch the 400V.
Are there any of these that are ESD friendly?
None i search for are ESD friendly.

So you want gloves that isolate and at the same time conduct electricity? 

[jonpaul]

the " engineer" is not qualified to work on power electronics if he has this question.



Regardless of your answer and gloves suggested, in case he hurts himself or dies you will be held to account and responsible legally.


I would walk away from the job.

Just another FTTS Farrington Treez Time Sink

j

[Fflint]

Out of curiosity, what 400V+ hardware is he working with that needs ESD protection?

I use 5kV rated gloves when I work with high voltage vacuum tube stuff (in ham radio hobby capacity - of course stuff is never energised, but I would rather be too safe than die by forgetting to switch something off, there are caps just in the psu with enough energy to kill instantly, they have bleed resistors, but those can fail too).

Those are the cheapest certified gloves I could find.(they were about $30 if I remember correctly). They are supposed to be single use. They come with an instruction to blow air into them to check before use. Also they have thin cotton-like gloves you put on first, then the rubber ones. It means finger dexterity is severely affected, but one is supposed to grab stuff with isolated tools anyway. Gloves are not there to allow one to grab live wires, they are there just as an extra layer of protection.

[Zero999]

Hi,
An engineer, who will work on 400V PFC outputs, has requested high voltage protection gloves, in case they touch the 400V.
Are there any of these that are ESD friendly?
None i search for are ESD friendly.

So you want gloves that isolate and at the same time conduct electricity? 

I suppose it's possible to make some gloves with a high resistance, so the leakage current is too low to cause an injury, yet still not accumulate a static charge. Assuming a maximum contact area of 400cm², for both hands in contact with a live part, a resistance of 160M/cm² would limit the current to 1mA at 400V, which would be enough to feel a tingle, but not cause any injury and still avoid the build-up of static charge.