Helmet Hair & Ignition Failure

The same phenomenon which creates thunderstorms and lightning are around us every day, creating high voltages and causing sparks. When you've been for a bike ride on a cold winter's day, you take your helmet off and your hair stands on end - you've created a positive charge, so each hair is trying to get as far away from the one next to it... hence very bad helmet hair. You then reach for the door - zap - you get a shock! That’s static electricity.

Static electricity is an imbalance of positive and negative charges. Now, can you imagine what the helmet hair effect could do to an ignition in the build process? Have you ever had your bike just stop for no reason, once it’s been fitted with an electronic ignition, normally when you start to pull away at traffic lights or about to overtake someone - in others words, at the worst possible time.

If it’s going to happen it’s always at the worst possible time. You stop, pull over, restart again and away you go, but for that feeling of doubt at the back of your mind. Next time you roll up to the lights or think about overtaking you start to question the reliability of your bike.

It’s not your bike it’s that darned ignition you fitted, but you don’t know why - it could be poor build possess, ever thought of that? The effect your helmet can have on your hair is the same effect when building your ignition, if the correct procedures are not followed.

If the correct procedures are not in place in the build process, static electricity can cause serious problems. Even a small electrical discharge can destroy a sensitive electronic component or weaken it, rendering the end product unreliable. Electrostatic discharge can occur during the handling of printed circuit boards and electronic components by contact with people or equipment that is not discharged. This is more noticeable in a very dry atmosphere, especially in centrally heated buildings. The choice of material and its electrical properties is the key factor to controlling the safe dissipation of electrostatic
discharge (ESD).

For safe dissipation of ESD, Pazon builds all of its products in an electrostatic protected area. Our build stations are situated on special conductive mats, each operator wears a grounding wrist band and each work bench has a static dissipative surface. All tools and containers are anti-static and all printed circuit boards are held in anti-static racks and containers throughout the build process. All of these procedures and equipment increases production costs, but the result is that Pazon can offer the 7½ year warranty on all electronic ignition systems, so you won't have to worry about your ignition- but your hair is another matter!