Where are Tech Wear garments made?
All Tech Wear garments (standard-stock and custom-made) are made with pride in North Dakota from fabric milled in North Carolina.  The Angelica garments we now offer were once made in Mexico and Costa Rica, but are now also being made in North Dakota.

What garment lengths are available?

·A jacket is shorter and will be about hip-length on a person of average height.               click here to see an example of a hip-length JACKET. ·A ¾-length is a happy medium between jacket and coat.  The bottom hem reaches to about mid-thigh on most wearers.  (Econo$hield garments only.)               click here to see an example of a ¾-LENGTH Econo$hield ·A coat is almost knee-length on a person of average height.                click here to seen an example of a knee-length COAT CLICK HERE to see the approximate measurements of each garment length.

What colors are available?  Are custom colors available?
Click here to see our fabrics and colors.  Please contact us if you'd like a free sample of our fabric selection mailed to you. 

Why do some garments have cords hanging from the wearer's hip?
Garments with ground cords are groundable garments or ground-monitorable garments.  Our garments fight static in the following three levels:
SHIELDING: static shielding garments provide a barrier between static charges generated on personal clothing and static-sensitive components.
The carbon web of the garment ensures even dissipation across the garment's entire surface, greatly reducing the likelihood of damage from ESD or concentrated fields.  Static shielding garments do not, however, ground the operator or garment.
                           Some popular examples of Static Shielding Garments:  LEQ-13 & LEQ-43  |  LOC-13  |  LOJ-33  |  VOJ-23  |  SOJ-23
GROUNDING: Our groundable garments provide a path to ground for both operator and garment through a single connection at either side of the wearer's waist.  Conductivity between operator and garment are ensured either by the grid-knit ESD cuffs or with the Key Option and existing wrist straps.  If you're currently using wrist straps, you probably already know how effective personnel grounding is; imagine those benefits with the added  benefits of unleashed hands!
                           Some examples of Groundable Garments:  LOJ-23C  |  VOJ-23C  |  HOJ-33C  |  HOC-23C  |  HIJ-43C  |  LOC-23Key  |  LOJ-23Key
MONITORING: Our X2 garments are compatible with dual-loop ground monitors for applications when ensuring absolute grounding is critical.  The instant either garment or body aren't grounded, the monitor beeps--a simple but very effective way to eliminate yield losses.
                           See the X2-HOJ-23C.  We can make the X2 in other styles, fabrics and colors.

What custom options are available on a garment?
    Access Pockets - which allow access to the pockets of your street clothes underneath our knee-length coat.
    ESD Grid-Knit Cuffs - which form contact patches on both wrists to ground the body.  All garments with ESD Cuffs also include 4mm male snaps at the wearer's waist to snap the ground cord.
    Elasticized Sleeves - We can install elastic at the sleeves if grounding is not required, but loose-hanging sleeves is a concern.
    Neckline Labels - For garment identification purposes, we can sew a custom label to the neck or almost anywhere inside the garment.
    Modified Length - Jacket-length too long?  Coat-length not long enough?  Just tell us how long you want it and we'll make it happen!
    Modified Sleeve Length - From short-sleeves to gorilla-arms...yes, we can!
    Overcuffs - we can install an elasticized layer of fabric over the standard ESD grid-knit cuffs.
    Patches - mail us your name/company logo patches for installation or email us the image of your logo and we'll take care of the rest.
    Pen-Tabs - a handy place for stashing a ball point pen, we can install them almost anywhere on the garment.
    Side Slits - do you require a full-length coat, but do a lot of sitting and getting-up at work?  Side slits are the answer!
    Unexposed Snap Front - the snap backings at the front of the garment can be installed under a layer of fabric for situations where scratching sensitive surfaces is a concern.

Do you make anything besides garments?
Yes!  We also make groundable or static-dissipative chair covers to your specifications.  They are available in all fabrics and colors and can be grounded with a drag chain and existing ESD flooring.  In addition, we will also make custom covers to suit almost any application.  We've made ESD covers for electronic production assembly carts, microscopes, even ESD curtains for shelves used for static sensitive components.  
We also offer ESD barbeque aprons, cobbler aprons and sleeve protectors for static shielding or grounding.  Email us with your application and we'll reply with a solution.

Are your garments suitable for cleanroom use?
No.  But our sister company, TW Clean produces groundable Class 100 cleanroom bunnysuits.  Tech Wear garments are intended primarily for sensitive electronics production environments, but are not really intended for wear in cleanrooms.

Are Tech Wear garments suitable for working near high voltage hazards?
No!  Tech Wear garments are made to protect sensitive electronics from the voltage generated by the operator's body and clothing.  They are highly conductive and should not be worn near sources of high voltage.  Hopefully there are no high voltage hazards in your ESD-safe workplace!  Please contact us for a copy of ESD Controls in Hazardous High Voltage Environments, a paper that discusses an approach to resolve the seeming incompatibility of ESD controls and high voltage hazard safety controls.

How do you know if a garment is working?
The fail-safe way is to closely monitor and compare your product yields or reject rates, before and after implementing our garments.  For more immediate certainty, test your garments following the guidelines in the ESDA's [Standard Test Method] STM2.1-1997 - for the Protection of Electrostatic Discharge Susceptible Items - Garments.  You can either contact one of our helpful reps in your region, contact us directly with your questions, or order your own copy of STM2.1-1997 from the National ESD Assocation in Rome, NY, (315) 339-6937.  There are several local area chapters of the ESDA around the country.  Call for more information about activities and membership in your area.
Tech Wear can arrange to have a sample of your present garments tested under our "No-Charge" Garment Testing Program.

Can you embroider or silkscreen my name and company logo onto a garment?
Yes we can!  In order to ensure a garment is as conductive as possible, the preferred method is to embroider or silkscreen your name or company onto a patch and sew this directly to the garment, but we can, depending on your fabric selection, embroider or silkscreen directly onto the garment.  Please contact us with your questions and requirements.

What's the difference between the various fabrics?
Each of the static control fabrics we use in our garments have a distinctive advantage when matched to your application.  Please E-mail us with your requirements and we will explain the advantages of each.

OFX-100  is a light-weight knit (2.3 oz per square yard) fabric that is breathable, groundable and easily laundered. It is ideal for use in areas where there is little abrasion, light soil, and little or no exposure to soldering and chemicals. The fabric is made from monofilament thread, eliminating contamination from loose fibers working their way out of the fabric. The conductive grid pattern is knit into the fabric and designed to provide the highest carbon content and therefore best shielding and grounding performance available. Tech Wear's ESD knit cuffs can be added to any OFX-100 garment and allow grounding of garment and wearer through one single ground cord, without the need of a wrist strap.  OFX-100 fabric is available in White, Blue, Burgundy and Teal.  Click here to see available colors.

IVX-400 has the same excellent static control properties and performance as OFX-100, but is a slightly heavier and more durable weave. IVX-400 fabric is 4 oz per square yard; while OFX-100 fabric is slightly transparent (you can almost read a newspaper through it in a bright room), the IVX-400 fabric is denser and more durable. IVX-400 also repels soil, stands up to abrasion, and will not slough off fiber contaminants. Our ESD knit cuff option on a garment made of IVX-400 gives the wearer the advantage of garment and wearer grounding without the need of a cumbersome wrist strap.  IVX-400 is available in White, Royal Blue, Green, NASA Blue, Teal and Burgundy.  Click here to see available colors.

ECX-500 fabric is the best choice for effective yet economical static shielding garments. ECX-500 is used exclusively in the manufacturing of Econo$hield^TM garments, which are designed to give static control protection in areas where ESD sensitivity is important and when handling products with a sensitivity threshold above 2,000 volts. It is strongly recommended that when handling products below this level that the garment be grounded (OFX-100 or IVX-400).  ECX-500 is available in White or Blue.  Click here to see available colors.

Nylostat™ is a very durable woven fabric that works well for protecting personal clothing from heavy solder and soil, and where static discharge needs to be controlled. While Nylostat is composed of 34% cotton, its heavy weave can be warm in workplaces without airconditioning.  We recommend Nylostat for heavy industry and for less ESD-sensitive applications.  Click here to see available colors.

Are the garments flame retardant?
All Tech Wear garments meet the federal standard for FR (flammability retarding) requirements for polyester fabrics, except sleepwear. The glass transition rate (i.e. melting temperature) is 450 degrees F and the flash point (combusting temperature) is 720 degrees F.

Will solder splash melt the fabric?
A hot soldering iron or a large drop of solder will cause some melting damage to these fabrics, but they will not support a flame.  Due to its dense weave of polyester and cotton, Nylostat tends to stand up to hot solder drops.

Where do you ship the garments from?  Where is FOB?
All Tech Wear garments are made with pride in the U.S. from fabric knit or woven also in the U.S.  FOB point is Minot, ND.

Do the garments ground the body as well as a wrist strap?  What if we're already using wrist-straps or heel straps?
Even better!  While a single wrist-strap is adequate for grounding a body, a grounded Tech Wear garment forms a conductive contact patch on both wrists.  
Even more significantly, wrist straps, heel grounders, and other items that ground the body do little or nothing to protect from the static charges caused by the tribocharging of personal clothing.  A human body grounded with a wrist strap wearing common street clothes becomes in this case, the grounded eye of an electrostatic storm.
If you're already using wrist straps and cost is an issue, check out our Key Option garments, which use existing wrist straps to ground both the body and the garment.  
In addition to the benefit of freeing the operator's hands from the ground cord, grounding the body through the garment also means fewer disconnects:  an operator's trunk is almost always less dynamic than his hands and the garment affords some "give" rather than disconnecting from the ground cord.

What is the Key Option?

The Key Option refers to a special feature available on any Tech Wear OFX-100 or IVX-400 garment. The Key Option allows the wearer to connect a wrist strap directly to either sleeve hem of the garment and then connect a standard ground cord to a ground snap on a lower hip pocket for grounding the garment and the wearer through one grounding path, allowing for untethered arms. This provides an excellent mechanism for testing the grounding of the garment and wearer through the use of a standard wrist strap tester. This garment option is also compatible with continuous monitoring systems with one path to ground.	Standard wrist strap connects to a 4mm female snap on the inside of the sleeve.   Standard ground cord connects to 4mm male ground snap on lower hip pocket.
	One cord grounds both the operator and garment.

How should the garments be laundered?
Tech Wear static control garments can be laundered at home or by a commercial laundry service provider with excellent results. Laundering instructions are printed on the size label at the back of the neck of each garment. The laundering instructions of each fabric are listed at the bottom of their respective pages.

How long are Tech Wear garments guaranteed?
All Tech Wear garments made of OFX-100and IVX-400 fabrics are guaranteed to retain their ESD protection properties, in accordance with the guidelines of the National ESD Association's Standard Test Method 2.1-1997, for a minimum of 100 washings or 2 years, whichever comes first. 

How long does it take to get garments?
Ordinarily, we can ship our stock garments the same day we receive your order.  Leadtimes for custom garments will depend upon our present workload.  Contact us for existing custom leadtimes.

What's with your part numbers?
The position of each digit in our part numbers describes the garment as follows:
1st Digit:  Style of the Garment
V - V-Neck         L - Traditional (Lapel-Collar)     H - Hallmark         S - Sterling
                                 ___________________
2nd Digit:  Fabric Selection
O - OFX-100         I - IVX-400         N - Nylostat       E - ECX-500
                                 __________________    ^{(Econoshield only)}
3rd Digit:  Garment Length
C - Coat Length        J - Jacket Length        Q - 3/4-length
                                 ___________________^{(Econoshield only)}

4th Digit:  Color Selection  (click here to see these colors.)

                                 ___________________
5th Digit:  Pocket Configuration
3 - Standard 3-pocket        0 - No Pockets      1 - Breast Pocket Only
                                 ___________________
6th Position:  Sleeve Termination
C - ESD Grid-Knit Cuffs    Key - Wrist-strap-compatible Key Option SS - Short-sleeve
(Skip this digit if ordering the standard sleeve hem, with snap adjusters.)
                                 ___________________
7th Position:  Size
XS, S, M, L, XL, 2XL, 3XL, 4XL....

EXAMPLE:  HOJ-23C-L

Hallmark OFX-100 Jacket - 2(Blue) 3Pockets w/ Cuffs - Large

What is meant by sleeve-to-sleeve?
Sleeve-to-sleeve has become the abbreviated term referring to the resistance measurement from one sleeve to the other on a static control garment.  The less resistance across a static shielding garment's seams and fabric, the more evenly it will dissipate charge imbalances; more crucially in the case of groundable garments, the more surely the body and garment are both completely grounded. The method for testing a garment's sleeve-to-sleeve conductivity is fully described in the National ESD Association's STM2.1-1997 ­ for the Protection of Electrostatic Discharge Susceptible Items ­ Garments.

We will will be happy to furnish you with fabric samples for destructive testing that can help you determine which fabric will work best in your work environment.  E-mail us and we'll get them to you right away.

Contrary to some claims, fabric surface conductivity alone is not enough.  For a garment to truly protect your product from body-borne static, conductivity across all garment panels must be ensured.  Unless the individual panels are electrically connected through the seams, the garment cannot be grounded as a whole through one single grounding point.