That's a great ESD story Mike. I can almost hear the groans that must have erupted when that little spark hopped over to the I.C. Even being installed on the board couldn't save that one.
Mats and straps are wonderful, and should be as much a part of any workbench as a soldering iron and good lighting. But it doesn't always have to be exotic mats and straps. If that fellow had simply touched a ground before poking at the board, there would have been no spark and no damage. I've done a lot of work servicing electronics in the "field", far from bench resources. All it takes to be as safe as sitting at the bench with a wrist strap on is to touch a ground *before* touching anything else, and keep touching that ground again and again before touching other things. It needs to be an unpainted metal ground. An equipment case connected to the mains safety ground is FB. An earth ground is too. Consciously practice until it becomes second nature to touch a ground first, just we learned to pick up the soldering iron by the handle without thinking about it <G>. Several folks mentioned having a metal strip on their bench that they can touch before touching parts. That works beautifully, provided one remembers to touch it! My wrist strap has a clip where the ground wire attaches so it can be quickly removed when getting up. I quit using the clip to remove the ground wire after I found myself working at the bench wearing the wrist strap and realized that I hadn't reattached the ground wire. So I take the whole thing off now. It's obvious when I don't have it on. The best safety systems in the world are useless unless we develop the habits that ensure we use them! Ron AC7AC _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
