This is a subject that comes up here regularly among those working on their Elecraft (and other) rigs.
Doing some research on a project, I ran across the following values published by Hewlett-Packard Company. They provide some insight about why it's important to use ESD-safe handling procedures. The "PCBs" mentioned below are, of course, Printed Circuit Boards, not the stuff found in old capacitors and transformers. "DIPs" are Dual In-line Pin integrated circuits such as found throughout Elecraft rigs. Typical Electrostatic Voltage Levels Relative Humidity for each voltage level shown below: 10% 40% 55% Walking across carpet 35,000 V 15,000 V 7,500 V Walking across vinyl floor 12,000 V 5,000 V 3,000 V Motions of bench worker 6,000 V 800 V 400 V Removing DIPS from plastic tube 2,000 V 700 V 400 V Removing DIPS from vinyl tray 11,500 V 4,000 V 2,000 V Removing DIPS from Styrofoam 14,500 V 5,000 V 3,500 V Removing bubble pack from PCB 26,500 V 20,000 V 7,000 V Packing PCBs in foam-lined box 21,000 V 11,000 V 5,000 V 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
