Moshe asked about ESD testing directly on the pins of a bare connector. The lab I test with has told me that they do not discharge directly to the exposed pins of a connector to which no cable is connected. They quoted many reasons, including the ECMA spec Moshe quoted, as well as the fact that we usually do the radiated emissions tests with a fully populated system and the ESD and other immunity tests with a pretty bare system (which creates the assumption that the end-users will configure their systems similarly to the radiated emmissions test system, therefore making the possibility of an end-user discharge to the pins extremely remote).
They said that your argument against discharging directly to the pins could include the fact that your expected user configuration would include cables populating those connectors (assuming the vacant connectors are for peripheral support equipment, not vital connections for operations). Ah, I ramble on (and I'm probably not intelligible). Steve Chin FWB, Inc. Menlo Park, CA, USA [email protected]
