Protection from static

[AilSnail]

I learned that you have to ground yourself when working with electronic stuff. I think the static discharge has some professional term, what's that?

How should I protect the lummies and converter boards when fickling with them?

 

[sunspot]

Electrostatic discharge. You can buy a wrist band that is made for that.

 

[logicnerd411]

Also known as ESD... :|

Dan

 

[AilSnail]

Thanks Dana, where would it connect? To the wall ground? to the worktable? Could I make one myself? (want to fickle NOW)
Could I already have damaged the Luxeons or BB/MM+ boards by touching them?

 

[Floating Spots]

An ESD bracelet is a conductive bracelet that connects you to a ground THROUGH A RESISTOR. Two commonly used terms in ESD protection are conductive and dissipative. Conductive uses a resistor value of approx 1-10 Mega Ohms, while dissipative is 10-100 Mega Ohms.
So, if you connect a wire to a ground (copper/steel water pipe, electrical ground, metal stake in the earth, etc.) and wire a resistor in the middle of the wire and connect yourself to the other end, you have an ESD bracelet.

THE RESISTOR IS VERY IMPORTANT.
If you should come into contact with a live electrical conductor, it limits the amount of current going through the bracelet.
Since static voltages are very high, they do work their way through the bracelet.
Its not meant to be an instantaneous discharge or it would fry the part.

Technically, they part you are working on should be connected to a ground in the same manner. Usually this is an ESD mat setup the same way as the bracelet.

 

[sunspot]

Static damage is cumlumitive. If you have a metal table, ground the wrist strap to that and ground the table to a cold water pipe or earth ground.
I don't think you have harmed anything. I may have a spare strap at home if the thought of ESD (electrostatic damage or discharge) bugs you.

<edit>I see some folks beat me to the post. Cool.

 

[AilSnail]

>Great Relief< Thanks for all the info, I'll try and setup something accordingly. Dana; thanks but no thanks, I live in Nowray... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

I do have a metal table, but with a plastic top, I'll cover the top in aluminium wrap, connect it to the table, connect the table to el. ground and finally connect myself to the table via some resistor. (Yes I am statophobic, especially after those CUTE little luxeons dropped in.. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif )

Thanks again, Sig-

 

[LEDmodMan]

A big FYI:
Single loose parts by themselves are much more prone to ESD damage than parts that have already been assembled onto a board. Also, static damage is not always cumulative, one large discharge alone can easily destroy a component.

I used to work at a military electronics contractor for the Navy filling kits of parts for a given component (we built some of the new computers they were replacing the old ones with - a whole room full of the old computers was replaced with one unit the size of a typical office 4-drawer filing cabinent). I was amazed what ESD could do to a silicon computer chip (esp. EPROMs). A damaged chip looks like a bomb went off in it, they're completely blown apart!!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif This takes a microscope to see, though. Typically LED's are pretty robust and won't be easily damaged, but I play it safe with the LS emitters and wear my bracelet just in case.

 

[Doug Owen]

Don't worry about it. Do you draw sparks to the doorknob on a normal day if you don't shuffle your feet across the carpet? Neither do I.

Stay away from really dry air, don't wear synthetic fiber clothes and shuffle around while handling parts and you'll do fine.

I've been fiddling with this stuff for over 30 years professionally. I have *never* killed a part with self induced static, including a bunch of way sensitive parts (including microwave diodes, 4 layer devices, early mos logic, EPROMs of darn near every type known to man). Including a few dry days when we tried to blow up EPROMs and the like without success.

Most modern parts have the possibility of static designed into them, and as someone said, once in a board the alternate discharge paths prevent 'accidents'.

Doug Owen

 

[AilSnail]

Cool. I'm all set in my beenie lab now, though.