ESD Safe Practices

Never work on plastic furniture. Plastic furniture makes an excellent weapon of mass destruction WMD to sensitive board and devices. Actual static voltage measurements made with our Trek model 520 ESVM throw the readings way off-scale. 3M's Model 713 registered readings in excess of 10,000V/inch. Plastic chair generates more than 20,000V/inch after you sat on it. Your sensitive components stand little chance of surviving on this thing. Too many times have I heard of student complaining frequent failures on their circuit, problems that magically disappears after heeding my advice of staying away from these objects. At e-Gizmo’s workplace, I declared a total ban on plastic furniture.

A safe workbench is one made off wood, those without glass top or finish that may introduce static problem. Notice that wood is listed near the middle of the triboelectric series, indicating that it is poor static electricity agent. Metal table is neither recommended- these may short-circuit the board you are working with.

Figure 16. IC killing field, Weapon of Mass Destruction, The IC Terminator: That's how we call these things at e-Gizmo. Because that is what they are good at. You should avoid them at all cost when working with electronics.

Figure 17. The photo above   shows 3M's model 713 field meter showing an off-scale reading from a plastic chair even at a distance of 10 inches, indicating static presence in excess of 20,000V/inch!

Figure 15. An ESD-safe work bench at e-Gizmo electronics lab. Table with wooden top are used. An antistatic mat (green) is spread on tabletop as an added measure. Our flooring did not show any static threat after repeated test, hence, an antistatic floor mating is deemed not necessary and not installed. The work table is complemented by an antistatic chair, which in reality is, an ordinary chair covered with antistatic leatherette.

Figure 18.

Half empty PET bottled drink: -1,081V/inch at RH 75%

Figure 19.

Empty polybag : > -2,000V/inch at RH 75%

Figure 20.

Computer Keyboard : -492 V/inch at RH 75%

This reading soon jumped up to more than -2000V/inch half an hour after turning ON the air conditioner, as RH dropped to 65%

Figure 21.

Empty Cup: >-2,000V/Inch at RH 75%

Figure 22.

Breadboard : - 1,851 V/inch at RH 65%

Another compelling reason why I do not use these in my lab. Reputable maker such as 3M use anti-static material and should not have this problem.

Figure 23.

Styrofoam : > -2,000V/Inch at RH 65%

If this IC habitually makes life miserable to his fellow ICs, then he certainly deserved this punishment.

Outside of their protective wrappings, one safe place to store your components will be inside a shielding bag. If you cannot find one, a good alternative will be an aluminum can - empty soft drinks can, for example. Figure 26 shows another horrendous but popular way of storing some components.

Figure 24. An air ionizer air current neutralize static charge on any surface it reaches to, including all objects exemplified above, keeping static charge from building up to harmful level.

Figure 26.

Do not do this!

Putting components inside your plastic lunch box is like throwing them in a hot frying pan. This will not even improve their taste.

Figure 25. Empty cans of these two competing brands gives my ICs and other sensitive devices safe temporary sanctuary. I get complete  protection by covering the IC- populated cans with conductive object, which can be simply another empty can stacked on top. I could carry these freely around my lab without having to worry of ESD hit on things inside.