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Comment by jareklupinski | Hacker News Reader

> ESD Protections

> The last thing that you want to happen is for you to accidentally destroy a device with static electricity, In order to avoid this, it is always a good idea to get an ESD wrist strap or an ESD protective mat.

Work is a different story, and maybe it's because I've only ever done electronics work on the relatively humid east coast, but I've personally never have taken special ESD precautions during my hobby time (such as grounding my desk at home or wearing a strap), yet have never discharged static electricity through any one of my personal circuits.

Am I doing it wrong?

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Stuff has gotten a lot more robust, except for specialized things such as laser diodes. Also, once an IC is soldered onto a circuit board, it's not invincible, but less prone to damage because the capacitance on the board limits the voltage spike.

The only time I ever damaged IC's was when I had my office chair on one of those plastic mats that lets you roll your chair around on a carpeted floor. That was a static electricity generator.

If you're regularly getting static zaps during dry winter weather, on things like doorknobs, it's a sign that you need to be more careful with your electronics.

> Stuff has gotten a lot more robust

It has, yes.

But even back when things weren't as robust, I never got into the habit of using a wrist strap. Just remembering to touch something grounded before poking at things seems to have done the trick. I don't think I ever fried a device through ESD.

I sometimes ground my chair through a 1-meg resistor when I'm feeling zaps during dry winter months. Also, run some copper tape along front edge of workbench, through 1-meg to ground, as a place to conveniently touch.

My bout with damaged chips was when I was programming early EPROM microcontrollers, and a zapped chip bore a strong resemblance to a firmware bug, so it was a frustrating time until I discovered the actual cause.

> yet have never discharged static electricity through any one of my personal circuits

How would you know unless you took precautions? Static electricity doesn't necessarily make itself obvious by arcing, yet the voltage can be high enough to damage sensitive components.

Also damage sometimes isn't obvious in the sense that that a component or circuit is killed outright. Instability, reduced lifetime and increased susceptibility to future ESD events are other known consequences of electrostatic discharges.

For more information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkECJlA2Fg4

Nah. Modern chips generally have great ESD protections. If you aren't creating a spark, it's probably not gonna kill it.

The only time I need ESD straps is if I'm working with genuine old school metal gate 4000 series CMOS chips or some whacky, super sensitive input that ESD circuitry is omitted from because the leakage will mess it up (high end RF and ADC spring to mind).

>Am I doing it wrong?

If you're not killing anything, then probably not. It's not a bad thing to be conscientious of, but if static just isn't a problem for you and you aren't handling super sensitive components, stressing about it isn't terribly productive.

Only if you want to sell it.

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