15 Mar
1998
15 Mar
'98
1:54 p.m.
Tim Shoppa wrote:
I've seen sites where the admnistration decided that every user must ground
themselves on a special several-hundred-dollar anti-static discharge pad
before they would be allowed to even touch a computer keyboard. I think
the anti-static-equipment salesman did a really, really, good job on these
folks
Any of the static prevention steps apply to prevent accidental discharge, but
not everyone has a natural capacitance that allows them to store and discharge
static electricity. I work with all types of components that could be damaged
and have never even seen a spark or a damaged item. My wife touches anything
and kills it. Of course the humidity factor is also important. In a heated
house in the middle of winter there is a great chance of ESD where summer after
heavy rains with 99% relative humidity lowers all of these factors by a number
of times.
The whole idea of all of this (other than someone making a buck on antistatic
items) is to prevent the POSSIBLE discharge of electrostatic electricity into a
device that could be damaged by such a jolt.
Now when I was changing electrical initiators/igniters on 2000 Short Range
Attack Missile electro-explosive devices, I didn't even try to see if I was
prone to static discharge - I just wore the straps and did the proceedures. The
end result of being wrong was a bit more than a dead semiconductor.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Russ Blakeman
RB Custom Services / Rt. 1 Box 62E / Harned, KY USA 40144
Phone: (502) 756-1749 / Data/Fax:(502) 756-6991
Email: rhblake(a)bbtel.com or rhblake(a)bigfoot.com
Website: http://members.tripod.com/~RHBLAKE/
* Parts/Service/Upgrades and more for MOST Computers*
--------------------------------------------------------------------
And I just learned that it was safe to tuch
motherboard/cards when your
computers on! (BTW, any one know aout DIMM stuff?)
Actually, I find most
precautions such as anti-static and so forth to
be baloney. I must have done every illegal thing in the book, and the
only things I haven't gotten away with was plugging chips in
backwards (by accident). When I was upgrading RAM in the machines in
my school's MacLab, the person in charge of it constantly looked over
my shoulder and bleated, "Touch the case again, Max. I want to SEE you
touch the case. OK, now gently, gently, now. Oooh! Yeesh! DON'T touch
those chips!",etc.etc. I didn't damage anything, but he thinks there
is a problem even with touching the actual plastic case of the chip.