Is it overkill to use ESD for household electronics?

[hautpot]

Wondering if I should get the ESD **** for usage on:

-Desktop
-Laptop
-Phone
-Micrometers

Dealer has special on some ESD stuff.

 

[organ]

Never hurts... but overkill, yes.

 

[larry_g]

Do you have a history of blowing chips? Most consumer electronics have proper ESD shielding. Unless you have some abnormal setups then your fine.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[hautpot]

Do you have a history of blowing chips? Most consumer electronics have proper ESD shielding. Unless you have some abnormal setups then your fine.

lg
no neat sig line

Did not know that. I took apart my tower before and lightly used an air gun to clean all the dust that is about it.

 

[R. Johnson]

Unless you are doing a lot of component replacement, there is no need. It is very hard to destroy a modern IC that is mounted on a PCB. The shock will dissipate through the ground and power planes.

As an aside, an "ESD" tool will not prevent you from destroying a part. The ESD safe rating is just telling you that the tool itself will not build a charge. You still should wear a conductive wrist strap and use a grounded ESD mat for your work surface. This is very overkill for the average DIYer, but the wrist straps are cheap.

 

[MBfreak]

Hi.
Most of todays electronics is very well protected against ESD damage
Chips have advanced protection on inputs. Exception is VERY ( >>10Mohm) Hi-Z input channels on low level analog input circuits.
All consumer electronics that are assembled is safe

Some UPCs have RST pins that have internal pullupresistors in the +10Mohm range.
They can be sensitive to ESD and give much unwanted IRQ restarts. But this only when you have the equipment opened up and probe around to locate faults.

So , yes, overkill in almost all instances.

Best regards

Ola

 

[1950mercury]

Idk wtf esd is lol

 

[hautpot]

Electro static discharge safe hand tools. It is usually for screwdrivers, precision tweezers, and cutters.

 

[iScream]

I have a matt and wrist strap I use when building my computers, at least when installing the CPU and memory into the motherboard and the motherboard into the case. But I don't worry about ESD safe tools.

Even when I was working on multi million dollar telephone switches we didn't pay much attention to tools, even though the entire floor was ESD coated and the first thing we did every day was put on our ESD heal straps and go test ourselves to make sure the straps were effective. We actually had to watch videos showing electron microscope pictures of static discharge damage to chips. But I don't remember training or instruction about ESD safe tools.

 

[mrborohachi]

Don't forget the smurf blue ESD lotion. My work supplies us with it. It's my favorite hand lotion because it's not oily at all and absorbs into your hands quickly.

 

[mailpup]

I build PCs as one of my hobbies. Although ESD can destroy motherboards and expansion cards, if you take reasonable precautions, ESD isn't really a problem and that's only if you open up the case to fiddle with the insides. Just keep grounded by touching the chassis frequently. Under normal circumstances if the case is closed, ESD isn't usually an issue for PCs.

 

[404]

Don't work on the computer while wearing all polar fleece and shuffling on a carpet. Don't sit on plastic chairs or work on a plastic table.

Naked and on a hardwood floor is probably OK. Ground yourself on the kitchen faucet once in a while.