The Made by Monkeys blog on the Design News website recently posted an article called ZAP! Another ESD Casualty about an electrical engineer’s experiences with electrostatic discharge (ESD). The article offers a perspective on ESD control from “then” compared to now. Not much has changed. ESD is a natural occurring event that can damage ESD susceptible electronic components. The comments section of the post also offers some good examples of ESD events that people encounter.
People do not start feeling charges from an ESD event until the discharge is at least 2000 volts while many common components used for manufacturing of electronics are susceptible to 100 volts or less. Here are some other common activities that will generate an ESD charge:
- Walking across a carpeted floor: 1,500 to 35,000 volts
- Walking across at untreated vinyl floor: 250 to 12,000 volts
- Vinyl sheet protector used for work instructions: 600 to 7,000 volts
- Worker at bench: 700 to 6,000 volts
To see high magnification examples of ESD damage to electronics, see Images of ESD Damage
Desco offers a wide variety of ESD Control products to prevent electronics from being damaged.
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