[TriLUG] [OT] ESD issues

Jeremy Portzer jeremyp at pobox.com
Sun Mar 19 15:50:06 EST 2006


I've noticed the same a lot lately.  When I get out of the car I do as you 
do, brushing my elbow against the metal corner of the door, rather than my 
fingers, as the shock is much less painful on your elbow.  It can get to 
be really annoying.

You mention that static eletricity appears to be discharging on sheetrock
walls - that's not too likely, as sheetrock is a good insulator; what's
more likely to discharge the shock is the metal corner brackets that cover
the corners around doorframes, hall entrances, etc.  These are covered by
tape and paint to resemble sheetrock, but the charge can go through the
paint pretty easily.

I do think part of the issue is that it's been a pretty dry winter and
early spring, at least up here in the DC area where both you and I live.  
You may want to get a humidifier at home or even for your office if it's a
relatively contained area.  Humidity plays a great part, as humid air
bleeds the charge off your body quickly; dry air is a much better
insulator and it allows it to build up easily.  (Water, after all, is a
reasonably good conductor.)  

Remember that static charge builds when you walk across carpeted floors,
so keep that in mind when touching doorknobs, walls, and light switches,
after you walk across carpets.  Go barefoot when at home to avoid charge
buildup if you can, rather than insulating rubber shoes which allows the
charge to remain on your body.

To keep this on-topic for TriLUG, it's pretty important that computer
workshops be located in a room without carpeted floors.  Antistatic work
surfaces, and additional measures such as grounding straps, taking care to
ground yourself against computer cases before working inside, etc., are
pretty imporant.  A silicon chip can be permanently damaged by much less
ESD than that which you can see, hear, or feel.  It only takes a step or 
two across carpet to build up static charge that's dangerous to 
electronics.

I have a friend whose primary workshop is in a carpeted area, and he 
doesn't take many measures against static, and he is continually surprised 
by how much bad hardware he seems to accumulate (memory, interface cards, 
etc.).  It's not a coincidence.

Hope this helps,

Jeremy

On Sun, 19 Mar 2006, William Sutton wrote:

> As I know this list has a number of very creative individuals on it, here 
> is my somewhat off-topic problem for consideration:
> 
> I discharge on darned near anything I touch lately.  Even sheetrock walls.  
> If I brush against the wall, *zap*.  I touch the stansion pole on the 
> subway car, *zap*.  I flip on the overhead light in my cube at work, 
> *zap*.
> 
> It's getting annoying, not to mention shocking, and sometimes downright 
> painful (paricularly, say, when I go to get in the car...).
> 
> I've been resorting to some odd behaviors to try to err...dissipate....the 
> effects:  touching the metal part of the key with my finger and touching 
> that to the door lock of the car, gently brushing the side of my arm 
> against the wall before I open the fridge, etc.  Sometimes it works, 
> sometimes it doesn't.
> 
> It doesn't seem to be limited to location.  All I need is to walk up to 
> something and *zap*.
> 
> It doesn't seem to be limited to shoes (I don't think).  I have a pair of 
> dress Doc Martins and a pair of Timberland walking boots.  It also happens 
> when I'm only wearing socks.
> 
> I don't think it's related to humidity levels since it happens everywhere 
> (including outdoors, although lower humidity seems to exacerbate the 
> effect).
> 
> So the question is....does anyone have a good solution for this?
> 
> 

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