[Elecraft] ESD question

[Mike Markowski]

Dave wrote:
> ...We
> were always told that static damage isn't always immediately obvious and
> that parts may be been stressed and suffer from premature failure at a
> future date.
> 
> 73 Dave, G4AON

As an example, a coworker and I were doing final testing of a prototype
board we had just finished.  He came back into the lab, forgot to ground
himself on a dry January day, and pointed at a chip on the board while
talking - and of course it was the expensive $500 chip.  We both heard
and saw the little lightning bolt between his finger & the IC!
Everything seemed fine after extensive, careful testing & we were
relieved.  But a couple months after the board was fielded for testing
strange errors kept occurring, and after much frustrating debugging we
learned that the zapped chip was the culprit.  Going through that once
was more than enough.  So I was very glad to build my K2 on an
anti-static mat with grounded wrist strap!

Mike  ab3ap