[Elecraft] Conception of a K2

[Kurt Pawlikowski]

Keith,

    Well, I never pulled the tape from the paper: I just pulled the wire 
out from the tape... And, I, being grounded, was in contact with the 
leads. Don't know if that makes a difference or not!

    Breakdown voltage: I can assure you that almost ANY ESD is larger 
than the breakdown voltage. It's just that ESD is usually a very small 
amount of power that the capacitor will easily absorb. For it to damage 
the cap, it has to charge it to the breakdown voltage. In the case of 
polarized caps, I'm not sure what these short term reverse voltages do.

    Regards,

    kurtt

    Kurt Pawlikowski, AKA WB9FMC
    The Pinrod Corporation
    kurtt at pinrod.com
    (773) 284-9500
    http://pinrod.com

Darwin, Keith wrote:
>  
>
> -----Original Message-----
> ... no, I didn't tape down the "sensitive" components.
> --------------------------
>
> >From an ESD point of view, that's cool, but when you pull the tape away
> from the paper, you're generating a static charge which may make it to
> your 1/2 populated board and cause problems with components on the
> board, right?  Maybe it is a low probability issue or maybe having the
> board on a mat eliminates the risk.  I don't know.
>
>
> -----------------------
> Capacitors ... I have never heard of any of these types of components
> being damaged by
> ESD: Has anyone?
> ----------------------
>
> I work with one EE who says there is an issue with caps where the
> breakdown voltage (is there such a thing?) of a very small value cap may
> be less than the voltage generated by ESD.  Still, caps of all values at
> this company are considered not ESD sensitive.
>
> In my case, I'm really not smart enough to know what is and is not a
> real problem so it is just easier to treat everything as if it is
> sensitive even if I know (or think) it isn't.
>
> 73!
>
>
>