[Elecraft] K3 ESD

[Fred Jensen]

This is one of those threads that recurs periodically, and the answers 
are always the same.

Many plastics will generate a static charge, almost by themselves. 
Styrofoam is one of the worst, it's why the packing p'nuts fly all over 
the place and stick to you when you try to cram them into the trash can. 
  Plastic trash bags are another, some seem to come highly charged right 
out of the box.

Thus, styrofoam egg cartons are a huge no-no for parts sorting.  The 
ones made out of recycled newspaper are probably OK.  Metal muffin 
baking tins are good.  I clip them to the frame of whatever I'm working 
on with clip leads.  The idea is to make an equipotential conductive 
plane on your desk that includes the stuff you're working on, all your 
parts, all your tools [soldering station], and you.

#1 goal is, "Don't electrocute yourself."  Regardless of how you connect 
to your body, make sure it goes to your equipotential plane through a 
high value resistor [1 megohm or so].

Set ESD bags and ESD foam on the chassis or something metallic connected 
to it to make sure they are at the same potential before opening.

Connecting your equipotential plane to the planet is a mixed bag.  If 
the connection is direct and big, it's probably fine.  If other things 
use it and might put significant current spikes into it, you might want 
to reconsider.  It's sometimes surprising the amount of noise pulses 
that can wander around on the "green wire" in a normal residence.  If 
your house is wired to code, it's connected to the neutral and the 
planet at the main electrical entrance [only], which could mean quite a 
bit of wire to your shack and lots of inductive reactance in it for very 
fast pulses.

Anti-static sprays on your cotton clothes, chair, and carpet will help a 
lot.  Working barefooted even more.  Working without clothing, although 
probably helpful in the static generation business poses other risks, 
see previous post :-)  Avoid synthetic and wool clothes ... jeans and a 
T-shirts are good.

I built my KX1, K2, K3, W1, and a couple of small modules without a 
static mat.  I did use a wrist strap, metal sorting trays, and 
everything was hooked together, generally barefooted but otherwise 
clothed in my usual shabby cotton shorts and T-shirts.  Nothing was 
purposefully grounded.  All the kits worked fine, no ESD problems.

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 2011 Cal QSO Party 1-2 Oct 2011
- www.cqp.org
On 12/18/2010 1:20 PM, ve7ymm wrote:
>
> I used a static strap and mat when building my K1&  K2.  I left the sensitive
> componants, the ones in esd foam in the bag until needed.  I did, however,
> sort the other parts into plastic bins with compartments such as are used
> for screw assortments.  Is this not recomended?  If not, what should be
> used?  Would this be okay if the bins were sprayed with my wife's anti-cling
> stuff?
> Mark, VE7YMM