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Grounding myself while working on my table?

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(@yurkshirelad)
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Joined: 3 years ago
Posts: 493
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Years ago, in my late teens, I had a temporary job testing rail equipment. I used to ground myself to the chassis under test, using a wrist band. Now that I'm working on my dining room table, what would I ground myself to? I don't have an anti-static work mat either. I'm not doing anything dramatic, mostly just working with microcontrollers as opposed to working with ICs and other components.

To all those people working on tables like I am, how are you grounding yourself?


   
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byron
(@byron)
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Joined: 5 years ago
Posts: 1112
 
Posted by: @yurkshirelad

how are you grounding yourself?

An antistatic mat that has a plug to connect to the house earth can be used anywhere including the dinning table, and moved to your nice lab workbench if you get to build one 😀.  

Having said that I rarely bother to earth myself and I have not yet damaged anything.  To date, over 7 years, I have only damaged one Rpi and one Temperature sensor,  the poor old Rpi by shorting the GPIO to 5v and the sensor with reversed polarity 😉 


   
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(@dronebot-workshop)
Workshop Guru Admin
Joined: 5 years ago
Posts: 1053
 
Posted by: @byron

Having said that I rarely bother to earth myself and I have not yet damaged anything

Anything that you know of, that is! Keep in mind that static can often degrade a component instead of destroying it.

@yurkshirelad Most ground straps come with a banana plug that can also fit into the ground prong of your nearest AC outlet.  As the straps themselves have internal current limiting resistors you're safe to do that.

The static mat is an ideal solution, most of them can be rolled up when you are done.  And, of course, keeping the air humid is important.  people (unlike us) who live in humid tropical climates don't usually have much of an issue with static.

😎

Bill

"Never trust a computer you can’t throw out a window." — Steve Wozniak


   
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Sean451
(@sean451)
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Joined: 3 years ago
Posts: 62
 
Posted by: @dronebot-workshop

people (unlike us) who live in humid tropical climates don't usually have much of an issue with static.

😎

Bill

That is so true, Bill. Here in South Florida, we rarely experience a static discharge and when we do, it usually scares the bejeezus out of us.

--->Sean

(◕(' 人 ') ◕)


   
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