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Subject: Re: [Homebrew_PCBs] PCB holder

From: Eldon Brown <eldonb46@...>
Date: 2011-12-24

I agree, for once someone has stated what I observed all along.

But, if I had only one part, and it was going to the Moon, I would think
twice about ESD.

Eldon

On Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 00:48, Stefan Trethan <stefan_trethan@...> wrote:

> ∗∗
>
>
> What's wrong with staying realistic about risk?
>
> We could do all sorts of things safer - say reduce traffic deaths to
> almost zero by driving no faster than 20mph, and yet we do not do it.
> Here no lifes are at risk - just $1 components, why let yourself be
> slowed down with ESD measures?
>
> Having used only minimal ESD precautions all my life and never seen a
> failure, and frequently testing designs with ESD guns gives me some
> confidence that there is a certain amount of unwarranted hype
> associated with this topic.
>
> Would you care to elaborate using specific examples of how you damaged
> components with ESD?
> For some reason peope never can back their fear up with specific
> incidents when I prompt them. The examples should _not_ involve either
> a huge production quantity (where the statistics get you), or very
> early CMOS components (which were much more sensitive).
>
> This is similar to the temperature when soldering issue. There are old
> books and stuff that suggest clamping heatsink tweezers onto
> semiconductors while soldering, and generally put the fear of god into
> beginners. When they ask for advise I have to first disabuse them of
> the notion that components will just blow up as soon as they get
> slightly warm. Modern components can withstand soldering heat to an
> amazing degree.
>
> It is not helpful to overrate risk, it just puts people off when they
> really should be getting stuck into some hands on experience. I let
> the magic smoke out so many times with stupid mistakes, why worry
> about one or two components that may or may not have been damaged by
> ESD?
>
> ST
>
> On Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 9:11 AM, Boman33 <boman33@...> wrote:
> > You might be lucky but do not spread bad info.
> >
> > Bertho
> >
> >
> >
> > From: Stefan Trethan Sent: Saturday, December 24, 2011 02:28
> >
> >
> >
> > Come on people, stay realistic.
> > Steve is most likely not going to make assemblies for an aircraft or
> > anything like that.
> > Nor is he going to run thousands of boards a day from his homemade PCB
> > holder.
> >
> > In a typical home shop or even development lab setting you'll not
> > notice the effects of ESD measures - there just aren't any failures
> > even if you take no measures at all.
> > ---<snip
> >
> >
>
>


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