Homebrew PCBs

El 24/12/11 08:48, Stefan Trethan escribi\ufffd:
> 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?

Where do you live, though? Somewhere maritime or inland?

As others have pointed out where you live has a great influence on how 
easily you can generate static. Where I live the air is almost always 
saturated (so it seems), it's so damp here especially in the winter if I 
don't clean my car, it doesn't merely get dirty, it actually gets algae 
and lichen growing on it, and the lane behind my house is a quagmire 
from November through to April (even if we get a week without rain, it 
still doesn't dry out). I have to be really, really trying to generate 
static electricity at all. So no, I don't particularly worry about static.

I lived in North Carolina for a while (during a winter which was mostly 
very dry) and had to close car doors by the glass because if I didn't do 
so, I would get a very painful static electric shock. Even just getting 
in and out of the car would do it, I didn't need to drive anywhere, the 
car seat against a part man-made-fibre coat would be enough. If I had 
been handling components there, I dare say I would have had to have been 
very careful about static.