Grounding yourself properly

[Lorium]

When grounding yourself using an anti static wrist strap that's attached to a power supply is it suppose to be plugged into the wall? If yes, is the wall outlet AND the power supply turned off?

[Fungal]

What lol? When I ground myself i attach it to the case and leave everything off and psu unplugged from the wall

[Lorium]

Just now, Fungal said:

What lol? When I ground myself i attach it to the case and leave everything off and psu unplugged from the wall

 

[zMeul]

11 minutes ago, Fungal said:

What lol? When I ground myself i attach it to the case and leave everything off and psu unplugged from the wall

that's not grounding, that's technically a floating ground

grounding actually means connecting to something that leads to Earth

 

and ps: grounding yourself when dealing with PC components is a bullshit prevention mechanism

component manufacturers actually design the chips to withstand static electrical discharges (ESD)

[Simon771]

2 minutes ago, zMeul said:

and ps: grounding yourself when dealing with PC components is a bullshit prevention mechanism

component manufacturers actually design the chips to withstand static electrical discharges (ESD)

Finally someone ...

How many times did you hear about someone destroying PC components with static electicity?

It would be like winning the jackpot.

 

So if you manage to acctually kill some of your component(s) with it, you should start playing lottery that exact same day.

 

I have been upgrading my PC for last 5 years and I never killed any component. At work I had to deal with at least 400-500 computers, taking them apart, installing new hardware etc. Everything works just fine.

[zMeul]

4 minutes ago, Simon771 said:

Finally someone ...

How many times did you hear about someone destroying PC components with static electicity?

I've worked in the business for around 7y and I never managed to destroy a component from ESD; I've been around home computers and PCs since age 10 (I'm now 36)

 

if you want to worry about something, worry about sweat and oils when handling components with exposed contacts

[ARikozuM]

27 minutes ago, zMeul said:

static electrical discharges (ESD)

That's the first time I've seen someone reverse an acronym and still be correct...

[ARikozuM]

21 minutes ago, Simon771 said:

Finally someone ...

How many times did you hear about someone destroying PC components with static electicity?

It would be like winning the jackpot.

 

So if you manage to acctually kill some of your component(s) with it, you should start playing lottery that exact same day.

 

I have been upgrading my PC for last 5 years and I never killed any component. At work I had to deal with at least 400-500 computers, taking them apart, installing new hardware etc. Everything works just fine.

These days (more like years) the PCB's traces are covered by many layers of protection (I think fiberglass) preventing most ESD's from affecting the board.

[zMeul]

2 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

That's the first time I've seen someone reverse an acronym and still be correct...

my 1st language is not English, so I sometimes approximate 

[Electronics Wizardy]

40 minutes ago, Lorium said:

When grounding yourself using an anti static wrist strap that's attached to a power supply is it suppose to be plugged into the wall? If yes, is the wall outlet AND the power supply turned off?

Most anti static straps will plug into the ground outlet on a standard 5-15 plug.

 

It doesn't matter if the psu is on of off, that only affects the hot and neutral plugs, not the earth plug.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

These days (more like years) the PCB is covered by many layers of protection (I think fiberglass) preventing most ESD's from affecting the board.

Fiberglass is what the board is made from. Not gonna help,

 

ESD isn't a huge problem when building a pc.

[corrado33]

9 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Most anti static straps will plug into the ground outlet on a standard 5-15 plug.

 

It doesn't matter if the psu is on of off, that only affects the hot and neutral plugs, not the earth plug.

THIS.

 

When you switch your power supply off at the power supply, it switches the hot and neutral, not the "ground" plug. Same with the switch at the plug (in the UK). 

 

That is, provided the wiring in your house is up to code and you don't have a floating ground or even a hot ground. That would be bad.

 

If I REALLY must ground myself and make sure I'm grounded, (or I'm grounding a laser table or something) I'll stick a metal wire into the ground hole in the plug, then touch that when I need to ground myself. It's essentially the same thing that the straps do, except they make it a pretty plug so you can't be an idiot and plug it in incorrectly.

[NeoFrux]

The "correct" method to ground oneself during PC service is to plug the anti-static strap directly into the wall outlet's ground. Alternatively, you can use a computer's power supply, switched off, to ground the whole chassis and ground yourself by touching the chassis. That's where the half-truth of touching the chassis grounding yourself comes from. An ESD mat, also plugged into the earth pin on an outlet, is another way to do the same thing if you don't want to have the computer plugged in (eg. for cable management where you're rotating the chassis often).

 

It's true though that most PCB's are well shielded against static discharge, but while chips are usually protected by ceramics, the internals on the chips themselves (and the pins leading to the chips) are typically not so lucky. While static electricity holds very little amperage, the voltage is often far higher than any of that is designed to take. The TL;DR there is don't touch the pins, but we all knew that already, right?