Grounding yourself

[turboxchaz]

I was gonna plan on building my computer tomorrow on my wooden desk. my room is carpet and i was gonna stand up on the carpet and build my computer. is this safe and would i be risking my computer parts?

and what is an effective way to releasing all of my static electricity?

 

[ollithemagicbum]

my dad built his standing on the carpet, and nothing happened.

an effective way to NOT have any static electricity would to wear shoes with rubber soles on the bottom.

 

[dashogun]

Just make sure you touch some metal component to ground yourself before touching any electrical hardware. Or do what I prefer, which is to wear rubber gloves and shoes.

 

[TheDiceman]

Yeah, touching something metal before working on a component will discharge any se you have built up. I know you can buy grounding wrist bands that you clip onto anything metal while youo are working to keep you okay if you are still worried.

 

[veg1992]

dude.... u got a large sig.... might wanna fix it b4 u get sig infraction like i did

but its an important precaution with the grounding..... it can help u not lose ur valuable part

 

[saltynay]

yeah try and keep the sig sensible

 

[White_Wolf]

One trick is to touch something large and metal to discharge any static electricity in your body. However, this is something you would only do if you didn't have an anti static wrist strap.

Just because you discharge any built up energy doesn't mean that you will not accumulate any more energy during your working. not to mention that no matter what it is that your touching, going from contact with one large mass to another changes the level of electricity in your body very quickly.

I've tinkered around with electronics here and there and I never zapped anything with ESD. But it's always better to be safe than sorry. A $5 wrist strap is better than a ruined $150 motherboard.

Of course you have to be careful with those things. If you wear one of those wrist straps on one hand and a digital watch on the other, and reach for your cell phone, you could explode... or so I heard.

 

[TheDiceman]

Heh, makes me happy that my boss will let me bring my rig into work after hours when I want to work on it. Anti-static table-top, grounding wrist straps and anti-static smocks. I think I am safe, lol.

 

[saltynay]

just touch your casing each time you pick something up or touch any circuit board its not really that big a deal