ESD Systems - Questions And Answers

hi, i want to know about esd wrist straps. i want to know what your suppose to connect the wrist strap to. my wrist strap has a agitator clip and the instructions say to connect it to a grounded source. i am a+ certified but my books dont say the same thing for connecting. so i wanted to know if you can tell me what can i connect the wrist strap to that is also common in the house or workplace. thank you -Anonymous, Miami, Florida

The purpose of the wrist strap is to bring to common the potential of your body with another conductor such as a computer chassis. It is very convenient to use the power ‘ground’ as the reference voltage to tie yourself and other conductors to since this is or should be at ZERO volts. The wrist strap has a banana plug which can easily plug into a common point ground block which typically have banana jacks to receive the banana plug making a convenient connection. Another method to connect your wrist strap to ground is to use the alligator clip and banana jack that came with your coil cord. Plug the cord into the alligator clip and attach the clip to a metal conductor that is grounded. If ground is not convenient, which can be the case for field service applications, then bring all conductors within the ESD Safe Area to the same potential by electrically coupling them together. You can electrically couple yourself to your computer by clipping your wrist strap onto the computer chassis. Your work surface should also be clipped to the chassis so that all conductors are at the same potential. When all conductors are at the same potential, then the probability of a conductor discharging to another one is reduced, because theoretically they all should be at the same potential. .

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