TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-11, 06:24:
Warlord wrote on 2022-03-11, 05:15:
I've treated hardware like shit for 100s of years, and I have never had anything die from ESD.
Me either .. old or new parts, I still take precautions but nothing as crazy as some people believe is needed, different story with parts I didn't buy however.
Thing is, avoiding ESD doesn't need all that crazy stuff. It just needs basic understanding of static electricity. Yes, if you enure a proper, grounded static workstation, wear static-proof grounded jacket, a grounding wrist strap and never ever let any component out of an anti-static bag outisde of this setting, you know you're safe and can prove it in an audit. But in a non-audit situation you get 99% of the benefit from just ensuring your work surface is badly conductive, i.e. wood or if it's shiny, put some cardboard on it (avoids scratching shiny surface too), and wearing cotton clothes instead of nasty synthetics or woollen jumpers. Touch the case of a computer before sticking your hands inisde. Also, newspaper has almost exactly same electrical properties as antistatic bags. Nothing there that requires expense or inconvenience.
As for the "never had anything die from ESD" - how do you know? Have you never had a components die unexpectedly with no visible damage? Doesn't have to be ESD, but unless you stick the chips under an SEM, you can't be sure it's not...