*Rant* Question I asked at a Job interview.

[mictas]

So, today I was taken to a mobile phone and tablet repair shop, by my employment agent. The store I will leave out its name.

We go to a room above the main floor, where someone was working on a phone, he was asked to leave. I do not recall seeing him wearing any gloves. I could see a bunch of Hakko equipment, that looks real, but who knows.

Anyway, towards the end of the interview, I asked, "What do you do for ESD?"

Answer, from who I guess was the big boss, "We don't have anything"

I was not in the mood to talk to those two to begin with.

I am the kind of person who freaks out, when I don't ware gloves in my workshop.

[hermit]

Were the floors nicely carpeted?

[ataradov]

Unpopular opinion follows. I've been working with electronics my entire adult life, and I yet to kill anything due to ESD. With normal precautions (lay off wool clothing in winter time), ESD is not all that dangerous.

Will you also freak out if it turns out they don't use Flukes and $5000 scopes to fix phones?

This is a repair shop, that needs to run though a lot of phones to make any profit. Putting gloves on an off is a waste of time.

[IanB]

I am the kind of person who freaks out, when I don't ware gloves in my workshop.

First time I've heard about a need to wear gloves in an electronics workshop. What for, exactly?

[mictas]

Were the floors nicely carpeted?

I knew there was something I should have looked at, the coin mining rig, kind of caught my eye when I first entered the room.

You have no idea how real world works. In a real repair workshop, people don't always wear gloves, and people don't follow IPC rules, and people don't give a shit to ESD.

O, I know how things work in the real world, I have seen it before. It just really struck me, how it seemed the guy had no idea what I was talking about. That and the $15,000 to $30,000 or more worth of hakko equipment, you'd think they could have splurged for a better working mat.

Now if these guys had a JBC soldering station, it would have perked my interest.

Will you also freak out if it turns out they don't use Flukes and $5000 scopes to fix phones?

Nope, because there are other and better brands out there, then just the almighty fluke. I have a $50 scope to play with SMD stuff and I have seen shops on Youtube use the same thing to fix phones/ laptops, that and the microscope they had, looked to be with a at least $5000, but could be more.

I am the kind of person who freaks out, when I don't ware gloves in my workshop.

First time I've heard about a need to wear gloves in an electronics workshop. What for, exactly?

I know this isn't for me, but I have leaned its so much better not to get your finger prints all over everything, like LCD screens and hard to clean plastic/glass, covers and what not. Besides, its an extra protection from getting a little jolt.

[Ampera]

For myself, I have am intellectually in a very awkward position. I have an alright amount of somewhat general EE knowledge, but not having gone to school for it (yet), I'm not aware of a lot of the details.

My hobby is the construction of legacy computers. Stuff from the 486 period to the very late AM2+ period for the moment. I have not given two shits about ESD. I have a wrist (or leg) strap, but I just don't use it (not to mention there isn't a decent post for me to ground it. I have never killed anything with an ESD, and I do not forsee myself doing so.

This doesn't mean to say that there should never be any ESD precautions taken. I do take care to work on non conductive static free environments (no shoes, wood/laminate floor, wood/particleboard table). However even when working on stuff on carpet or on my bed (Yes, I did actually work on an iMac G3 on my bed as it was the subjectively best place to do it for me considering the big fragile CRT monitor).

It does seem odd that the people there with that level of equipment and a coin miner don't at least have some sort of ESD mat or something. Gloves I can sort of understand, as a decent wipe with something like Isopropyl Alcohol would be fine. Then again, if they never have broken (presumably an already broken) a device while working on it from ESD, the aren't exactly having issues with it. If they did, they would have stuff in place to prevent that.

[Cyberdragon]

I am the kind of person who freaks out, when I don't ware gloves in my workshop.

First time I've heard about a need to wear gloves in an electronics workshop. What for, exactly?

I would wear gloves, not for the protection of the circuits, but your hands. If you've ever watched any of Rossmann's videos, he wears gloves just because consumer electronics can be NASTY. He's seen insects, hair, unidentifiable stains and crud inside. Excercise hygenic caution when handling other people's stuff, you don't know where it's been.

[mictas]

I am the kind of person who freaks out, when I don't ware gloves in my workshop.

First time I've heard about a need to wear gloves in an electronics workshop. What for, exactly?

I would wear gloves, not for the protection of the circuits, but your hands. If you've ever watched any of Rossmann's videos, he wears gloves just because consumer electronics can be NASTY. He's seen insects, hair, unidentifiable stains and crud inside. Excercise hygenic caution when handling other people's stuff, you don't know where it's been.

Well that and my doctor has told me, that I have Dermatitis. Its where my hands dry out, crack and bleed.

And yes, I have gotten blood over stuff I have been working on before, its a real pain when you are really into building something and bam, you have to stop a clean up all the blood. Its really sticky too.

[ludzinc]

Nope, because there are other and better brands out there, then just the almighty fluke. I have a $50 scope to play with SMD stuff and I have seen shops on Youtube use the same thing to fix phones/ laptops, that and the microscope they had, looked to be with a at least $5000, but could be more.

*than

[rs20]

I've been working with electronics my entire adult life, and I yet to kill anything due to ESD.

I agree with everything else in your message (I don't consider ESD precautions to be worthwhile in the home shop), but this sentence irks me. How can you be so sure? Have you ever had any component operate outside of spec? Have you ever had any project fail? Did you completely rule out ESD as a cause for any of those incidents? What would it take for you to consider that ESD caused a failure, and is that mechanism secure against confirmation bias?

I'm not specifically aware of any ESD damage that I've caused, but I would never go so far as to claim that ESD damage has not occurred -- that's a huuuge leap that I can't honestly claim. Just a couple of weeks ago there was an OLED display that appeared to be dead on arrival -- but for all I know, I killed it via ESD as I removed it from the packaging.

[ataradov]

but I would never go so far as to claim that ESD damage has not occurred -- that's a huuuge leap that I can't honestly claim.

Ok, I really can't claim that I never killed things with ESD. But I generally don't remember killing anything in an unknown way (possible ESD). So yes, it is possible, but it was not a systematic problem, so it is not worth spending extra time and hassle of doing a "proper way".

ESD can cause invisible damage as well. That MCU you have touched by hand, now potentially has bigger leakage current. But again, this is not something I care about, except for some limited number of cases.

And obviously, I will exercise more caution when bringing up some expensive board that was just assembled, over a $20 development kit that is readability available.

[vk6zgo]

I am the kind of person who freaks out, when I don't ware gloves in my workshop.

First time I've heard about a need to wear gloves in an electronics workshop. What for, exactly?

I would wear gloves, not for the protection of the circuits, but your hands. If you've ever watched any of Rossmann's videos, he wears gloves just because consumer electronics can be NASTY. He's seen insects, hair, unidentifiable stains and crud inside. Excercise hygenic caution when handling other people's stuff, you don't know where it's been.

Well that and my doctor has told me, that I have Dermatitis. Its where my hands dry out, crack and bleed.

And yes, I have gotten blood over stuff I have been working on before, its a real pain when you are really into building something and bam, you have to stop a clean up all the blood. Its really sticky too.

In your particular case,  gloves are probably a good idea, but most other people do not use them
I, for instance, find them uncomfortable, & there is a loss of "feel" which detracts from my ability to do the job.

Another thing I have never had good results with, is wearing safety glasses when soldering.
If they were proper glasses with good optical properties, they would be OK, but usually, the ones supplied are general purpose plastic crud which blur & distort the work.
I usually use my prescription specs & a maggylamp.

The general purpose safety glasses are probably good if you are using a grindstone or something, but, personally, even with that kind of work, I prefer to use a full face shield, rather than  either safety glasses or goggles, as it allows me to wear the prescription specs under it if I feel the work warrants it

[aargee]

A couple of things...

ESD is not always a straight out killer as alluded to by Ataradov, HP (in the good ol' days) produced a great training film on the topic and showed the accumulated effect of ESD events, with electron microscope images. Essentially it weakened the device and lead to the possibility of an ELF (early life failure) / long term reliability issues.
Now days, the ESD protection in devices is much better through design and materials used aaand not many consumer-type companies are interested in the long term reliability of a product (not, at least, beyond the warranty period).

[mictas]

In your particular case,  gloves are probably a good idea, but most other people do not use them
I, for instance, find them uncomfortable, & there is a loss of "feel" which detracts from my ability to do the job.

Another thing I have never had good results with, is wearing safety glasses when soldering.
If they were proper glasses with good optical properties, they would be OK, but usually, the ones supplied are general purpose plastic crud which blur & distort the work.
I usually use my prescription specs & a maggylamp.

The general purpose safety glasses are probably good if you are using a grindstone or something, but, personally, even with that kind of work, I prefer to use a full face shield, rather than  either safety glasses or goggles, as it allows me to wear the prescription specs under it if I feel the work warrants it

I do have persecution glasses myself, I find with my P2 paper respirator and rather awkward safety glasses, it can get a bit old, so I do find my desk mount magnifier lamp a life saver. I have been meaning to pop into bunnings and see if I can find some comfyer safety glasses.

The photo I attached was a selfie, I took at work one day. Well back when I was working in a factory, the thing is, this still wasn't enough for me, I wasn't able to dawn my mask in a clean area.

I still laugh at how I would look, but it was that or coughing up black goo. Now if only the new owners would find a new location to setup shop and take everything out of storage.

I do use the same kind of safety glasses, when I am soldering.

[Decoman]

With me not being that into electronics earlier in my life, having spent most time with arts, philosophy and language and other hobbies, my own hobbyist attitude to try prevent electrostatic discharge onto what is said to be very delicate computer components, is limited to first go to my kitchen then touch the metal sink, and ofc try avoid building up any electrostatic charge on my way back, before proceeding to do whatever I do when putting together PC desktop. I wonder how appropriate, or inappropriate doing this simple thing might be. Presumably, people that actually work with electronics for a living would have to be more careful than me.

I remember one time, standing by my mailbox outside my apartment, and the very moment before my mailbox key was inserted into the lock, I saw this tiny blue lighting flash from the tip of the key, over to the mailbox. Imagine someone using a metallic object as a pointer in their hand, pointing closely at select electronic components.

Also, I remember buying my epic intel Q6600 cpu one time, from a tray at this local store, but buying the cpu right off the tray I suddenly had nowhere to put it. The cpu die itself was protected only by the plastic cover that iirc was attached with two tiny clips.. and so, what I did next I remember, was to grab a new plastic bag with my left hand and opening it up a little.. and then jam my right right holding my cpu, down the only partially opened plastic bag.. and I could hear the static electricity cracking as I did that, and I thought "Uh, oh!". O) Luckily, the cpu appeared to work after that, though I have no idea if maybe there could have been instability issues I ignored because of that, in the five years I used that Q6600 cpu.

[coppice]

A couple of things...

ESD is not always a straight out killer as alluded to by Ataradov, HP (in the good ol' days) produced a great training film on the topic and showed the accumulated effect of ESD events, with electron microscope images. Essentially it weakened the device and lead to the possibility of an ELF (early life failure) / long term reliability issues.
Now days, the ESD protection in devices is much better through design and materials used and not many consumer-type companies are interested in the long term reliability of a product (not, at least, beyond the warranty period).

In the mid 80s, when the broad extent of the partial damage issue was first properly understood, several organisations produced excellent written and video material on this topic. British Telecom produced some excellent material showing how the point of damage was often far from the pin to which the EOS was applied. Too many engineers are unaware of this body of work now, but nothing substantial has changed in modern parts. They tend to have more robust per pin protection, but this can easily be overwhealmed by bad handling.

If you get called into a production facility with a high in factory ESD failure rate, try to check their warranty failures. You'll usually find a pretty high in the field failure rate as a consequence of EOS at the factory that didn't quite break things at the time.

[firewalker]

Once in an interview (IT company) when they told if I had any question, I asked what their back-up solution is. The answer was "We simply use RAID". After that I asked them "What happens when the file system fails and the controller starts synchronizing the array?". After a minute o silence I just left.

Alexander.

[tszaboo]

I am the kind of person who freaks out, when I don't ware gloves in my workshop.

First time I've heard about a need to wear gloves in an electronics workshop. What for, exactly?

So you dont leave fingerprint all over the customer's stuff.
I had a collegue. He was soldering (without gloves, that almost fine) and cooling down the board by blowing air over it from his mouth. Of course the boards were not cleaned with IPA when he was finished.

I asked him, if after the fingerprints and his saliva, is he going to place other bodily fluids on the board, or is he done?

[mictas]

I am the kind of person who freaks out, when I don't ware gloves in my workshop.

First time I've heard about a need to wear gloves in an electronics workshop. What for, exactly?

So you dont leave fingerprint all over the customer's stuff.
I had a collegue. He was soldering (without gloves, that almost fine) and cooling down the board by blowing air over it from his mouth. Of course the boards were not cleaned with IPA when he was finished.

I asked him, if after the fingerprints and his saliva, is he going to place other bodily fluids on the board, or is he done?

This is totally off topic, but NAND, I am looking for a way to dump recovered BGA Nana chip, any advice on cheap hardware?

Also back in the day, I did leave a few drops of blood inside a customers desktop, when it came back I did clean it. But it wasn't because of my bodily fluids 

[Pitrsek]

ESD sandals work surprisingly well. Even with ESD "friendly" carpet....

[CNe7532294]

About the ESD thing here is my take. I have equipment that is well over tens of thousands of dollars. (ie 8563EC, 8340B, 5343A to name a few). Some irreplaceable or unobtainium. Yet I rarely even use a wrist strap. I even have worked on a carpet before with no problems. Why I have no problems is simple. I am 100% aware 100% of the time or at least try to be. Straps are a distraction for me so before I even touch any electronics I touch the grounded chassis of said equipment. I make sure to to lightly tap with my palm instead of using my pointed finger to discharge myself before doing any work even if I know I haven't charged myself. As for carpet, walk barefoot or in sandals like Dave does (depending on home or office). Socks are a huge NO for me. I have however worn socks on a carpet before as well but without incident. That is because I discharge myself. Any rubbing action I do, I touch the chassis as described above. Its a habit I've grown. No strap to tie me down if I have to move from one spot to another.

From my own experience, even if they say at school X is wrong you'll find in the real world that X is kinda done anyways because it saves on time and money. Here is an example. I've worked in a medical lab before. In chemistry class they always tell you to pour waste in a collection container for proper disposal. At where I had worked, guess what. They told me to pour some waste down a common sink which doubled as the eye wash station.... even in the sight of the compliance/safety officer. So long as its "mainly composed of the simple chemicals" like ethanol, isopropanol, diluted bleach, etc. and not "really toxic" or flat out biological wastes. So for example raw blood is a major no-no but if it was bleached or "destructively processed" by heat, chemical reactions, etc during analysis then by all means pour it down. Bare in mind this lab is a CLIA/COLA and CAP certified lab and everyone even the surprise inspectors seem to not care.... The reasoning is this. Biological waste disposal is expensive via weight. The less weight, the more this lab and you will thrive. By the way, I don't personally agree with this practice myself but thats how it was and still is done.

[Freelander]

The op wouldn't appreciate the 'standard' 1960's / 70's  practice of changing the car engine oil over a drainage grate then ?   . A very common practice for the majority of people with no 'garage'.
The ONLY concern was dropping the drain plug down the grate.  .... not good.
I am even amazed when looking at 'mechanical' (car repair) videos with guys wearing pretty little gloves  ... why ?

Always cleaned mucky oil off with clean oil and if needed, a bit of sugar, then - if needed, followed by 'fairy liquid' and sugar. Job sorted. Same with a bit of 'asbestos' brake dust - pah  .. never hurt anybody.   Darn tree huggers. 

As for ESD.. all a total conspiracy theory by the inventor of the knicker elastic electrocution band for when you pull the earth from the scope plug  ....
 

[retrolefty]

I do have persecution glasses myself

 This place is getting darn near kinky.   

[Mr. Scram]

Unpopular opinion follows. I've been working with electronics my entire adult life, and I yet to kill anything due to ESD. With normal precautions (lay off wool clothing in winter time), ESD is not all that dangerous.

Will you also freak out if it turns out they don't use Flukes and $5000 scopes to fix phones?

This is a repair shop, that needs to run though a lot of phones to make any profit. Putting gloves on an off is a waste of time.

You haven't had sudden or infant deaths? ESD is insidious in the sense that damage might only show up later. Or your part is unstable without a real explanation.

I've had a couple of incidences where things quit working after handling them otherwise carefully. In one case, I actually registered the moment I zapped the part, which showed erratic behaviour afterwards. I've been more careful ever since.

[NivagSwerdna]

I used to solder on a bit of polyester/wool carpet off-cut, used to hold the parts nicely in place. 

Never had any ESD problems but ditched it after posting some photos/videos of the stuff I was working on and getting non-stop ESD-fanboy grief.