Author Topic: Lost in the ESD-mat forest.  (Read 830 times)

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Offline FriedMuleTopic starter

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Lost in the ESD-mat forest.
« on: February 03, 2019, 09:22:07 pm »
Happy was I walking into DigiKey.com, "give me a ESD mat please"

Digikey:
layers (1,2,3)
materiale (rubber, foam rubber, laminated, elastomer, polymer)
features (Dissipative, conductive, antistatic, anti fatigue)?

Me: Ehm what, Ehm who where?

Can you please try to help me answering these questions?
My table is a 1x2 meter slap of wood.
Even if I appear online is it not necessary so, my computer is on 24/7 even if I am not on.
 

Offline jpb

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Re: Lost in the ESD-mat forest.
« Reply #1 on: February 03, 2019, 09:55:40 pm »
The best mats are rubber but these are more expensive.
For a bench you probably want a dissipative layer on top (so you dissipate charge without shorting out any circuit board laid on top) with a conductive layer underneath (to give a good grounding).
The anti fatigue only applies to floor mats (i.e. they are soft to stand on if you're working on your feet all day and don't want to stand on a hard floor like concrete).

You can either cover your whole bench which is expensive and probably requires you to buy a roll and cut it to size or you can do what I did and just get a mat that covers your working area.

The other important thing is that they are heat resistant (for soldering).

The one I went for was this:
https://www.digikey.co.uk/product-detail/en/desco/66045/16-1074-ND/405847

EDIT: to explain the terms:
dissipative - very high resistance, almost an insulator but with enough conductance that a bit of static (small charge/high Voltage) will dissipate to ground but at a slow enough rate that there is no danger to circuits (ESD needs to be allowed to flow away but not be suddenly conducted to ground as you'd have with say a metal table top).
conductive - relatively low resistance (though probably more resistive than a metal) which provides a reasonable path to ground for charge getting through the thin dissipative layer. The whole mat should be connected to ground via a 1Mohm resistor anyway so the typical resistance to ground is of the order of tens of megaohms or more.
« Last Edit: February 03, 2019, 10:03:49 pm by jpb »
 

Offline FriedMuleTopic starter

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Re: Lost in the ESD-mat forest.
« Reply #2 on: February 03, 2019, 10:37:49 pm »
Thanks a lot, great link.
Was wondering if anyone has a, something like 7x4 feet / 210x110 cm cutoff some ware I could buy?
« Last Edit: February 03, 2019, 10:59:43 pm by FriedMule »
Even if I appear online is it not necessary so, my computer is on 24/7 even if I am not on.
 


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