Noob questions regarding anti-static mats.

[medical-nerd]

Hiya

So... I finally bought an antistatic mat, a couple of wrist straps and a mains earth bonding plug containing a 10Mohm resistor.

A couple of questions - there is one connector on the mat, if I use this to connect to the mains earth via the bonding plug where do I connect the wrist straps - do I strip the cable connecting to earth and make extensions? or do I clip the crocodile clips directly to the surface of the mat?

Is it safe to power up boards on the mat for testing - or will it be conductive enough to short out pcbs?

Many thanks for any guidance.

[Nerull]

[jmelson]

Hiya

So... I finally bought an antistatic mat, a couple of wrist straps and a mains earth bonding plug containing a 10Mohm resistor.

A couple of questions - there is one connector on the mat, if I use this to connect to the mains earth via the bonding plug where do I connect the wrist straps - do I strip the cable connecting to earth and make extensions? or do I clip the crocodile clips directly to the surface of the mat?

Is it safe to power up boards on the mat for testing - or will it be conductive enough to short out pcbs?

Use an Ohm meter to check the resistance of the mat.  with the probes a couple inches apart on the mat, you should get a resistance of 100K to a couple meg Ohms.  You should also get a resistance of a couple meg Ohms from anywhere on the mat to the ground terminal or cord.

If the resistance shows up as several meg Ohms, you can safely power most circuitry on the mat.  But ultra-sensitive circuits or high voltage stuff can be affected.

Jon