Wood Bench... Conductive Oil for ESD Control?

[nbritton]

Anyone know of a conductive oil that you can use to condition wood for the purposes of dissipating static charges for ESD control?

[Cliff Matthews]

Digikey carries ACL Staticide products. Most wood keeps static down anyway (and oil insulates?).
http://www.aclstaticide.com/pdf/ACL-Staticide-Static-Control-Brochure-2014.pdf

[KL27x]

Wood is ESD safe, naturally. It can't build or retain a significant localized surface charge.

ESD protection is for things that need ESD protection. So we have ESD-safe plastics. No such thing needed for metal and wood, lols. Just because plastic/rubber surface is called ESD-safe doesn't make it necessarily more safe than wood/metal. In the long run, some "ESD-safe" products will wear out, because it's just a thin coating that makes them so.

oil insulates

Oil is sucked into the wood. Is not surface finish like paint/varnish. Danish oil is varnish, BTW.

[f5r5e5d]

conductive metal sheet or foil isn't "ESD Safe" - you want high resistance to limit discharge currents when you bring a charged component into contact with your work surface

[CatalinaWOW]

In really dry locales wood can hold a charge though it still isn't much for contact generation.  Any place with moisture in the air wood is fine.  In normal places wood won't get much below 3-5% moisture content which is more than enough to leak off charges.

[KL27x]

delete.

[tggzzz]

If it is conductive, then don't put live electronics on it!

Wood will trap all sorts of crap which will then be difficult to see and dislodge. Not good when the crap is solder spashes, wire clippings, metal shards etc.

Just get a proper ESD mat and put it on top of the wooden surface. Then you'll be able to see and easily remove all that crap before it merges with your circuit.