ESD Explained & Demonstrated + History of the Pink Polyethylene ESD Bag

[EEVblog]

Dan C. Anderson was inventor of the original pink poly ESD bag (Richmond Chemical Corporation RCAS 1200)
Dan explains and demonstrates in irreverent style what Electrostatic Discharge is and the history behind development of the pink poly ESD bag.
Previous to this invention Velostat was used as ESD material.
This video dates sometime prior to 1976.

[Cerebus]

I'm only part way through but this guy is both entertaining and informative. From what I've seen so far, a highly recommended watch.

[vk6zgo]

Dan C. Anderson was inventor of the original pink poly ESD bag (Richmond Chemical Corporation RCAS 1200)
Dan explains and demonstrates in irreverent style what Electrostatic Discharge is and the history behind development of the pink poly ESD bag.
Previous to this invention Velostat was used as ESD material.
This video dates sometime prior to 1976.

I think I saw it in 1977, when I did a "High Reliability Hand Soldering" course held by Telecom Aust.
Like all their courses, it was excellent, & apart from "hand soldering", introduced us to many techniques which were not mainstream for decades afterwards.

From memory, the video referred to the pink stuff as "Polypink".
When I get some time, I'll watch it again for old times sake!

[EEVblog]

I'm only part way through but this guy is both entertaining and informative. From what I've seen so far, a highly recommended watch.

Everyone in the Youtube comments is raving about him.
Of course he'd be deplatformed and uninvited from every conference on the planet today 

[BrianHG]

I'm only part way through but this guy is both entertaining and informative. From what I've seen so far, a highly recommended watch.

Everyone in the Youtube comments is raving about him.
Of course he'd be deplatformed and uninvited from every conference on the planet today 

Why is it I feel you hit the nail on the head...

[Cerebus]

I'm only part way through but this guy is both entertaining and informative. From what I've seen so far, a highly recommended watch.

Everyone in the Youtube comments is raving about him.
Of course he'd be deplatformed and uninvited from every conference on the planet today 

Why is it I feel you hit the nail on the head...

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

I think his only 'sin' by modern standards was the assumption, "sometime prior to 1976", that women do all the cooking and washing. I was there, they did.

[lumpking69]

I wonder what became of him. Hope he lived a good life.

Shame that we can't have someone like this these days, poor guy would get canceled so quick.

[EEVblog]

Shame that we can't have someone like this these days, poor guy would get canceled so quick.

Only if you are on Twitter, or work for someone that listens to Twitter.

[Ranayna]

Yeah, except for him smoking during the lecture (i am glad that is not a thing anymore) I don't think he did anything that would warrant a "cancellation".

Great video, I did not really know how the pink poly stuff works.

[Cerebus]

Great video, I did not really know how the pink poly stuff works.

No, neither did I. Then he said "surfactant" and a lightbulb went on over my head.

I actually stopped the video then and there, and went and tried it. I grabbed a polythene bag and a bit of nylon cloth to rub it with to charge it. Did that, checked for the classic 'pulling the hairs on your hand/arm' effect of obvious static and it was there. Then I sprayed the bag with some surfactant (Benzalkonium chloride) dissolved in isopropanol and water and let it dry off. Charge gone, rubbed enthusiastically, couldn't get charge back. So, I now know how to treat surfaces to be 'antistatic'. Perhaps not as permanently as pink poly, but well enough to remove some everyday annoyances (like plastic boxes that immediately electrostatically attract dust again \${1}\over{2}\$ an hour after you wash them clean).

[helius]

Yes, lots of useful info in that lecture. Like wood, paper, or cotton being low static: I wonder how a wood-handled brush compares to an ESD plastic brush when measured with a surface conductance meter. Something to try!
Another detail: the triboelectric series does not mean that two identical nylon surfaces won't generate static charge; because on a microscopic level they are never truly identical.
Static charge meters like the one he uses are still made, but I haven't seen a "zap flash" and don't know how you would search for it. Probably easy to make, though.

[scopeman]

Wow,

I did not think I would ever see this video again. I worked for Western Union in one of their large scale computer centers from 1977 through 1988. We were primarily a Univac computer house ,think 418-III and 1108A big iron computers. We were scheduled to have some new Univac 1100/62 systems installed which unlike the mostly discrete transistor logic had CMOS IC's.

So Univac provided this video (It was on Sony U-Matic tape IIRC) as part of the training. What a hoot!

Sam
W3OHM