Manage Static Or Fry Components When Commissioning And Installation Security Systems.
Manage Static Or Fry Components – Installers commissioning and installing security systems can inadvertently fry components with a single touch – particularly when the weather is dry and windy.
A static snap from the tip of your finger might reach voltages of 10kV, while the highest recorded ESD voltages are around 30kV (30,000 volts). That’s more than enough to ruin sensitive components, even if they are protected by a good board design.
What does the damage with ESD is fast high current waveforms and fast magnetic (H-field) or electrostatic (E-field) disturbances. These can induce voltages or currents in nearby sensitive circuitry, corrupting data, damaging circuits and causing failures that are nearly impossible to locate.
What you should get into the habit of doing whenever you are around controllers is wearing a grounded anti-static wrist strap connected to the panel housing. Any static electrical charge that builds up on your body is then immediately transferred to ground through the case of the controller.
Depending on how you are working, experienced technicians can also use a few other tricks for controlling static electricity around controllers and control modules. One trick is to leave the circuit board laying on top of an antistatic bag or antistatic foam whenever possible.
Another is to leave an ungrounded device plugged into an AC outlet with the power switch turned off. These places ground on the metal case. The technician can then work with one hand touching a metal part of the case. Any electrical charge that builds up is immediately transferred to ground. While this might work well for simple work, if you need 2 hands, things get harder.
Installers can also use antistatic footwear, which has an electrical resistance between 0.1 MegaOhm and 1000 MegaOhm. Available as boots, shoes, wellies or joggers, this footwear won’t allow a build-up of static energy in the human body. Another option is anti-static shoelaces or anti-static mats – the latter are ideal for commissioning work benches, but more difficult to use in the field.
You can learn more about static causes and cures here or read more SEN news here.
“Manage Static Or Fry Components When Commissioning And Installation Security Systems.”
