Anti-Static Wrist Straps - use with battery powered cct's ??

[Nick Mulder]

Hi,


I have never had problems with zapping components in digital ccts and have used a fair amount of different components that came in the static sensitive device bags...

The other day two components arrived in the aforementioned bags and they are worth $32US each. I thought it would be a good idea to get a antistatic wrist band in this case...

I'm not working on PC cases, just my own breadboard cct's and microcontrollers

Question:

Do I have to connect to the actual household earth (both cct and band) ?  or is it ok to only connect to the ground of my battery powered DC circuit ?

What about the component just by itself ?  if I connect the ground pin to the wrist band is it ok to touch the rest of the pins ?

My intuition says plug myself and the cct ground into the wall (correctly!)
I'm keen to get this stuff learned and out of the way 

Thanks,
Nick 

 

[AN920]

I hardly ever use wrist bands. The few occations where I used one I just clamped it to cct ground. Some people like to work on a anti-static mat which is just a very high impedance to earth.

How did your LDR circuit turned out?

 

[Nick Mulder]

The LDR cct is nice now, especially with the LPF on the input ...

I have a problem with having too many projects on the go at once - I will move onto one before completing the last...  The LDR cct has taken a back foot as it is not really required until the new year - the latest project is more mechanical in nature apart from the wireless modules I have purchased for it:

http://www.maxstream.net/products/xbee/xbee-pro-oem-rf-module-zigbee.php

These are the precious little static sensitive parts ...

thanks for your info, always appreciated

Nick