That guy at the Portland meetup who fried his PCB with ESD

I was at a build meetup in Portland about 4 months ago, and this dude walks in with a brand new solderless kit. He's showing it off, talking about how he didn't need a soldering iron for this one, and then he pulls it out of a plastic bag. Right there he's shuffling his feet on carpet, grabs the PCB, and I hear this tiny crackle. He plugs it in and nothing works. Dead on arrival. Has anyone else seen someone kill a board just from static buildup like that?

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james_ross3mo ago

Did he have on synthetic socks or something? I swear people forget that static is real until their gear goes poof... it's like watching someone dry their phone off with a hairdryer.

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keith1163mo ago

Honestly, that "tiny crackle" part got me - I did the exact same thing at my first local meetup years ago, and it was brutal. What finally worked for me was just getting a cheap antistatic mat and wrist strap from an electronics store, then making it a habit to touch a metal table leg before grabbing any board. Now I keep everything in those pink anti-static bags too, and I haven't zapped anything since.

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