I honestly consider them to be a consumable.
The ones I've used always get splashes of solder, flux and other uncleanable things onto them at some point. If it gets too much, I'll switch to a new one.
this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2025
20 points (95.5% liked)
Electronics
2395 readers
9 users here now
Projects, pictures, industry discussions and news about electronic engineering & component-level electronic circuits.
Rules
1: Be nice.
2: Be on-topic (eg: Electronic, not electrical).
3: No commercial stuff, buying, selling or valuations.
4: No circuit design or repair, tools or component questions.
5: No excessively promoting your own sites, social media, videos etc.
Ask questions in https://discuss.tchncs.de/c/askelectronics
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I've worked on electronics for about 30 years and I've never even heard of anti-static mats before. I've only ever heard of anti-static wristbands that you wear and clamp to a ground point.
I've typically used them at work. A desk mat to set the project on, in addition to the anti-static wrist bands.
I am an electronics engineer, so I work a lot with sensitive components. You basically only need them for a few static sensitive IC's, or when doing production where you handle many many PCBs that may or may not have sensitive components. Generally you only need a desk mat OR an ESD strap OR ESD shoes/heelstrap + an ESD floor (unless you are in a cleanroom) You discharge yourself every time you touch the mat at all.
Pretty much every modern MCU and almost all ICs have ESD diodes on the pins, so they are much more difficult to kill than 10-20 years ago.
Modern computers have so much protection in them that even with an ESD gun, it can be difficult to kill them. Electroboom and LTT did a decent video about it where they tried really hard to kill a PC with static and it took a lot of effort.
Am I correct to assume that you live/work in a typically cold/dry location? Because where I live, static is rarely a problem, except during the winter months.
No, quite tropical really. It's true static doesn't build up often, but when dealing with very expensive things - it makes sense to use high impedance dissipation anyway. Is it totally necessary? Probably not.
Quite understandable, you definitely don't want to bork up an expensive repair. I happen to live on the Gulf Coast of whatever the fuck the orange turd calls it, and our general rule of thumb is that we only bother busting out the anti-static wristbands when the doorknobs and stuff start shocking you.
I've only ever seen one device in my life fail from static electric discharge, and that was because my boss was an idiot and wanted to hover over my shoulder and then point at a chip and asked what it does 😂🤣
The spark doesn't have to be big enough to feel for it to cause damage. The damage doesn't always appear immediately either.
Electricity can be totally weird like that. Some chips are stupid sensitive, while others are crazy robust.
Here in South Mississippi, usually the humidity is so high that static electricity is almost non-existent, except during crazy cold weather, which isn't very common, but of course does happen occasionally.
I've actually fixed a lightning struck desktop PSU before, by just removing the full bridge rectifier, cleaning it and the main PSU board traces, and reinstalling the very same full bridge rectifier, lightning melted pins and all, and it just worked.
How? Why? I really don't know, but yeah, sometimes it takes more than a full bolt of lightning to kill something. Yet other components can be so sensitive as where if you just look at it from the wrong angle it fails.
🤷♂️
Lol