Not sure everybody knows this, so I mention... (1) I've been in almost all parts of the US, and nowhere is humidity as low as the desert southwest. (2) It's typical for us in Colorado to have relative humidity 20-25%, and sometimes <10%... so static electricity is potentially greater here than elsewhere. The low/comfortable humidity in Colorado is part of why Denver's "tag line" at one time was "Climate Capital of the World". Not just for comfortably low humidity, but seasonally... we get to experience all four seasons, but none are extreme like in other parts of the country.
I used to have a "gentleman's farm" I had an electric fence to keep the critters out of the wife's veggies. I had a timer on the fence, so it would only go on at night. But we would have power outages regularly. Bottom line the clock on the timer maybe off by several hours. So one day I touched that wire, not realizing the fence was "on". 6,000 volts. Pulsing, so if you touched it with an open hand, you will not grab it. I thought my arm was going to fall off. I remember telling the story to the locals. Several hunters told the same story. Lots of hearty laughter. *** I don't get this thread, getting shocked by static out of an electronic device? How many volts is that?
Maybe I'm answering on the wrong track... but not talking about my getting shocked, but rather damage to computer from static discharge. Apparently static discharge can be in the "thousands of volts" (?)... low amps, of course.
I am certainly not trying to diminish the electronics work you are doing. It is important. I have found from experience that the weakest link in a home electronics system is likely any "access points" or "range extenders". Whenever I used an backup generator (Generac 17.5 Kw) I would have to disconnect the routers (Access Points). Otherwise, they would be non-functional the next day. Sonething about "dirty" something coming from the Generac.
When I was a kid, my shit/mean cousin (he was 12, I was 10) dared me to pee on an electrical fence which held the cows in a limited pasture. You can imagine how THAT turned out! (I can hardly understand why he was so mean... nor can I understand how I was so stupid... we used to wake up in the morning and see who could fill up the most pop bottles with pee... and we used to slosh around in the creek and grab frogs and put them on the girls and make them scream... kids!)
Not only via USB but basically via each and every pin of every connector. And the higher the communication speed on the connector, the more sensitive it is to ESD damage. Reason for this is that no low-pass filtering can be applied. Low-pass filtering is very effective in preventing ESD voltage spikes entering your electronic device (such as a computer). ESD diodes help to prevent ESD damage, but can only help to a certain extent. It is very well possible to overload an ESD diode and still cause damage to the electronics which the diode is supposed to protect.
How to Neutralize a Charge on an Object that Cannot be Grounded We have learned in a previous post that within an ESD Protected Area (EPA) all surfaces, objects, people and ESD Sensitive Devices (ESDs) are kept at the same electrical potential. We achieve this by using only ‘groundable’ materials. But what do you do if an item in your EPA is essential to assembly and it cannot be grounded? Don’t sweat, not all hope is lost! Let us explain a couple of options which will allow you to use the non-groundable item in question. https://scs-static-control-solutions.blog/2017/05/18/the-importance-of-an-esd-protected-area-epa/
~ 5 years ago,l I remember my wife saying something got into the sweet corn. So I went out there. It looked like a small car/ATV had been driving around and in the rows of sweet corn. But the corn that was laying on the ground had half ears bitten off and eaten, like eating apples. It was a black bear that climbed over the electric fence. Turns out the GFCI outlet had been tripped, and the fence was off, all night. Also turns out, black bears can hear in the range that high voltage runs. So the bear knew the electric fence was off. Dumb animals, yeah right. *** Also, for you city folks out there, bears don't feel paiin (not the way people do) I once had a nest of yellowjackets just behind the house. It was mid-August. The stinging insects would be gone soon. But then I saw a very strange sight. A large black bear walked right past the house. Less than 50 feet away. When the bear left, I ran back to where the yellowjacket nest was (in the ground). The nest was dug up, most of the stinging insects were eaten by the bear. Pieces of honeycomb were strewn over the back lawn. Yikes. Those bears are not for petting.
Where I live (Pacific Northwest), the humidity outdoors right now is 67%. This area of the country is great for skin. Clouds block the sun most of the time and it doesn't get too dry. Just need to supplement with Vitamin D due to lack of sunlight. If you want to use electronics then you want an "inverter generator". You don't need clean power to run a toaster or blender. But you do need relatively clean power for most electronics.
Is static really an issue? I used to use a strap religiously when handling PC parts but then got lazy. Now I handle everything with only my bare hands and never had a problem.