PSA: I was plugging my ESD wrist strap into the wrong spot for 2 years

At my shop in Portland I always clipped my wrist strap to the metal leg of my workbench. Then last month a customer brought in a high end build that kept crashing randomly. A senior tech walked over, looked at my setup, and asked if that bench leg actually connects to earth ground. I tested it with a multimeter and sure enough, it was floating. The strap did nothing the whole time. Anyone else have a grounding setup they thought was right but turned out useless?

2 comments

2 Comments

evab5228d ago

Oh man, that's brutal. Happened to a buddy of mine who clipped his strap to the painted leg of his desk thinking it was grounded, paint acts like an insulator. Grab yourself a cheap outlet tester with a ground indicator light, that'll save you from this headache.

wendy_park7628d ago

The Portland shop I work at had a similar issue with a grounding mat that turned out to be totally fake. I clipped my strap to it for months before a coworker pointed out the mat was just silicone with no conductive layer. @evab52 is right about the outlet tester, I got one after that incident and it saved my next build from going haywire. The high end build your customer brought in reminds me of a gaming rig that kept locking up until we realized the grounding was the culprit. It's wild how much trouble a fake ground can cause without you even knowing.