Anti static bag alternative for transporting a motherboard

[EarthDog]

25 posts on how to handle a motherboard...


only at TPU...

 

[Shambles1980]

i think he means have 1 end of the wire touching your skin (possibly tucked in to your boxer shorts. then a little way down from there tie it to your belt loop and then have the trailing end touching the floor..
Undoubtedly this is just meant as a "funny comment" really don't think the reply's are needed lol

 

[John Naylor]

Static charge is caused when 2 surfaces (one + and one -) rub together. The greater the charge either way, the more static charge builds up.

Therefore allowing either one of them into the mix is best avoided.

The bad (+) surfaces from greatest to least concern include:

Air, Human Hands, Skin, Asbestos, Rabbit Fur, Glass, Human Hair, Mica, Nylon, Wool, Lead, Cat Fur, Silk, Aluminum, Paper

So best to avoid any of those. Paper and cardboard are at the bottom of the list but still ***on the list***.

The bad (-) surfaces from least to greatest concern include:

Steel, Wood, Lucite, Sealing Wax, Amber, Rubber Balloon, Hard Rubber, Mylar, Nickel, Copper. Silver, uv Resist surfaces, Brass, Synthetic Rubber, Gold, Platinum, SulfurAcetate, Rayon. Polyester, Celluloid, Polystyrene, Orlon, Acrylic. Cellophane Tape, Polyvinylidene chloride (Saran), Polyurethane, Polyethylene, Polypropylene, Polyvinylchloride (Vinyl). Kel-F (PCTFE), Silicon, Teflon, Silicone Rubber.

Plastic bags are mostly based upon Polyethylene ... so two surfaces you definitely wouldn't want to have involved and near each other would be paper bag / cardboard and a plastic bag. For more info see the link provided in previous post.

 

[qubit]

I got away with transporting a mobo in a supermarket plastic bag and that mobo worked for years afterwards. Hardly a definitive endorsement, but it proves that it’s possible to get away with it.

A regular cardboard box should be good enough here.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Undoubtedly this is just meant as a "funny comment" really don't think the reply's are needed lol

Since he reiterated it in a second post by stating this is what they did when stuffing plastic into metal bins, it was not meant as a funny comment. And for sure, with the potentials likely to be reached during that task, I am sure any path offering even a little less resistance would dissipate a substantial amount of the charge - but so would some different shoes. So I have no doubts his trick helped with that scenario. But again, that is totally different from ESD sensitive high-density digital electronics.

It will be pretty difficult to avoid aluminum when circuit boards and electrical components often contain a lot of it. I also note it is not just about the polarity of the charge, but the difference in potentials. That is, you can have a static discharge (or flow of current) between two positively charged objects (or two negatively charged objects) if the difference in the charge is great enough in relation to the gap. That is, +10,000V will jump to +100V (if the gap is small enough) because +100V is much closer to ground (less positive) potentials.

What you don't want is a conductor between the source of the static and the circuit board. That's why aluminum would be bad as it is one of the best electrical conductors in all of physics. Plain brown paper from a grocery store would be good because it is about as close to plain wood (an excellent insulator) as you can get and still be able to wrap it around the board. Plus, such paper is easy to find, in the absence of an anti-static bag.

I got away with transporting a mobo in a supermarket plastic bag and that mobo worked for years afterwards. Hardly a definitive endorsement, but it proves that it’s possible to get away with it.

It especially does not prove anything if you were in the UK at the time too - not exactly known for low humidity/high static environments. When I lived in East Anglia (RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath), we never worried about ESD - except in the environmentally controlled mainframe computer rooms.

 

[John Naylor]

I got away with transporting a mobo in a supermarket plastic bag and that mobo worked for years afterwards. Hardly a definitive endorsement, but it proves that it’s possible to get away with it.

A regular cardboard box should be good enough here.

It's kinda like using a conductive or capacitive TIM.... it's possible, even likely / very probable to get away with it. But the risk remains however small it may be. A short car ride home is a very different thing than shipping and handling by FedEx ground gorillas.

You can always pick up some anti static spray at the HW store if you want to eliminate the risk

Maybe they should add it here ... when you get home it will smell better

https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/20-household-uses-for-used-yes-46912