ESD Protection – Page 2 – Ground Zero Electrostatics Blog

04 May

Finding ESD Storage Solutions

There’s a classic scene that appears, with some variation, in every James Bond film. Bond gets assigned a new mission and he goes to see MI-6’s Quartermaster, or “Q.” Q gives Bond everything he needs to complete the mission, including a few items that seem unusual or out of place.

Of course, as Bond fans know, these elements will at some point be combined to facilitate a distraction so Bond can escape. And usually that distraction is a rather large explosion.

One wonders how he was transporting the items before so that they didn’t explode in his Armani suit.

Of course, in real life, when items combine, the result isn’t usually an explosion. Or is it?

As we’ve mentioned before, the amount of Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) required to cause significant damage to sensitive electronics is far below the threshold where a human being can feel it.

By the time our bodies create a static charge that we can feel, it’s somewhere between 3 & 17 times stronger than what most electronics can handle without suffering damage.

Even just the controlled blowing of air, like the old canned air computer dust removal techniques can cause static ESD build-up that can be transferred to your sensitive electronics. And that tiny electrostatic discharge can cause latent or catastrophic failure, costing you time and money.

We’ve discussed selecting the proper shielding bags in a previous post. Another important weapon in your Electrostatic Discharge defense arsenal is anti-static ESD storage containers.

ESD Storage Containers

ESD storage containers are typically made of a conductive material, such as polypropylene or high density polyethylene and provide an added layer of protection, shielding your work areas and personnel from the harmful effects of ESD.

The conductive material provides a barrier which these fields cannot penetrate and prevents the build-up of electrostatic charge. The bins, totes and miscellaneous storage containers come in both static dissipative and conductive. Both control a potential electrostatic discharge, one by resisting it, the other by neutralizing it.

Additionally, be on the lookout for non-ESD protected items that may stray into the Electrostatic Protected Area – transparent tape, plastic sandwich bags, water bottles, Styrofoam coffee cups, even just pieces of paper – can be the source of an uncontrolled electrostatic discharge.

Of course, all of these storage solutions should be used within the minimum guidelines of an Electrostatic Protection Area, that is, wrist straps, ESD mats and a common ground.

We would love to be your full service, seamless ESD solution provider; contact us today for more information.

27 Apr

Why Moisture is the #1 Enemy to Your ESD Flooring

It’s hard to walk down a sidewalk these days without seeing a crack in the pavement. Some of these have obvious reasons, like strong tree roots pushing them up, while others seem to appear out of nowhere.

When concrete is initially poured on a flat surface, to create a floor or sidewalk, it is left for a day or more, depending on the location, to cure. Curing is the process by which the concrete is protected from evaporation until it hardens.

The wetter and cooler concrete is while it’s curing, the stronger and less permeable it is.

I know what you’re thinking… Wait. Why does this matter to ESD flooring? The short answer is more than you know.

A Concrete Problem

Because of the unique nature of the concrete curing, moisture is captured within the concrete. Again, this helps the concrete stay stronger and last longer. But it has an unfortunate side effect.

You see, concrete cracks when the moisture inside it evaporates faster than it can draw replacement moisture from the ground under it.

You may have noticed that a bare concrete floor is unusually cooler than its surroundings. There’s even the old wives tale about walking on bare concrete causing arthritis flare-ups.

But concrete doesn’t just capture moisture during curing. After hardening, it also transmits the moisture and the temperature of the ground below it.

All of this leads to the number one reason electrostatic discharge (ESD) preventative flooring fails: moisture permeation.

Flooring Failure

When too much moisture moves through the concrete, it results in a high alkalinity in the concrete. The higher pH levels react to the bonding agent, causing the adhesive in many instances to fail. And if that failure isn’t discovered, could even lead to mold between the concrete and the flooring.

A properly constructed system built recently should include a vapor barrier – a plastic shield that lessens the moisture transference of the concrete flooring. But older buildings may not include this and preventative measures should be taken.

The best and most economical solution is to install resilient flooring to the concrete base before laying down the adhesive backed ESD flooring. Resilient flooring is an organic floor surfacing material in sheet or tile form: rubber, vinyl, cork, or linoleum are all viable options.

You can also apply a resin-based moisture barrier coating before laying down your ESD flooring tiles.

A more efficient method is to simply pour a static conductive water-based epoxy floor covering. This eliminates the need for an additional layer of ESD flooring as the epoxy itself provides the protection.

What you can’t do is nothing. Moisture-related floor covering failures are responsible for over $1 billion annually in damages.

Contact us today for more information; we would love to be your full service, seamless ESD solution provider.

20 Apr

How Do You Care for Your ESD Floor?

So you’ve finally got your brand spanking new Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) preventative flooring installed. It looks great, it works great. But how do you keep it that way?

You’re smart enough to know that just like this is a specialized floor, it requires specialized care. Not just any cleaning products will work. You certainly don’t want to void the warranty, or even worse, compromise the ESD properties of the floor. That could drastically escalate costs – replacement of the damaged electronics, replacing the floor itself – having to apologize to your clients and replace the electronics they trusted you to provide.

You can’t find anything in the installation instructions. You hear the boss’ voice around the corner, you know he’s going to ask these questions. You don’t have the answers. You look down and you’re not wearing any pants!

Well, we can’t do anything about your pants, but we do have some answers to avoid that other nightmarish scenario.

For starters, take a break – for the first 5 days following a new installation, don’t wash or machine scrub the floor. This allows the adhesive to properly bond with the concrete base, as well as to prevent excess moisture – the #1 enemy of ESD flooring – to interfere with the adhesive.

The First Steps

Once the first week has passed, do an initial maintenance cleanup. Sweep or dust mop the surface to clear it of all sand, grit, debris, or dirt. Then mix a neutral pH detergent with a small bit of water in a mop bucket.

Dip the mop in the solution and fully wring it out. It is important to ONLY use a damp mop. Do not flood the floor with cleaning solution. Use as little liquid as possible to clean the surface.

If needed, scrub the floor using a rotary scrubber with scrubbing pad or automatic scrubber with scrubbing pads. Again, using as little water as possible!

Use the wrung out mop or a wet vac to wipe up any excess cleaning solution. Carefully rinse the surface with cool, clear water, but not too much, and again vacuum or damp mop up the water and let it dry.

Never use standard floor wax or standard floor finish! Doing so will destroy the floor’s ability to prevent ESD. A high gloss appearance can be achieved with a high speed buffing machine with an untreated polishing pad.

Daily Care & Cleaning – Two Options

For your day to day cleaning and upkeep, there are two standard approaches for ESD flooring. Both are viable, but for obvious reasons, we prefer the first method.

Safety First!

Always be aware that a wet floor is more slippery, and therefore more dangerous to personnel. Try to coordinate cleaning of the floor to the end of the workday when fewer people are around, put up appropriate signs, and always exercise caution to prevent workplace injuries.

The first step in either case is to sweep or dust/dry mop the surface.

Dry Maintenance Method (Option 1)

By limiting the amount of liquid your floor is exposed to, you stand they best chance of avoiding the #1 enemy of ESD flooring – moisture. The Dry Maintenance Method is a simple, single step process.

Spray clean or burnish floor using a 1200 – 1500 rpm rotary buffing machine with appropriate pads (usually white) and a spray buff solution containing water, alcohol and a pH neutral detergent.

If heavy cleaning is necessary use a more concentrated pH neutral detergent and a brown pad.

Wet Maintenance Method (Option 2)

Similar to our initial cleanup procedures following installation, the wet maintenance method uses a damp mop and a cleaning solution that includes a neutral pH detergent.

If the floor is exposed to grease or oil, a pH neutral, citrus-based degreasing detergent may be used.

Scrub with rotary scrubber with scrubbing pad or automatic scrubber with scrubbing pads. Again, do not flood the floor with solution, water or any liquid.

Wipe up the solution with a damp mop or wet vac.

Carefully rinse with clean cool water, wipe it up, then let the floor dry (generally overnight).

Two final notes:

Several times we’ve mentioned using a pH neutral detergent. While there are many options, we highly recommend the industry standard – ZeroStat products. They can be purchased through our site or any reputable supplier of ESD preventative products.

Earlier, we recommended not using a standard floor wax. While there are professional ESD waxes available from ZeroStat that maintain the ESD preventative properties of your flooring, even those waxes generally cut five to ten tears off the life of your ESD floor and should be used with caution.

We would love to be your full service, seamless ESD solution provider. Contact us today for more information.

12 Apr

What Are ESD Mats & How Do They Work?

Static Electricity and ESD Matting

Have you ever been working in your garage and accidentally made contact with a metal part of an ungrounded electrical appliance, like a box fan or a badly wired junction box? The jolt you receive wakes you up faster than a cup of coffee or one of those 5-hour energy drinks. Now imagine what that could do to sensitive electronics—devices and circuit boards with a much lower resistance than your skin.

Considering just the physical activity of moving your arms and legs can build up relatively large electrostatic discharges (ESD) that we may never notice, there’s very little activity that isn’t dangerous to electronic components – even their assembly. But there are steps you can take and tools that have been developed to protect your sensitive electronics. One simple, popular tool is an antistatic or ESD mat.

How Does an ESD Mat Work?

Antistatic or ESD Mats have a high electrical resistance, which allows the electrostatic discharge to “flow” across the surface of the mat at a slow rate – enough to get the ESD away from your electronics, while at the same time neutralizing what little charge inevitably does build up.

The simplest form of an ESD mat is simply that – a tabletop mat, about the size of a placemat, that you use on a desk, table or any flat surface. They typically connect with a personal grounding wrist strap – adding additional protection by drawing any ESD charge away from the person working on the device.

ESD mats also use a common ground to draw the electrostatic discharge away from offending areas. Without that ground, the mat could, in theory, protect the item being worked on at first, but would then transfer the ESD to the very next thing it comes into contact with – the next item, the person holding it (and then to the item), or even right back onto the item it was originally meant to protect.

For larger workspaces, or dedicated ESD workstations, you can invest in rolls of ESD matting or custom-sized mats. You can even get ESD matting with built-in static control monitors and self-adhesive backing. Just make sure, regardless of the size or quantity used, that all of the mats are grounded.

You can also increase protection as well as worker safety by investing in ESD flooring mats, which not only act as further neutralization of potential electrostatic discharge but also can provide cushioning, easing the fatigue of the person standing while working on the electronic devices. The hazard of slippery floors is also alleviated by an ESD flooring mat.

Bear in mind that not all ESD matting is tested to the same level. We recommend checking to make sure the mats you are buying are properly assessed to ensure you are getting the protection you need, and ideally, include ISO certification for your company’s protection.

We would love to be your full service, seamless ESD solution provider. Contact us today for more information.

05 Apr

The Truth About 11 Myths of Electrostatic Discharge: Part 2

Last week we shared with you Part 1 of The Truth About 11 Myths of Electrostatic Discharge; here’s Part 2…

Myth #6 – An ESD bag is all the protection I need.

There is a somewhat popular belief that you can use the ESD shielding bag that your circuit board or sensitive electronics was shipped in as adequate “matting” when you are working. This could not be more false.

Regardless of which ESD shielding bag you receive or purchase, it ONLY provides ESD protection while the item in entirely enclosed inside a sealed bag. Outside of the bag, it can actually increase the chances that you will generate an ESD event, because the bag is designed to “push” a charge away from the contents of the bag – right into your electronics.

Myth #7 – Grounded metal offers a safe haven from ESD.

In fact, conductive materials – like metals – are not safe surfaces for sensitive electronic components that could be subject to an electrostatic charge, even if they are grounded. In fact, the charge dissipation is so fast, the resistance to ground has almost zero impact.

The point of grounding is to get everything at the same potential energy level so that current from an ESD can’t flow where it shouldn’t. Using metal, even grounded metal, voids this effort.

The next three myths are similar in nature…

Myth #8 – Circuit boards without complementary metal oxide semi-conductor (CMOS) are safe.

On its face, this seems obvious, as it is hard to find a circuit board without some CMOS components. However, ALL circuit boards are susceptible to electrostatic discharges and the damage they can cause.

Myth #9 – A printed wiring board (PWB) permanently protects a circuit board.

Just because a component is inserted into a PWB, that does not protect it from potential ESD damage. It does decrease the likelihood that fatal loss will occur, as the voltage the entire board can sustain is increased.

But this is by no means a guarantee of safety. All proper precautions must be taken when handling sensitive electronics.

Myth #10 – Once products are mounted on circuit boards, ESD mishaps cannot occur.

This is similar to the above myth. But unlike PWB boards, unprinted boards can actually leave sensitive components even more vulnerable because there is less resistance to slow the electrostatic discharge down.

Myth #11 – Small companies cannot afford proper ESD protection.

On the contrary, small companies cannot afford not to have suitable ESD protocols and tools. The risk of damage and the costs associated with it are just too excessive not to invest in the proper implementation of an ESD protected workstation – even a portable one, if need be.

We recommend at a minimum, personal grounding wrist straps, dissipative ESD matting and grounding cables.

We would love to be your full service, seamless ESD solution provider, no matter what your size or budget. Contact us today for more information.

29 Mar

The Truth About 11 Myths of Electrostatic Discharge

Would it surprise you to know that a good portion of our modern world would be unable to function without the help of electrostatic discharges (ESD’s)?

No one seems to know quite how it happened, but in 1984, Scott M. Kunen applied for a patent for a “touch controlled switch” – a device he had developed to allow lamps to be turned on or off with the touch of a human hand.

Little did he know that less than a decade later, computer companies would begin adapting his technology, covering it with a variety of static controlling sheaths, creating the capacitive-touch screen, the basis for all modern smart phones, tablets and touch screen laptops.

So, here’s the truth about the myths of electrostatic discharge.

Myths About Electrostatic Discharge

Myth #1 – All ESD is bad.

The truth is, most people use ESD everyday to make phone calls, send text messages, and create emails. The touch controlled switch and the capacitive-touch screen both operate by transmitting small ESD charges from your body into the devices to signal turning a light on, or the letters or numbers desired.

Myth #2 – Electrostatic Discharge is a modern day problem.

Believe it or not, ESD and necessary precautions to prevent it are older than the United States. In the 1400’s, forts and places that stored or produced explosives, gun powder, and even sawdust could fall prey to horrible accidents, so early forms of ESD control were developed and implemented.

Except, of course, when the good guys needed to blow up the bad guys’ stash in a Hollywood movie.

Myth #3 – ESD problems are really quite rare.

In truth, because of the extremely low levels of ESD required to damage small electronics and the fact that damage isn’t always visible or catastrophic, we may never know just how prevalent ESD events are.

Visible static sparks generated by our bodies have to build up between 500-1000 volts, and it takes twice that charge to be felt. Most sensitive electronics can be damaged by 100 volts or less.

And even if the device continues to function as expected, its life expectancy may be severely diminished and in some cases, latent failure can occur, causing even more damage.

Since we cannot fully prevent or even detect an ESD event, all precautions should be taken to avoid an accidental discharge.

Myth #4 – Discharging fingers and tools before using them is sufficient precaution against ESD mishaps.

Unless you are able to hold your body AND tool perfectly still, you can (and often do) build up a replacement charge that can be discharged into your electronics.

As mentioned above, because of the negligible amount of charge necessary to potentially damage the sensitive parts, you have no way of knowing you are not transmitting a dangerous ESD. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

We recommend that you always use personal wrist straps, dissipative mats and grounding cords for the best chance of circumventing ESD problems.

Myth #5 – You have to touch an item to transmit an ESD to it.

As mentioned above, it takes very little for the human body to build up an electrostatic discharge. Just the movement of lifting your foot off the ground can generate up to 1,500 volts.

And that generated charge can easily leap from your hand to your unprotected device inches away.

Stay tuned next week for Part 2 of The Truth About 11 Myths of Electrostatic Discharge…

We would love to be your full service, seamless ESD solution provider, no matter what your size or budget. Contact us today for more information.

03 Mar

Selecting the Proper Shielding Bags

In Michio Kaku’s book, Physics of the Future, he notes that today’s smart phones have more computing power than NASA had in the 60’s when they were plotting and launching the moon landings.

The latest SONY Playstation can outperform the supercomputers the US Government used in 1997 – 14 years after the movie WarGames.

In 1965, Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel, observed what became known as “Moore’s law.” He postulated that computers would progressively become more dense while at the same time increasing their processing speed.

This can be both good and bad news for computers. The bad news being that every time a component gets 10% smaller, it gets 10x more sensitive to electrical shocks, even those coming from simple static electricity. Static in your workplace can be dangerous and expensive if you’re not properly prepared.

One important weapon in your arsenal for defense against Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) is shielding bags. Which bag is best? They all have their pros and cons to consider.

Pink Poly Bags

The earliest defense against ESD was created in the 1960’s. Dissipative Poly Bags, usually referred to as Pink Poly bags because of their unique color – introduced as an easy way to differentiate their static control abilities from standard plastic bags – are coated with a chemical that resists static.

Unfortunately, Pink Poly bags have no shielding capability. An ESD of any significance will travel through the bag and potentially damage components inside. They are best utilized today to package support or processing materials that do not themselves need shielding.

The antistatic properties of the bags help to protect sensitive components near the bags. This makes them a helpful solution as opposed to normal plastic bags, but you should always have a grounding system in place – mats and personal wrist straps at a minimum.

Black Conductive Poly Bags

Black Poly Bags are obviously a step up from their Pink predecessors. But in this case, their advantages are also their biggest flaw. Like the Pink Poly’s, the Black bags are antistatic, with the added benefit of some conductivity, designed to help protect its contents from ESD’s.

The problem lies in how quickly the bags dissipate the electrical charge. The rapid discharge of the ESD can actually generate a spark between the person or object creating the charge, and because the bags lack an additional insulation layer inside the bag, that charge can easily penetrate it.

Plus, there’s the added complication of the bag’s color. The conductive carbon leaves the bag opaque, requiring the contents to be removed to be seen, leaving the potential for damage.

The biggest benefit of the Black Poly’s was some shielding at a lower price point. But in recent years, shielding bags have become much more affordable, and reputable vendors have effectively eliminated them from their inventory.

Shielding Bags

Shielding bags combine the antistatic and dissipative qualities of the poly bags with metal shielding and a polyester insulator (or dielectric) layer. Where Pink Poly’s stop about 10% and Black Poly’s 30%, Shielding Bags stop 97% of electrostatic pulses.

Shielding bags are classified in two ways:

Buried Metal (Metal-In)

Buried Metal bags consist of a dissipative poly layer, glued or laminated on top of a metallized polyester – usually aluminum, but sometimes nickel or copper – laid over an additional dielectric polyester layer.

The metal between two layers of plastic offers better protection than the alternative.

Surface Metal (Metal Out)

In Surface Metal bags, the layers are ordered differently, with the poly and the dielectric polyester glued together, then coated with a nickel sprayed with an abrasion resistance coating.

Unfortunately, the outside metal coating causes a faster dissipation of electrical charges, resulting in sparking issues similar to that of the Black Poly Bags, although not as dangerous.

Moisture Barrier Bags

For long term storage or moisture sensitive items, Moisture Barrier bags provide the ultimate protection. These bags are similar to, but stronger than normal shielding bags and provide an additional protection with a moisture vapor barrier.

There are two types of Moisture Barrier bags: Foil and Tyvek (utilizing the DuPont material) or Heavy Metallization. Both provide similar levels of protection, the difference primarily being the higher cost of the Tyvek structured bags.

Static protective bags should always be implemented as part of a more comprehensive static control environment, which should always include proper grounding tools. And while expenditures are always a factor, consider the insignificant price of proper protective measures when compared to the cost of replacing the delicate components inside the package.

Contact us today for more information; we would love to be your full service, seamless ESD solution provider.

25 Feb

What is Ionization & Can it be Prevented?

In the late 1930’s, Walter Jaeger, a physicist from Switzerland was trying to develop a portable sensor for poison gas. He theorized that gas entering the sensor would bind to ionized air molecules and thereby alter an electric current in a circuit in the instrument. Unfortunately it didn’t work – until he lit up a cigarette.

The smoke particles from Jaeger’s cigarette “sparked” a change in current of the ionized particles and the process would be later adapted to the early version of smoke detectors used in most homes in the 1970’s.

What is Ionization?

Ionization is the process by which an atom or a molecule acquires a negative or positive charge by gaining or losing electrons. Ionization can happen as atoms or molecules pass through gases, liquids and sometimes solids.

For the purposes of our discussion, we’re primarily going to be talking about ionization through gas – a specific gas – our atmosphere.

As mentioned, ionization can be positive or negative. Because of the large quantities of air that we encounter in an average building, generally negatively and positively charged ions balance each other out. This is not always the case, however.

Sometimes ions on either side of the spectrum can build up, especially in an environment filled with recycled air. In fact, in some cases, there is a secondary ionization, where the electrons resulting from the passage of charged particles leads to further ionization.

In a previous article, we talked about the various elements of creating an Electrostatic Protected Area or EPA. There are some instances where the addition of an ionizer or an ionizer blower would supplement the protection afforded by a standard EPA.

Ionizer Blowers

Ionizer blowers create a dense and well-balanced ionization current that can help neutralize the air in an EPA workspace. A typical blower uses AC technology to continuously produce a balanced output of positive and negative air ions.

In addition, ionizer blowers come with many options – including task lights, AC and variable speed fans – that will complement the workspace at the same time the ionizer is easily integrated into the EPA workspace.

For smaller, precise jobs, you can even invest in a handheld ionizing air gun.

But, while ionization is good ESD practice in controlling necessary non-grounded static charge generators, they should never be considered replacements for the essential ESD protections – personal ESD wrist straps, ESD control mats and grounding cords.

Contact us today for more information; we would love to be your full service, seamless ESD solution provider.

25 Feb

Building an Electrostatic Protected Area (EPA)

Almost everyone’s familiar with the image of a white “cleanroom” or “bunny suit.” They show up in just about every depiction of people working in computer facilities in popular entertainment, and it’s a highly sought after specialty ‘armor’ in the video game Fallout 4.

What most people may not know is that the suits are designed not to protect the person inside, but the delicate circuitry they’re working on. But not everyone who works with small, sensitive electronics needs to spend money for a full-on, disposable suit.

If you work with a lot of small electronics, a more affordable solution is to put together an electrostatic protected area (or EPA). This doesn’t have to take up a lot of space and can actually be quite portable. It just needs to be done properly.

Let’s start with the basics and work our way up to the safest and most expensive options.

Simple EPA

At a bare minimum, all personnel working within an EPA should have a personal grounding wrist strap. These make sure any excess energy is grounded – forced away – from the electronic devices and circuit boards being handled.

Connected to that grounding strap is a dissipative mat. Dissipative means quite simply to disperse or disappear. A properly designed and implemented dissipative mat does for the surface what the grounding wrist strap does for the person – protects sensitive electronics from electrical discharges.

Mats can be purchased pre-cut or in rolls, depending on what your needs are.

Attached to both of these is a common point cord, also referred to as a grounding cord. These cords are fully insulated and take any electrostatic charges away from the person and the ESD mat to be grounded safely.

Often these simple options are packaged together as a field service or workstation kit that can be purchased as one unit to avoid forgetting any key elements.

Now that we’ve established the minimum requirements for an EPA, let’s look at additional options that can be easily implemented within your system to further insure the safety of the components and reduce the risk and excess cost of replacement.

From the Ground Up

For more permanent EPA installations, there are a variety of flooring options that can be integrated. Everything from conductive and dissipative vinyl tiles to anti-static carpeting that can be utilized in the work area or just in the area surrounding your EPA system. You can even add flooring with a high-end moisture barrier as well as anti-static protection.

Sole Protection

One of the most obvious ways we build up a potentially dangerous electrostatic discharge is just by walking. Static charges build up naturally. While a personal grounding wrist strap will help dissipate the charge, there are additional options for your feet.

Shoe covers with conductive strips are a quick, low cost addition to an existing EPA system and great for alleviating the risk of allowing visitors into the EPA area.

For employees whose duties mean they spend substantial time in the EPA area, you can add foot and heel grounders, toe grounders and sole grounders.

For even more protection, grounders can be upgraded to ESD shoes. These come in a variety of styles for your business setting – even weatherproof boots and hiking models.

Additional Considerations

Adding isolation protocols and ESD protective containers can also complement your EPA system and reduce the chance of any accidental charges building up or discharging into your electronic components.

Of course grounding should be a consideration with any additions to your EPA system. Whether it’s flooring or matting, grounding cords with a built in resistor add that much more protection to your area. And the more working parts you have, the more grounding capability you require.

There are simple options to increase the grounding ability of any size EPA system, as well as monitors that can be added to the system – at the personal or system-wide level.

And if you really feel the need to cover yourself top to bottom, there are more workable clothing options as well.

Contact us today for more information; we would love to be your full service, seamless ESD solution provider.

19 Feb

Faraday Cages? The Surprising Facts

Faraday Cages

After 10 years, the science fiction show The X-Files recently returned to television. In the very first new episode, there is a scene where scientists are studying apparent alien technology, all the while protected from potential harm because the technology is housed in a Faraday cage.

For most people, Faraday cages seem like the stuff of science fiction – boxes built to protect folks with overactive imaginations who fear the world will end with a sudden electromagnetic pulse or EMP. But what if I told you that most people benefit from at least one Faraday cage almost every day?

The first Faraday cage was built back in the 1830’s, by Michael Faraday, hence the name. Faraday was an experimental physicist who worked primarily studying electromagnetism and electrochemistry.

Rumor has it that Albert Einstein had a photo of Faraday that he kept on the wall of his study, right next to his picture of Isaac Newton.

One day Faraday noted that during one of his experiments, excess energy from a charged conductor only rested on the exterior of a container, for some reason not penetrating through the container to ground as electricity typically does.

He set about constructing a box to prove his theory that the inside was somehow shielded from the electrical charge.

He built a room, entirely lined with metal foil and subjected it to high powered electrostatic discharges, simulating lightning. But the interior of the room showed no gain in electricity.

The shielding had forced the negative charges to the outside and the positive charges to the inside, essentially canceling out the electrical current before it could affect anything within the room.

Later, he added a grounding rod and verified that the charge canceled itself out as it traveled around and into the ground.

Today, the principles that Faraday discovered almost 200 years ago are used all across the world to protect people from stray electromagnetic charges. Ever wonder why your cell phone drops calls when you’re in an elevator? It’s a semi-enclosed Faraday cage.

The MRI room in medical facilities, USB cables, coaxial cables (the ones you used to get cable TV from), even cars and airplanes use Faraday shielding to help protect their precious cargo.

And if you want to see one up close and personal, take a look at your microwave. The metal lines in the glass complete the Faraday cage that protects us from electrical discharge and the radiation used to cook your food.

On a smaller scale, metalized static shielding bags protect small electronic components and circuit boards from the much smaller personal EMP’s our bodies generate, which could cause serious damage to these components. Properly sealed ESD boxes and totes, as well as conductive bins use the same principles to protect larger or larger quantities of components.

Of course, while Faraday cages can be ungrounded and even nested to enhance protection, we always recommend taking the proper grounding procedures to protect yourself and your circuitry.

So remember, Faraday cages are not just for “Doomsday Preppers” and science fiction story tropes. They are at work every day to make our world a safer place.

Contact us today for more information; we would love to be your full service, seamless ESD solution provider.