What's new
Carbonite

South Africa's Top Online Tech Classifieds!
Register a free account today to become a member! (No Under 18's)
Home of C.U.D.

DIY ESD Grounding Box

pseudomeaningful

Senior Member
Rating - 100%
52   0   0
Joined
Aug 28, 2019
Messages
335
Reaction score
89
Points
2,835
Thought many of us have built computers on beds and all manner of environments, completely ungrounded and succeeded and I too have yet to confirm breaking something via an ESD, though my Dell Microserver suspiciously does not work any longer after I took the heatsink off and modified it... I always use Anti-static Bubble Wrap or foam on sensitive components. As friends and family ask me to upgrade or fix their computers more often than I would like, and I didn't like what I could easily buy, it seemed like a cool project that would be useful in the long run. Like vaccines, if it prevents something catastrophic from occurring - with almost no downsides besides some inconvenience - why not ground yourself correctly when you handling your R10K graphics card? After gathering the parts months ago, I've finally had the time to complete the project.

It consists of 3 main parts:

The Distribution Box: The box consists of three female banana plug sockets (Black, Red and Green). The input/strap(s) socket into the red and black inputs. These are (VERY poorly) soldered to a single layer PCB that is hot glued to the box. The green female banana socket output is connected to the PCB via a 1M OHM resistor soldered to the PCB.


2. The connection to ground: The green socket is used to connect the DB via a banana plug to standard electrical cable, of which I had bridged the two auxiliary wires on either end and then insulated them, to provide a single wire for current to pass through. (YES, I am aware the green wire is not the ground in South Africa, but it does make it easy to remember)


Now for the interesting bit. Grounding to a wall outlet is all well and good except you have no idea if it has been wired correctly and is actually grounded. Enter, the star of the surge protector plug world, The ELLIES Surge Secure Plug. It has 3 Red LED's (sorry boys no RGB here) placed above each pin and the green wire is connected to the ground pin. Once plugged in, it is possible to deduce using the LEDs and guide on the side, the state of the wiring and most importantly to determine if the plug point is, infact, grounded.


Once a ground is confirmed you can proceed to socket all your connections starting with the ground, and attach your ESD band, (which even the cheap chinese ones have their own 1M Ohm resistor in them) to your prefered body part and the other cable to a bare metal part of the item you are working on using the crocodile clip to provide a ground for it as well. Then you can let your OCD rest and work on your electronics with piece of mind.



Disclaimer: I am by no means an engineer, but I do know how to use a multimeter. I have tested the iFixit ESD band and it has a 1M Ohm resistor, as does the cheap chinese one I got on ebay. I have also tested the resistance across the Box and it measures 1M ohm. combined the resistance from the ESD strap to the ground output is +-2M Ohm. This was the resistance I was aiming for.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom