how to ground myself please?

Fifer

ringo_24601 wrote: »

I always use to hold a radiator to ground myself.. not sure if that works!

Depends upon whether it's painted or not. And whether your central heating uses copper or plastic piping.

Guardsman

I just sit mine on a table outside in the garden preferably on a windy day. I take both side covers off and lightly dust off components by using either a make up brush or a soft paint brush.

Guardsman

googler wrote: »

To truly ground yourself, take a standard 3-pin mains plug, a length of wire, and connect the wire to the earth pin - ONLY the earth pin, and plug it in. Hold the bared other end of the wire, or wrap it round a watchstrap while you work

That is not sensible advice.

DevCoder

Thats really not good advice at all.

Either touching an known earthed metal chassis (such as a radiator) or leaving the power lead in the pc case (switched off at the socket) and just touching the case would suffice.

DevCoder

The reason you should mostly do it via the touching of the case when plugged in is because any other earth path (radiator for example) could have a different earth potential unless they are equipotenially bonded (back to the MET for example), so earthing yourself with the chassis you are working on is the safest.

esuhl

Pitchshifter wrote: »

You don't need to ground yourself if you are outside...

Are you sure about that?! If I'm standing on my patio, which is paved with thick insulating ceramic tiles... surely adding a roof over my head won't make any difference to whether or not I'd be grounded...? Or would it?!

DevCoder

You still need to ground yourself if you are outside, unless you are barefooted and have metal stakes running through your feet into the ground.

The stakes would also have to about 6ft by 1/2" ideally (and should have 2 coupled together) to get the Ra to below 200 ohms.

Stooby2

If you're just opening the case to clean out the dust and not actually removing any components, then you'll ground yourself as you do it, pulling the panels off and I wouldn't worry. If you are concerned, just touch a bare metal part of the case.

If you really want to ground your self but haven't got a fancy grounding bracelet, just make one...thin piece of cable with a paper clip attached to bare wire each end. Fasten one end to your wrist with an elastic band (or onto your metal watch strap if you have one), the other end, use one of the case screws to attach the paper clip to the case using the hole the screw came out of. Leave the power lead in the computer with the power turned off.

debitcardmayhem

I don't need to ground myself, Mrs DCM just said if you go to the pub again tonight I will cut off...........
Needless to say I am grounded :beer:

prowla

Beware of leaving the machine plugged in, as some still power the motherboard even though it is powered off.

I always touch the case; it is not important that you are at Earth, but rather that you are at the same as the chassis.

You can get special earth cables that just have the Earth wire attached (or you can easily make one), and you can also get wrist bands with a crocodile clip on them to attach to the PC chassis.