how to ground myself please?

Norman_Castle

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

In my experience a suprising amount of people cannot wire a plug without help. If anyone gets this wrong they will have connected themselves directly to mains electricity.

googler

Norman_Castle wrote: »

In my experience a surprising amount of people cannot wire a plug without help. If anyone gets this wrong they will have connected themselves directly to mains electricity.

Anyone who has trouble wiring a mains plug shouldn't try to do this, then.....

If you knew you had difficulty with some other task, and I posted instruction on how to do it, would that prompt you to follow my instruction on that task, even though you know you will have difficulty with it?

prowla

You can buy grounding plugs at Maplin and other places.

bluesnake

googler wrote: »

Anyone who has trouble wiring a mains plug shouldn't try to do this, then.....

It is not all about you and the plug, but about the wiring of the socket and the wiring in the building of which you probably have very little control.

You need to put a 1 meg or 10 meg ohm resistor in series with the earth pin and the grounding cable to which you attach yourself, just in case the earth is wiring is faulty and you become the circuit's new conductive path to earth.

Photocopy engineers among others have these resistors built into the plug.

Grounding is not strictly about grounding, it is about being at the same potential difference as the board, so not to conduct any current or voltage difference. Many old TVs were 'grounded' at 220v but isolated from the mains and aerial ground via capacitors and transformers. The component voltage measurements were always taken from this 220v ground. The old TV only ever had twin core mains cables, no earth. You soon knew this if you crossed the bridge by touching an earthed point and a chassis either by hand or earthed soldering iron

Just seen Prowla's plug above and you do also get them without the resistor. Personally I would not use one without a resistor. I actually put a bung in the kitchen sink and ground myself to the cold water tap via a crockodile clip.

if the cable on the wrist gets in the way, then out the strap on tour foot/toe and then your hands are free

Lifeforms

I never used to do the whole grounding strap with my old desktop. Just leave it plugged in (But switched off at the back) press the power to discharge anything, then simply have a bare part of my body touching the case. Like if I was using both hands to remove a component, I'd use my elbow to touch the case.
Different matter building them. Then I would borrow one to do the whole build.

Always used a vacuum, but would put a sock on the end with a band over it (to keep it from getting sucked in!) thus reducing the actual power of the suction. That was also a good way to find lost screws in the case as the sock acted as a catcher.
You can get compressed air to do it, but it seemed to be dear, and a struggle to pick it up on those days where you're thinking I really need to do the case today.

On the hard to remove parts like case fans, and big old chunky CPU fans I'd brush it with a paint brush, or stick it in to stop the fans moving


by and by, never really understood how people can not wire a plug. Blue is left, brown is right, and if there is a third wire, straight through the middle. If you're not sure about left from right, then surely you've failed to learn growing up? (mind you, I still nod my head in the direction, left nod to say left, right nod to say right, quirk I learnt as a kid and never lost it!)

sk240

Don't use a vacuum cleaner to clean out the case, the amount of static that is created with the air flowing over a plastic tube is huge.Use compressed air as it does a much better job, leave it plugged in so that is at ground and ground yourself by holding onto a metal piece of the case.

dipsomaniac

what damage is caused if you don't ground yourself?

bod1467

Ever walked past a metal filing cabinet, your hand brushes it and you get a spark? That's what can happen - and if it does then you can cause major damage to components in the PC.

daffodil

Oh my goodness, such a lot of advice thankyou all sooo much,I'm sure I will be ok now ty:beer:

esuhl

dipsomaniac wrote: »

what damage is caused if you don't ground yourself?

Electrostatic discharge may occur, damaging electrical components:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrostatic_discharge