5 years ago

Dan C. Anderson was inventor of the original pink poly ESD bag (Richmond Chemical Corporation RCAS 1200)
Dan explains and demonstrates in irreverent style what Electrostatic Discharge is and the history behind development of the pink poly ESD bag.
Previous to this invention Velostat was used as ESD material.
This video dates to the early 80's, and was originally on Betamax tape.

Forum: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/esd-explained-demonstrated-history-of-the-pink-polyethylene-esd-bag/

00:00 - Introduction
9:10 - Starts explaining static electricity
15:00 - like-like repel, opposites attract, AM radio = cheap ESD detector cigarette lighter = cheap de-ioniser, sello tape charge buildup = 5 - 8 kV
20:00 - Conductive skin - salty sweat
25:00 - No conductor = no discharge = no damage. ESD is a spark = conduction. Very short in order of 10's of nanoseconds
30:00 - Induced charge. NASA story of solid fuel rockets blowing up.
35:00 - Conductive water layer - importance of humidity
40:00 - Discovery of antistatic "pink poly" RCAS-1200 in 1964. Tell story of lazy lab assistant!
45:00 -ESD damage to electronic components (active and passive)
50:00 - Latent defects caused by ESD sparks. Story of damage to high precision 0.1% tolerance metal film resistors (circa 1968)
55:00 - 6% drift in resistors after put in clear polyethelene bag. Upto 10kV across resistor ends.
1:00:00 - Any electronic components / cards in pink poly bags are "un-zappable" Wrist straps, resistor to ground, grounding - maintaining equipotential. No zap - no crap.
1:10:00 - Your finger is a "single-shot" discharge.
1:15:00 - Make you wrap electronics cards/assemblies in pink bubble wrap, NOT clear bubble wrap. Questions from audience