Does washing your hands remove statics electricity?

[muffinman]

heard that this works too as the water is grounded in a sense. any opinions as to the truth of this?

 

[Beau]

Yeah, but as soon as you start walking away, you'll start to build it up again. Just ground yourself out to the chassis our PS.

 

[Howard]

Just running water over your hands will do it. Rubbing will only create it.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

yeah but washing your hands will actually dry them out more eventually, making you more static prone. get some anti static dryer sheets and rub them on your shoes or the floor of the area you're at. it'll smell nice too!

 

[pm]

As other people have said, yes, it will because the water that comes out of the tap has enough contaminents (not dangerous ones, just ones that make it less than 100% pure water) to make it electrically conductive. Touching the water creates a highly resistive path to ground through the water pipes and discharges the static electrical buildup.

But just touching the tap/faucet or unpainted water pipes will do the same thing with a lot less trouble.

If you want to avoid static damage, the easiest way is to buy a ground wrist strap. If this seems like too much money for something that you will rarely use then I recommend the following:

1. unplug the power connections from the motherboard and keep the main power plugged in to the power supply and touch the case frequently
2. don't work on a carpet surface during a time when it tends to get below 40F at night (ie. avoid working on carpets when the humidity is low).
3. try not to touch contacts, components, or bare wire routing - ie grab it by the edges like it's a photograph

 

[SonicTron]

Hehe I work on my puter on a carpet all the time, even sitting on my bed. I unlocked my duron like this.........built a few computers like this........installed new stuff, etc etc. I've never had a problem with any components. Only one piece of hardware died on me ever, and I never messed around with that thing on my carpet. What a funny coincidence.

 

[HouRman]

So would it be stupid to rub your feet on the carpet and then touch the bios chip or some firmware chip on a hard drive? hehe

 

[pm]

Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) is a very real phenomena and that's why components are shipped in anti-static bags, there are warning labels on the bags, in the documentation and often on the packing materials. The sensitivity range for when people feel static discharge is about 3kV. This is well over the level that could destroy modern microelectronic devices such as memory, CPU's, ASICs, or ROMs. ESD doesn't necessarily destroy the device entirely... often it can cause manifest itself sporatically as system instability. I've seen it go both ways.

In my time designing semiconductor electronics I have seen a lot of things get fried. In one of the debug labs that I worked in, being seen not wearing a anti-static wrist strap was grounds for summary expulsion from the lab until you attended an ESD workshop (they'd deactivate your badge) and this policy was definitely enforced.

If the humidity is reasonably high, ESD shouldn't be much of a problem, but in dry areas (ie. where I live in Colorado), I would take at least basic precautions before handling devices. Most high tech manufacturing facilities keep the humidity fairly high inside to prevent ESD problems, but even then there are special mats to stand on while working, wrist-straps every few feet, special coatings on tables and chairs, and warning signs all over the place.

Patrick Mahoney
Microprocessor Design
Intel Corporation

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

<< Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) is a very real phenomena and that's why components are shipped in anti-static bags, there are warning labels on the bags, in the documentation and often on the packing materials. The sensitivity range for when people feel static discharge is about 3kV. This is well over the level that could destroy modern microelectronic devices such as memory, CPU's, ASICs, or ROMs. ESD doesn't necessarily destroy the device entirely... often it can cause manifest itself sporatically as system instability. I've seen it go both ways.

In my time designing semiconductor electronics I have seen a lot of things get fried. In one of the debug labs that I worked in, being seen not wearing a anti-static wrist strap was grounds for summary expulsion from the lab until you attended an ESD workshop (they'd deactivate your badge) and this policy was definitely enforced.

If the humidity is reasonably high, ESD shouldn't be much of a problem, but in dry areas (ie. where I live in Colorado), I would take at least basic precautions before handling devices. Most high tech manufacturing facilities keep the humidity fairly high inside to prevent ESD problems, but even then there are special mats to stand on while working, wrist-straps every few feet, special coatings on tables and chairs, and warning signs all over the place.

Patrick Mahoney
Microprocessor Design
Intel Corporation >>


thanks for all the info, i'm sure if anyone knows about ESD it'd be someone working in chip design. really, if you guys are worried about it and too cheap for a wrist strap, just get a piece of wire, any peice of wire, and wrap it around the screw on the faceplate of an outlet, and then tape the other end to your hand. indeed, you will look really, really, wierd, but in essence it would do the same as a strap.

that being said, i live on the edge i work w/ computers on the carpet, and i put computers in tupperware for petes sake :Q!! but my house is fairly humid. even here in iowa, during the winter, its really dry, yet the inside of my house isnt too staticky.

i guess you can call me dumb (ive been called worse ), it'll take a zapped piece of hardware to teach me

oh and you can go to the library and find any A+ cert book and it will have a section about ESD. you can actually zap a piece of hardware without even knowing it!

 

[odog]

<< But just touching the tap/faucet or unpainted water pipes will do the same thing with a lot less trouble. >>

thank you... i was hoping to break out the cold water ground on someone..... but i'm glad PM did

the best anti static setup i've seen was a metal table, with both an anti static mat on the table and on the floor. the intire metal table was grounded, to all the other tables(10 i think) with a huge copper braid. the copper braid was grounded at a GFI outlet...

 

[freebee]

I wonder if it would also work if you had one foot in a tub of water while assembling computers?

 

[odog]

yeah the water connects you to the pipes(not cold water and possibly plastic pipes) which might not do you any good. i'm not exactly sure what would happen... i'm sure the humidity from the water would lower discharge... anybody want to chime in on that one...