Antistatic & ESD

ESD antistatic protection stops an invisible discharge from taking out a chip that has become rare: an adjustable wrist strap with a 1.8 m earthing lead, antistatic silicone mats, stainless steel precision tweezers and a double-headed brush to dust a PCB. Modest equipment that changes how reliable a repair is.

5 items5 available right now
Outils d'atelier 57 Fers à souder & stations 9 Consommables de soudure 8 Kits de démontage 18 Poste de travail 7 Antistatique & ESD 5 Pièces détachées 86 Kits de modding 84 Réparation & restauration 104

Protecting yourself from static electricity before opening a console

Earthing is the one element that is not negotiable

An electrostatic discharge happens long before you feel it: the human threshold of perception is around 3,000 volts, whereas a logic chip can suffer far below that. The risk rises in winter, when heated air drops below 40% humidity and a carpet or a synthetic jumper is enough to charge the body. The adjustable wrist strap and its 1.8 m lead put your hand and the board at the same potential throughout the job.

Antistatic and dissipative do not mean the same thing

  • Antistatic: the material takes little charge, like the silicone mats in this selection. It does not drain away charges that are already there.
  • Bonded dissipative: the charge flows to a ground through a connection, the role played here by the wrist strap and its lead.
  • ESD tooling: stainless steel tweezers with an extra-fine tip and a double-headed brush, designed not to generate charge through friction.

What it doesn't do

  • No ioniser and no wrist strap tester in the selection: there is no way to check the continuity of the lead with what is sold here.
  • The silicone mats do not connect to earth: they protect the surface, not the circuit.
  • ESD protection repairs nothing: it avoids adding a fault to the one you are working on.

Workstation · Workshop tools · Repair and restoration · Spare parts · Soldering and desoldering · Modding kits

Questions fréquentes

Is an ESD wrist strap really useful for changing a screen?
Yes, especially on screen kits that plug straight into the board. The ribbon and its connector are exposed for several minutes, and a discharge you do not feel can degrade the controller without destroying it straight away. A wrist strap costs a fraction of the price of a handheld console motherboard that has become impossible to find.
Where should you clip the earthing lead?
On a safe, unpowered metal ground: the chassis of a PC case that is plugged in but switched off, a metal pipe, a dedicated earth terminal. Avoid a painted radiator, whose paint insulates, and never put the lead into a mains socket. The 1.8 m of length leaves room to stay comfortably seated.
Can a PCB be cleaned with an ordinary brush?
It is not advisable: the synthetic bristles of a standard brush build up charge through friction, exactly where you are trying to avoid charge. A double-headed ESD antistatic brush combines soft bristles for dust and firmer bristles for flux residue, without generating static electricity.