DIYbanter - View Single Post - Computer room static blowing server power supplies

In article , wrote:
On Wed, 05 Apr 2006 12:59:59 GMT, "TJS" put finger to
keyboard and composed:

An update; We are investigating "zinc whiskers" phenomina as a possible
cause. The zinc filaments are produced from the plywood core floor panels
supported by the zinc electrocoted support structure. When floor panels are
lifted or disturbed the conductive dust can get into the power supply and
lead to shorts between the modern closely spaced SMT devices.
See here for a white paper http://www.dataclean.com/pdf/zincwhiskers3.pdf

The failures/arcs in our supplies have all arced from the 120vac chopper
regulator collector to the PS case. If the zinc whisker problem is our case
then the blue flash is just a 120/170p-p vac arc to ground, and not a static
discharge.

We are looking at replacing our floor tiles with the modern ultra low static
floor tiles.

I'm a little skeptical that this is the problem, but it is true that 2
months ago we pulled floor tiles to look for fiber conduits and that about
the time the problems began

TJS

What are the chances of zinc whiskers causing *exactly* the same fault
in *8* PSUs?

Identical or different?