On Sat, 6 Oct 2007 17:48:17 -0400, krw wrote:
In article PwyNi.22$h33.5@trndny02, says...
Static electricity and electronics don't mix, not to mention breaking
things. Using a compressor to blow out computers may do more harm
than good.
I do it all the time, never had an issue with it. One thing I have learned
though is to stay away from optical drives with the air, more than once I've
stirred up dust which settled in and ruined the optics.
I've handled CMOS devices with bare hands/no straps too, but the
plural of anecdote isn't data. The fact is that moving air will get
a charge. If the conditions are right you can zap something.
I guess most of us have handled CMOS in this fashion, and I did so
myself until made aware that failure rates of such treated equipment
was much higher than good procedure.
As a test, I directly applied standard 5kv 1/50 impulses to 800 PIV
diodes, and found that it was simple to get measurable change in
characteristic, but usually took several applications to produce an
actually unuseable diode.
So the warning is there, that you may not stop the device from
working, but it may not be the same as when the manufacturer provided
it to you, and certainly I would safely guarantee that any change will
not be for an improvement..
Peter Dettmann