⚡ How to avoid damaging your test equipment! ⚡
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Here are four (actually seven!) easy ways to blow up or damage your oscilloscope, signal analyzer, spectrum analyzer, vector network analyzer, DMM, power supply, function generator, or pretty much ANY piece of test equipment you may come across. It's surprisingly easy, and you can damage your gear without ever feeling it!

Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) protection measures are no laughing matter when it comes to dealing with sensitive test equipment.

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Today we’re going to look at 4 easy ways you can blow up your test gear with ESD or the wrong inputs. It happens to people all the time. Electronic damage to test gear is caused by an excessive amount of power going into an equipment’s inputs, and that power gets there a few different ways. If you want to blow up your test gear, follow these tips.

#1: Apply overvoltage to the equipment inputs
The easiest way to blow up your test gear is to hook up any signal without knowing it’s characteristics. Sure, test gear’s data sheets list the maximum input parameters. And sure, equipment has builtin protection mechanisms and will often warn you if you are outside the spec.
To avoid blowing up your equipment this way, don’t exceed the maximum input power or voltage on your gear. Also, when connecting to an unknown signal, start at the lowest sensitivity and work your way down to the signal. Essentially, you always want to keep your signal completely on screen.

#2: Float yourself
As you can see with the ESD meter, an ungrounded person (or a person with a wireless ESD band) can have charge. The charge can then be transferred right into the equipment, or to an ungrounded conductor. Then, when this board is connected to equipment it can damage the gear.
To avoid damage, make sure your mat is properly grounded and use corded ground straps.
Note that wireless ESD bracelets (also known as wireless ESD straps and wireless ESD wristbands) DO NOT WORK!

#3: Charged Boards
If you aren’t careful, your boards can charge up via induction, and then zap your gear.
To avoid this damage, keep charged materials at least a foot away from your boards and use appropriate materials. If you’re transporting boards, you should also completely seal them up in static shielding bags so they don’t charge up during transport.

#4 Charged Cables
Believe it or not, the center conductors of your cables themselves can build up a charge through induction. So, to blow up your test gear, just grab a cable at random and connect it up to your gear without discharging it first.
If you want to avoid this damage, you should discharge your cables before using them.

#5: Use ESD Mat Standoffs
Sometimes you need to be extra cautious, especially when working with exposed assemblies. A good ESD mat has a resistance in the 10E8 ballpark, which is often pretty good insulation. But if this isn’t enough, use standoffs to keep your board off the mat. This lets an air gap be your insulator and ensures that your exposed board assemblies don’t have any unexpected paths to ground.

#6: Never Trust Pink Packing
“Pink” packaging material pretends to be staticsafe, but often, it’s not. To be safe, simply don’t use it for your boards and instead use ESDapproved mats, standoffs, and packaging.

#7: Cap your equipment inputs
If you aren’t using a channel, cap it. This helps avoid incidental contact that could lead to ESD trauma.

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