Small ESD events can cause big damage

Martin Rowe- June 18, 2012

EMC consultant Doug Smith, always one to come up with interesting measurements, conducted an experiment to show how fields caused by ESD can damage circuits from across a room. To make his point, Smith placed a current probe in he middle of a 1-m Cat 5 Ethernet cable, then generated sparks at distances of 3 m, 1 m, and 30 cm. Fields generated by the sparks couple into the wire, creating current than can damage sensitive devices. Smith measured the current with an oscilloscope and he describes the experiment in detail in “Destroying Electronic Components from Across the Room With ESD.”