Desco - Questions And Answers

How does one detect the effectiveness of the cordless wrist strap? I was told that when one uses the cordless wrist, he/she is using it with own risk as there is no way to check on the effectiveness. Please explain if this is true. - June Tan, Ampang, Malaysia

You are correct. Using the currently available cordless wrist straps will be at your own risk. Why? Because they are at least 3,600,000 times slower than “wired” wrist straps. They rely on natural charge recombination from the water molecules in the air. There is no cordless wrist strap yet on the market that works at all. In fact cordless wrist straps will damage ESDS devices because you will not be grounding your body. DO NOT USE CORDLESS WRIST STRAPS IN YOUR ESD CONTROL PROGRAM, THESE DO NOT WORK YET. Refer to Q&A Answer #17 and Answer #71. The best way to ground human operators is to wear a quality grounded ESD wrist band and coil ground cord which would have a 1 Megohm resistor in series at the buckle snap.

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