Cordless antistatic wrist straps? 

Many moons ago, I used to work in the semiconductor industry testing both packaged and naked wafer silicon devices. All of us had the snap on connector on our wristbands as shown here. Most of the time, when leaving the bench, we would disconnect using said snap connector. Once in a while, when returning to the bench, I would forget to reconnect before starting work again, and the test lab supervisor would say, "Oh, I see you are using the new wireless grounding straps." He was sarcastic like that. 😉

They also sell wriststrapless cords.

I hope someday they actually make cordless antistatic bands, I'm sick of getting shocked by everything.

Maybe they got a bunch of the wristbands without leads and figured they had to sell them somehow.

I always attach the alligator clip to one of my nipples and never had static problems.

cordless just means they dont supply the cord! , not that it works cordless!

Don't you just connect it straight to your tin-foil hat?

I first saw these like a year ago on the EEVBlog channel. I'm amazed they are still being sold. Although not too surprised I suppose.

Seen Dave's review at EEVblog before. Most entertaining. I'm sure that static can build up over time. I had never heard of anyone dying from a simple static discharge. Some experiments to research that would be very entertaining would be a static generator and feathers but can be painful or deadly if not taken any cation. If you use one of these, I'm sure it is functional as a momentary anti-static solution without the need of the cord as you can touch a grounded metal surface to the screw to dissipate any buildup of static. There is a keychain on the market that helps of dissipating any static build up before you go to touch a metal surface. Keep the gadgets coming... I like watching your videos.

You wear the strap with the bolt on the underside of your wrist. You touch it to an earthed plate on your workbench before touching a component or equipment. You continue to touch it periodically to ensure that no static charge builds up on your body. The resistor slows down the discharge from instantaneous to a fraction of a second so that, if you are charged up, you won't feel a shock. A dangling cord, in some circumstances, might get caught in something (e.g. a rotating motor/fan). The assembly girls in the Asian factories are trained in the use of this item.

"Cordfree in the sense that you're supposed to add your own" is one of my new favorite Clive quotes.

Used to have something similar when I worked at the electronics shop in Bedminster near me. Ours didn't have the screw, but a stud, and it was something you used to safely discharge static, periodically against a ground plane on the bench, tap the band to the plate, discharge, work, do it again. Boss said it was safer than being wired to ground? Maybe thats what they mean by it?

dave jones eev blog called bullshit on this last year

Someone bought one of these in to work, ESD control on the factory floor is part of my job, I was not best impressed..........

I have a feeling this strap is supposed to make contact with a mat that's grounded. The screw is positioned under your forearm which is resting on a mat. (OK for much quick Chinese production lines ). lol

Place i worked in before (Quantum Tape drives) you would wear a wrist that you connect up to bench but also have a strap on your shoe, touching the floor which was special flooring

i've seen these sold in stores. i've seen people buy them. it physically hurts me.

The corded ones are cheap as chips from Bang good (I got 3 for ONE Aussie dollar a year or two back). Obviously checked to make sure a) they conducted, and b) there was "some kind of resistance" to prevent "unfortunate accidents"! Seemed OK, and they are durable enough. I've bought a fair bit of ESD safety stuff from them, and so far it has all been perfectly "fit for purpose".

when building IBM computers we used to stick the strap on out ankle.saved getting the strap tangled in your work piece

In the years I was building & repairing computers, I never actually wore an antistatic wristband, most of the time I was handling the computer cases while they were plugged in (so they were Earthed) and that was enough to discharge me, and I have an aversion to wearing static-generating clothing so never had any problems with having the hand-of-god firing lightning bolts out my fingers... :)

They work exactly as intended and I can't understand how "electronics experts" can't figure it out. They allow you to touch the screw on the top to a ground and discharge yourself through the internal resistor, which prevents you from being electrocuted if you touch a live wire while touching ground. That way you don't have to touch a ground with your hand and you won't get electrocuted. Most people don't walk around while working on electronics so once you ground yourself you don't have to stay at ground potential. Is it the best solution or better than a wired version? No, but it does work as designed if you have the brains to figure out how it is supposed to be used.

When using the cordless one, you stand barefoot on soaked concrete, while attaching the screw to the metal casing you are working on. That way, you prevent damage to your circuitry by providing an alternate, easy route to ground, while preventing a heart attack by fibrillating your heart.

They also do strap less strap ons

glad I'm not the only one who was assuming some sort of virtual earth opamp configuration

Wished I saw your vid 5 years ago, I built my PC in 2016 (Thank God nothing was fried) and the store owner recommended this to me. Never going back.

Haha! I first came across these working with Foxconn in 2006. The thing is, the humidity in Southern China is so high, normally, that they don't have ESD issues, so they can get away with this crap. All of my colleagues had as much fun as me trying to explain that they might as well not bother.

The intended use may be to touch a ground point with the contact point on the wristband every now and then while working. Which will only work if you sit perfectly still while doing work...

dave does a video that clive has done, comments full of about clive clive does a video that dave has done, comments full of about dave

The theory behind these is that the screw sticks up in to the non charged airflow (such as a clean room) around the body and thus the electrical charge is dissipated into the air slowly. They do not dissipate static charge quickly so if you are moving around you will get charged, but if you are sat at a bench and the air around you is not charged you will loose your charge slightly faster... But personally, i rarely bother (certain things means i need to) with ESD discharge devices. I make sure i don't move much and discharge myself on my PC case or rest my arm on the pc case.

Placebo? OP said that a direct path to ground would be Bad News. Well, 3M sold (sells?) anti-static mat/wrist strap/outlet checker combos made to verify outlet is properly grounded. The outlet checker has a socket for the lead that goes from the wrist strap to anti-static mat in order to connect the user to the mains ground.

Add Hamilton's Mill in the back. It will dissipate some static, indicate when static is present and cause much merriment amongst your colleagues :)

I've got about twenty of these in my box of not-quite-useless stuff. I buy lots of components on eBay, and the sellers keep sticking them in the box. My take is that originally they were just the wristbands without the cord, but eventually people started mistaking "doesn't come with a cord" with "doesn't need a cord" and now they get marketed as such.

I used to work in Mapins a few years back, we sold the wall plugs which have a little terminal to attach the wristbands to. One day a customer returned one and pointed out that the earth pin on the plug was made of plastic, the terminal on the front didn't connect to anything.

In this video, Clive investigates a cordless strap-on....? ;)

'terrible experience' You master of understatement, you..😂

Dave had a good laugh at this one a good while ago .

They can also decrease your fuel consumption by up to 100% if you wear one while driving.

It's all in the sticker! It has "Magical" properties...

I always called them a tap strap. So you can tap the chassis to quickly change your electrical potential to that of the next device on an assembly line. (Think china.) Some people just don't make a good electrical connection across their skin, even through an ECG adhesive contact pad. I have mostly seen this in people who use a lot of lotion or have dry or callused skin.

You're supposed to tap the screw head against something grounded to discharge static. The 1 meg resistor stops any zap you might get if you simply use your finger to discharge any static.

Could you have a Earth set up on your bench and when you need to discharge to touch some major electronic components you just touch the back of your wrist ,the screw on the Earth..??

Almost all anti-static wrist straps have the 1Mohm resistor inside the cord. The "cordless" straps don't need to use a special "1Mohm cord" and can just be connected to any ground with a wire. Sometimes the "1Mohm" cords can be a pain if the cord is too short. The "cordless" ones let you safely attach a wire to ground of any length you want. They really should call these "resistor in the strap" instead of "cordless". These are convenient in electronics manufacturing where employees need to test their wrist straps before handling sensitive electronics. Because the resistor is in the strap, it gets tested each time. Using the "resistor in the cord" type wrist-straps, you need to carry the cord you will be using at the bench with you to the wrist-strap tester. Using the cordless straps lets people move around easier and not have to carry the cords around from station to station.

I had exact same one 10 years ago. How designs never changebut mine came with strap

I bought one of these a few weeks ago! I work with carbon composites and get horrendous static shocks from demoulding parts. I was looking for an easier option to grounding the parts through a plug socket. (No surprise this doesn't work)

I have seen video's of factory workers (in e-cig factories) in Shenzen wearing these with no connection and no other visible earth connection. I'm pretty sure the assembly line workers wouldn't voluntarily choose to wear them so they must have been supplied by the factory. Which means the manufacturers of electronic devices in China must believe them to be effective in some way if they went to the expense of supplying some of the workers with them. My guess is that static charge can build up over time and it's not pleasant to touch a grounding rail with bare skin so maybe if you touch the exposed plate to a ground rail the static has to pass through that 1meg ohm resistor and lessens the shock. If this was done at regular intervals it would reduce the risk of damage to tiny sensitive electrical components a little. Imagine them all touching their plates to the ground rail every time a buzzer sounds ! Yes, as I said it's just a wild guess but I can't see any other possible explanation.

I wonder if there are any ads for cordless extension cords on eBay?

The company where i used to work used these for people moving finished products form test to dispatch you simply touched the stud to a esd point before you moved any products but obviously we wore a strap with a lead whilst working at a bench think the management took this approach as it was cheaper option than esd footwear

I should try this snake oil technology for the ground clamp on Arc welder ! 😂😂

I know it is not the same, but would it make a difference if you keep grounding yourself touching that screw to a grounded surface? When I work on MY computer I just touch a grounded case every so ofthen, specially afther moving myself and it has worked well enought for me. This might be a sefer way to do this.

There's supposed to be a little sheet of fabric in there also. I figured the fabric collected static.

how often do you run into situations you have to worry about things that are live but also worry about esd? (non pro, most experience is from basic electronics and home electrical type stuff)

Reminds me of write-only memories.

Is it possible to make a fake ground to discharge into? I live in an old building where my only ground connections are located in my kitchen and my bathrooom. No other rooms have any ground connection.

How do the conventional corded ones work? Dos and don'ts about where to connect the clip? Is it ok to just clip it to any metal lump in your vicinity? Can you connect it to a floating ground, let's say the grounding stud on a double insulated turntable or amplifier? I live in Norway where many old houses use the IT power distribution system (or sometimes TT, when the disneuter in tre transformer kiosk has failed). Many old houses do not have earthed outlets. Where do you clip the wrist strap if there is no house earth (not in the room you're in anyway)? To the casing of the item you're working on? Do you then connect the item's earth to an earthed outlet? What if there is a signal ground/0v rail, do you connect this one to earth too as it's galvanically isolated?

We never used antistatic straps at the computer shop i previously worked for... We just kept one leg or arm touching something metal and large.... Computer being worked on for example. Or the large steel legs/frame of the work bench. Its far easier to do that than move a strap every time you move workbench.

Cordless=without cord It doesn't say the cord isn't a necessity. We fill that in ourselves. Can't say the description is wrong :)

You're supposed to buy the static receiver that connects to ground so the band transmits the static to it without a cord ;

It could be that you ground by tapping tour wrist to a reference periodically while at a workstation?

Can you buy magnetic leads?

Does said seller also have hoseless garden hoses? That would be so handy!

I took the 4 carbon electrodes out of a dead lantern battery… I only needed two, so now I have two spare. Do you think I could use the other two as corrosion-less contacts for my skin, in the construction of an anti-static wristband?

Where and how sould I connect these?

Wireless antistatic discharge:- pair it up with your phone and discharge yourself via Bluetooth....amazing!

It occurs to me that these things, while utterly useless for an electronics bench, would be ideal if you are somewhere where you receive static shocks, you tap the metal stud onto whatever metal object you have close by, a little like touching a metal object with a coin or grabbing the frame of a car before you swing out of it to stop you feeling the static discharge.

If anyone has bought one of these, i have a chocolate teapot going cheap, if you're interested.......

i dont know if you saw in another video but i have a severly aged power strip id like to send to you for autopsy. is there a way i can?

The last place I worked the floor was painted with an electrically conductive paint and everyone had to wear a heal strap.

I wonder if, apart from an obvious con, the intention is to have a grounding plate close by and to discharge static by touching the protruding screw on to the grounding plate before handling sensitive electronics? It's no where near as useful as a proper grounding wrist band but it's better than nothing at all if used in that way.

I am thinking it could be when you are working on a computer that you have connected to the power supply then all metal is earthed so with the strap on just touch the screw to the chassis to discharge your body so no lead required !!

I've seen these over a decade ago and wondered about them. Reading through the comments, it makes sense that they might work through, we'll say, "incidental" contact with ground. And this, from 2005: www.esdjournal.com/techpapr/sfowler/wireless.htm No different than occasionally touching the ground plane of whatever you're working on.

nope, sorry Clive you've missed it . . . the folded resistor lead works like the "bent wire" in the crystal emitter, and the plastic packaging works to concentrate the field thereby protecting you from the inherent dangers involved.

The very idea just seems silly... I remember seeing one that said it had quartz crystals in it that absorbed the static and turned it into vibrations. Total bogus nonsense.

'That would be a terrible experience' lol

On first viewing of this video I thought it must be April 1st. But I think it's just the usual ambiguity of some Chinese translation. Having said that their grasp of English is better than my handle on mandarin!

I have such a low resistance to electricity that I have never needed to be grounded. Totally freaks out the techies when I grab an expensive CPU or something. :) Also...love the time on this video ... 4:20 tehehehe

I just came from Frye's Electronics and they are selling them for $18 each! The package givews no instructions but says a cord is not needed and there is no connection to attach a cord. I opened the package and checked! The person in the store said something about, "... they tap into your internal body workings to dissapate static."

I've worked with electronics since ... um, 1962 or so, and I've never fried anything, and I never use a wrist strap unless an inspector is watching. But I always ground myself first.

I do believe that cordless means you have to "self attach" a cord. As in being sold without a cord.

I bought a corded one from Amazon and when I tested it I found no continuity to earth. The strap worked but there was no connection between the Banana plug and the connecting stud on the strap. I wonder if these are really not for earthling but for curing arthritis or rheumatism or something.

I swear you had a video just like this a while ago

I've actually seen factory workers wearing these "Cordless ESD wrist straps" on YT.

I believe ESD straps became more popular with the researchers playing with electrically initiated explosives. Would like to see the manufacturer of these straps assemble an explosive device with these as their protection...

There were anti-static dust brushes for working with film that contained just a wee bit of something radioactive because radioactivity has a way of neutralizing a static charge. So I suppose an honest manufacturer could make a cordless anti-static wrist band.

DYI vs buying one? whats better?

Those grounding straps are only any good if the stuff you're working on and the surface you're working on are also grounded (or at the same potential). Otherwise a good static charge on your bench is gonna jump through your equipment then through your hand and the strap to ground destroying your stuff.

how to esd polythene bag discharge

The same company makes the 'Invisible Condom'

how to discharge esd polythene bag

dave reviewed one a year or so ago

You spoil the magic again!!! but OK for a wrist mount project though.

speaking over static electric can u do a video about the usb killer?

At my work I get shocked by every piece of metal in the place due to their carpet and dry climate control. I have had visible arcs from door handles that were visible even under overhead lighting and is very painful. Looking for a solution that does not involve me taping my keys against every metal surface like a paranoid schizophrenic every time I open a door.

All my comment notifications have disappeared... Is there a way I could get these back? Sorry about posting on this particular video...

Made of wooo, fluff and ground up unicorns...

Just seen these mentioned on a wikihow article and immediately knew it was nonsense 😂

Cordless wireless wrist strap=Norma’s antistatic wrist strap-cord

please can you take apart cheap aquarium heaters

They are actually great. Differently to the normal ones they have the resistor not built in the cord but built in under the screw, so you can use any cable like from old headphones and it works. They are not scam if you know how to use those things, well if you know nothing about physics you are fooled...

They told you it was cordless. So you didn't get a cord with it. Why so surprised?

Are you sure there is no dilithiun crystal ?