...and according to ANSI/ESD-S20.20-1999 you are required to have: Equipment Ground Common Point Ground Wrist Strap System - on seated operations Signs ESDS Item packaging You must have an ESD Control Program Plan You must do training (initial and recurrent) I see no requirements for wearing smocks, heal straps, conductive footwear, area ionization, conductive seats .... These are considered optional elements. Am I missing something here? The subject of open or closed smocks has been passed around a lot in the last couple of months. And overtime someone stands up and says, " ya but, all the studies say that the wrist strap is all you really need. Are the smock guys just wearing a belt and suspenders, i.e., being cautious? I can see that if you have a multifaceted attack, you have room for one element to fail and still have back-up. But where do you stop? Gary Camac Paul Signorelli wrote: > ESD Protection has 2 elements and BOTH must be satisfied: > > First is the 'Objective' evidence; e.g.: The static field > from a person who doesn't have his top button snapped > maybe xx volts and totally acceptable. > > Second is the 'Subjective' appearance (Feelings - No data); > e.g.: Even though the field meter says the smock is protecting the ESD > sensitive item, the auditor doesn't consider that because he just > doesn't like it or because the procedure doesn't allow it. > You have to be very careful when writing your ESD > procedures. > Check out the new ANSI/ESD-S20.20-1999 ESD Standard for Protection of > Electrical and Electronic Parts/Equipment. It is available free on the > Web. > http://www.esda.org > > Sometimes you have to ground things that don't need to be grounded. > > Paul Signorelli > NARTE ESD Certified Engineer > > ############################################################## > TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c > ############################################################## > To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in > the body: > To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TECHNET <your full name> > To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TECHNET > ############################################################## > Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional > information. > If you need assistance - contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or > 847-509-9700 ext.5315 > ##############################################################