JF, The ground pin, on the soldering irons or other electrically operated process equipment, will solve some of the problem, but there are additional things that you should do to prevent an ESD failure. a.. The workstation and operators should be properly grounded at minimum to electrical ground; earth ground is preferred. a.. The operators should be trained to handle ESD materials. a.. The relative humidity should be between 30% and 60%. The dryer the air, the more susceptible to ESD you will be. a.. You should be aware of what ESD class your hardware is. Class 0 and Class 1 components are the most sensitive and may require an ionizer on the workstation. You may want to get a copy of the ANSI/ESD 20.20 standard from http://www.esda.org/standards.html. Hope these suggestions work out for you. Lee Whiteman Senior Manufacturing Engineer ACI / EMPF Telephone: (610) 362-1200; Ext. 208 FAX: (610) 362-1290 E-Mail: [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Bissonnette, Jean-Francois Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2000 1:12 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] EOS Damage prevention Hi Technetters, In IPC-A-610, it is stated that soldering irons or other electrically operated process equipment must not generate voltage spikes of more than 0.3V. Does the regular ground pin of the power cord is sufficient to achieve that goal??? Thanks! JF WABTEC CORPORATION CONFIDENTIALITY NOTE The content contained in this e-mail transmission is legally privileged and confidential information intended only for the use of the individual or entity named herein. If the reader of this transmission is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this transmission is strictly prohibited.