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Teardown of a Static fieldmeter

Teardown of a Static fieldmeter

teardown of a Static fieldmeter from Kerry Wong:

Static fieldmeters (or electrostatic fieldmeters) are typically used for non-contact measurements of the electrostatic field strength (usually in kV) of charged objects. These are highly specialized test instruments and most hobbyists probably seldomly have the opportunity of coming across one. So in this post and a companion video towards the end, we will take a look at how it works and what’s inside.
An electrostatic fieldmeter comes in handy when handling ESD sensitive electronics components, especially those with metal oxide layers (e.g. MOSFET, CMOS chips). These devices are sensitive to ESD and a typical damaging voltage level is only several hundred volts. Most datasheet lists human-body model (HBM) and charged-device model (CDM) voltage figures. Although these specified voltage may seem to be high (usually hundreds to several thousand volts), they can be exceeded in dry environments when electrical insulating materials are present.



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More details at Kerry Wong’s blog.

Check out the video after the break.

 


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