> Heck, is this even going to be an issue at all in an 
> educational setting? I mean, I know about ESD, and take some 
> minor steps to prevent it, like trying to touch something 
> perhaps grounded before picking up a bare PIC. But I've yet 
> to ever damage a PIC chip badly enough to notice, even after 
> feeling shocks.

I guess YMMV. I don't often see problems that could be attributed to
ESD, but recently there were some. (Not with me, but with - hobbyist -
customers). It is winter now and the humidity is low.

> I'm sure I've done more minor damage that may 
> crop up later but having students have to debug the 
> occasional chip that mysteriously fails might not be such a 
> bad thing. :)

These are Informatics students, they are not supposed to debug hardware.


Some of them might put their PCB on a nice flat metal surface and try to
operate it. The more brighter ones might remember that metal might cause
shorts and use a wollen cloth instead...

> Can you at least socket the PICs?

I socketed the 40-pin target chip (16F877), but there is no room to
socket the 18F2550 (SMD, part of the pickit2 clone).

The problems I had last year (mostly disappearing firmware, including
bootloader, in the 18F2550, might not be caused by ESD at all. But It
might be a good idea to try something... 

A full enclosure is not practical (the edges of the PCB are all
connectors), but something underneath the nPCB might be possible and not
too expensive.

Wouter van Ooijen

-- -------------------------------------------
Van Ooijen Technische Informatica: www.voti.nl
consultancy, development, PICmicro products
docent Hogeschool van Utrecht: www.voti.nl/hvu
 
 

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