I am curious how the programmer is damaged by ESD while the hardware (which linked on the exactly same lines) is not damaged on the same environment. (BTW, you are not the first one I heard of complaining about CCS programmers) >it would make sense to purchase some programmers which are >considerably ESD tougher. Pull-down resistors and current limit resistor/device will help but may not be as strong as you wished. ESD protect device is a better choice than resistors. We are going to add the "ESD protection feature" as an option to all our BB0703 and BB0703+ product family. Funny N. Au Group Electronics, http://www.AuElectronics.com http://www.AuElectronics.com/products http://augroups.blogspot.com/ ________________________________ From: Sean Breheny To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public. Sent: Thu, January 14, 2010 11:50:10 AM Subject: Re: [PIC] Field programmers I definitely agree that our field techs could do better with regard to ESD precautions and we are going to do some training around that. However, I think it is interesting that A) very little of our equipment ends up being damaged - just the PIC programmers and B) we have never seen an ESD damaged multimeter or scope. These two items lead me to believe that the CCS ICD is particularly ESD susceptible and it would make sense to purchase some programmers which are considerably ESD tougher. Sean On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 4:41 AM, Alan B. Pearce wrote: >>Thanks. Is the usbprog2 well ESD protected? I took a quick >>look at the schematic and I see some resistors on the PGD >>and PGC lines, but not much other protection. I know from >>experience that ESD can jump across physically-small resistors. > > >From what I remember of your original post, I suspect that you need to get > the field guys to take rudimentary ESD precautions anyway, like wear an ESD > strap that they connect to the chassis of the equipment they are dealing > with, and maybe even modify the programmer so it has a grounding line with a > series resistor and crocodile clip to do likewise before they plug it into > the equipment being programmed. Otherwise no amount of ESD protection in the > equipment or programmer is going to stop a failure at the most embarrassing > moment. > > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist