Antistatic question

[the_voodoo_child]

I build Microcontrollers & robot's for a hobby & have always used a antistatic strap plugged to a antistatic bonding plug whilst handling ic's & building (soldering) circuits to protect my pic chips etc. My question is, if I must protect ic's against static charge, then what about when my project is done. Do I still need to protect it against static? What about when my circuit is inside my robot? Also switched on & operating? I'm confussed! do decoupling capacitors help stop static?

 

[dknguyen]

It's usually okay in a robot since no one should be touching it. If they might be you can put it in a metal or plastic enclosure and bolt it to the robot. If you want to put ESD protection components on the board you use things like TVS diodes or varistors. Usually you only do this on the connectors though so it doesn't get shocked when someone is plugging or unplugging something. But even just doing this takes a lot of room and can get expensive though and still won't protect from someone poking their finger into the middle of the board. Enclosure or maybe heatshrink is best for that

A lot of people just don't do anything because it's expensive and takes up a lot space on the board.