A question I have hijacked from this thread
https://www.electro-tech-online.com/threads/240v-ac-that-will-not-give-shock.107359/
With regards to ESD and earthing:
What I don't understand about this one is why would the rocket ignite if the squib leads were tied together? I understand how grounding the squibs after they were tied to each other might cause a charge buildup on the case to jump to the squibs to reach ground. But if the squibs were tied together they would remain at the same potential anyways...what would cause them to ignite if there was no potential difference between the squibs?
https://www.electro-tech-online.com/threads/240v-ac-that-will-not-give-shock.107359/
With regards to ESD and earthing:
"He told a story about an ESD episode at NASA that killed an engineer. There was a solid rocket they were working on complete with ignition squib. To make things 'safe', an engineer tied the two leads to the squib together (should have stopped there) and then tied the leads to ground. When they lifted the plastic shroud off the rocket to work on it they generated enough charge to cause a spark to jump from the squib casing to the leads - igniting the squib which started the rocket motor at a bad time. The point of this story is that grounding everything with conductors is not the way to approach ESD control; you must stop the generation of charges if possible and SLOWLY bleed off any charges you can't prevent. "
What I don't understand about this one is why would the rocket ignite if the squib leads were tied together? I understand how grounding the squibs after they were tied to each other might cause a charge buildup on the case to jump to the squibs to reach ground. But if the squibs were tied together they would remain at the same potential anyways...what would cause them to ignite if there was no potential difference between the squibs?
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