[SOLVED] This is so strange and I have to warn people about headphones and sparks from our fingers

[danny009]

so I own a headphone, it used to have colourful lightning left and right, sadly though minutes ago a spark from my finger fried the headphone lights, no longerlights. so my friends, whatever you do, always but ALWAYS wash your hands to get rid of that electricity from your fingers before touching any electronics. I have NO idea how on earth this happened since this did not happened last year, somehow I'm full of electiricity lol,

watch those fingers before making moves on your stuff! (funny thing is sound is ok, just lights are got fried)

 

[logainofhades]

It's called static electricity. Washing your hands will not prevent this from happening.

 

[BFG-9000]

That's just bad/cheap design with no protection. We had some Dell office PCs that would shock everyone who plugged a USB stick into them every day for 10 years (office was carpeted) with a huge ~7mm spark, and we calculated the voltage in free air had to be over 20,000v. The USB ports (and every other part of the computers as well as every USB stick) continued to work fine all that time. I mean if even lowest-bidder OEM for Dell and even no-name brand flash drives can do it right...

It was great fun asking unsuspecting newbies to save a file for us!

If you washed your hands in soap and didn't rinse--and your feet too, and then only walked around in bare feet on a grounded metal floor, you could probably minimize the charge that could build up on yourself. However any charged object (cat, doorknobs, etc) would then zap you because you'd be the ground path.

 

[danny009]

That's just bad/cheap design with no protection. We had some Dell office PCs that would shock everyone who plugged a USB stick into them every day for 10 years (office was carpeted) with a huge ~7mm spark, and we calculated the voltage in free air had to be over 20,000v. The USB ports (and every other part of the computers as well as every USB stick) continued to work fine all that time. I mean if even lowest-bidder OEM for Dell and even no-name brand flash drives can do it right...

It was great fun asking unsuspecting newbies to save a file for us!

If you washed your hands in soap and didn't rinse--and your feet too, and then only walked around in bare feet on a grounded metal floor, you could probably minimize the charge that could build up on yourself. However any charged object (cat, doorknobs, etc) would then zap you because you'd be the ground path.

Makes perfect sense to me! We have a long haired cat in the house and I did rinse my hands after washing it via soap and did rinse my feet too after taking a bath,
Thank you alot for detailed answer dude! I was getting a tiny bit sense and thinking that rinse was a bad idea now that your reply confirms it. Also yes my headphone is a cheap brand (a brand that literally creates every useless thing in our local store in most consumer eletronic categories)

What do you think spraying some cologne to my hands instead? Is it safe to do (there is alcohol in it) or is it dangerious? Either way I will be washing my hands every morning and my feet without rinse, one more last question if you don't mind: what about not using a traditional rinse and swiping hands onto my tshirt? I mean I have to rinse my hands somehow right?

Thanks again

 

[BFG-9000]

Anything that's electrically conductive will work, it's just that soap or dryer sheets are things everyone has handy, so usually people will suggest wiping plastic funnels with dryer sheets to keep powders from sticking to them, or soapy water for clear things that the sheets would leave too cloudy looking.

They do sell anti-static sprays that don't leave a noticeable residue and aren't sticky. I did look up the MSDS for some anti-fog spray (for glasses and bathroom mirrors) and it was --you guessed it--soap.

Anti-static bags are either metallized (the silver ones) or have an organic coating (that means carbon, and are usually pink) to do the same. I was puzzled at how motherboards could be shipped in such things without draining the CMOS battery until I realized those are sprayed with a conformal coating (which means clearcoated with a plastic)