Chosen Solution

I need to ship a hard drive in a couple of days and am out of anti-static bags. Anyone know of any common household item that can be used as a substitute?

Hey, all. Since there were conflicting answers on the aluminum foil suggestion, I did a bit of poking around and discovered that Staples has anti-static bubble wrap – http://www.staples.com/Staples-Anti-Stat… . Not the zero cost solution I was hoping for, but not too expensive and it should last me pretty much forever.

I just had to read through this post to finish chuckling over how argumentative the discussion became over anti-static bags! I’ve been working with computers for over 30 yrs now and hardly ever use any anti-static protection for anything. Why? Because the chance of static discharge that would cause such an event is SOOOOO freakin’ rare. Unless of course you like to rub your feet on the carpet and poke someone’s nose before you start working with your boards or chips. I’ve had hundreds of units (mobo’s, video cards, memory chips, etc.) laying in drawers, cabinets, shelves, etc. I can pick them up 10 years later, after they’ve been in 3 or 4 machines even, and they still work just fine. I’ve shipped umpteen times in bubble-wrap that was discharged by my own hand before packaging. I’ve stored and shipped items sandwiched between plain foam with no problems, EVER. Sure, spend the money on overpriced ESD protection if you like, and I would as well, if I needed to protect a very sensitive or pricey item like a high-end motherboard, otherwise…. pfff don’t worry so much about something that’s probably less common to happen than getting struck by lightning. Yes, I know 10v of electricity are enough to zap a poor ‘ol microchip and that we can’t even see it ourselves unless it hits around 10k v, but regardless, I’ve learned that discharging yourself prior to handling and working in an environment that is not conducive to building up static is all you need to concern yourselves with. I’d love to hear any horror stories of people losing any equipment to static, cuz I have yet to hear one myself.

Look for pink bubble wrap. Anti-static bags are usually plastic (PET) and have a distinctive color (silvery for Metallised film, pink or black for polyethylene). The polyethylene variant may also take the form of foam or bubble wrap, either as sheets or bags. Because of the need for protection against mechanical damage as well as electrostatic damage, layers of protection are often used; because of this, you might find: The protected device packaged inside a metalized PET film bag Packed inside a pink polyethylene bubble-wrap bag Packed inside a rigid black polyethylene box lined with pink poly foam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antistatic_…

Wikipedia says an anti-static bag is essentially a Faraday cage. Since you can make a Faraday box by covering a cardboard box with aluminum foil, it should be possible to make an anti-static enclosure by wrapping the item first in newspaper and then in aluminum foil. Then put this in a protective bag and whatever shipping protection is needed.

Foil was used back before there was such a thing as astatic bags. I had CMOS chips stored for decades on my truck that only had foil around them. Later you got foil around the chip seated in conductive foam. Plastic tubes for chips came later. I’d wrap in foil, then paper to protect the foil. Certainly better then how I’ve gotten PC boards off eBay just dropped in a box with packing peanuts. Note my experiences related above come from semiconductors and PC boards from the late 60s and 70s. By the 80s we were getting bags and foil was abandoned. If I had all the options before me, I’d go with the bag too.

Actually hard driver has its metal shell for protection. In case your PCB have no covering shell then you should use anti-static bag If nit you can also use other material which have nature anti-static function. Such as cow leather. Check more at here

Some vacuum bags and a few types of vinyl gloves are anti-static.

I have always used newspaper to set my electronics boards down on and even turn them on. Newspaper does not conduct electricity. I am not sure as far as its antistatic and shipping properties, though. Maybe someone else has had this experience as well?

Aluminium foil will protect against electrostatic discharge as well as, if not better than, an anti-static bag. (An anti-static bag is only slightly conductive, so a direct ESD event onto it can be transferred to the board inside.) But aluminium foil is NOT suitable for boards that have power sources, such as lithium backup cells, because it will short them out and discharge them if it makes contact with them. Boards containing supercaps for short-term backup are safe if the supercap is discharged. I would fold the foil at least twice (forming four layers) before wrapping it round the board, otherwise it can rip and leave areas unprotected. KrisBlueNZ (electronic serviceperson and design engineer)

Wrap your device in new unused dryer anti static sheets then pack in bubble wrap.

The obvious answer would seem to be: wrap the object first in a non-conducting wrapper (simple plastic bag) and THEN fully cover the bag with foil….creating a ‘faraday cage’ but avoiding direct contact with the conducting foil.

Aluminium foil even off a bar off chocolate will do the job