After a number of years buying stuff thru Mouser, i bought some stuff via DigiKey, and noticed a lot of stuff, including static sensitive parts were inside light blue "zip-lock" type bags.
Anyone know if those light blue bags/containers are anti-static?
Definitely, or they would fail their QA audits and lose major customers andprobably go bust. It's bunkum ( by and large) but it has to be done..... :)
It depends on how you define anti-static and what you expect from the containers. Such bags are "dissipative" and resist the buildup of static charge due to friction against the bag, but they are not "conductive" so an outside spark from a charged body goes right through the bag and zaps the chips. So you should handle the bags in an ESD-safe workplace only.
See EEVblog #247 and others.
Are you trying to say that a QA audit actually checks these things (with zero electronics)?
Yes, I think they are supposed to be. But, they have gone NUTS with the darn things. Sometimes I buy 100 parts, and they come in 3 bags, then all those in another bag, finally inside YET another bag with the part # label on it. And, of course, I'm PAYING for all those bags!
My wife takes a whole box of them to the "left overs" store every couple months.
Jon
Dissipative refers to the conductive ones. The ones that don't generate much triboelectric charge are "antistatic".
The original antistatic stuff was pink, so I expect that the patent has expired but the trade dress (i.e. pink poly bags) is still under trademark.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
Kind of funny when they stuff tranzorbs into ESD bags
But probably too much of a hassle to differentiate
Cheers
Klaus
They probably buy them in such quantities (100k/yr?) that the price differential is negligible, and stocking an alternative would cost more by unit cost alone, plus inventory cost, plus the cost of packaging mistakes and returns.
Tim
We try and reuse them... pack some other little stuff in them and ship it off to someone else. Optics in static bags :^)
George h.
I thought the blue ones are the male version of the pink ones :-)
Are the gray ones trans? ...or one of the other 47 genders?
No, those would have rainbow colors :-)
Yes, I certainly reuse them, but I am SWIMMING in the darn things! So, I have to get rid of most of them.
Jon
Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.
Ask the community — no account required