@GMICH posted:I have a carpeted basement floor and every once and a while get a little poke touching something - is there any concern touching a locomotive or a cab-2 controller when carrying a charge????? Something or nothing
Thank you Greg - Brighton Mi
There's certainly a minor risk, but it's not as great as most people imagine. I've never killed anything on my trains or layout with static discharges, and I've had plenty of them over the years. Even working on my bench on PC boards, I haven't had any fatalities from static. I don't even think about it when I'm handling locomotives, etc.
That being said, it is possible to damage sensitive electronic boards with static, but even that issue is not nearly as prevalent as it was years ago, components have improved a bunch over the years.
@juniata guy posted:My basement isn’t carpeted but, if I wear tennis shoes or Hey Dudes down there, for some reason they generate static electricity. After zapping myself on the front truck of an MTH PS3 diesel and damaging the front motor, I leave both types of shoes off when I’m in the basement running trains.
Curt
How in the world did you damage the motor with static? I can see damage to the electronics, but I'm having difficulty with the motor!
