I was seeing the diy framework laptop guide but there was no mention of esd precautions? Is it something we should worry about?
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In my experience working with consumer electronics (building PCs) you don’t need to really worry about ESD damage. Even if you were to build on carpet, as long as you don’t shuffle around too much you should be good.
If you are really worried about it just touch some piece of metal beforehand like a chair leg or something similar or buy an esd wrist strap.
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In general outside of extreme circumstances like being in a dry environment with a big fuzzy sweater, we don’t expect to see issues, and also touching the laptop enclosure should discharge static charge safely before you start accessing the internal modules which are more sensitive. We will likely add warnings for replacement modules to avoid touching the module itself before touching something to discharge.
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The thing is most people who don’t know about esd won’t take precautions.
There is even latent esd damage which does not break the components but degrades and shortens the devices lifespan. The end user won’t notice it but the components are degraded.
At least This is what I learnt online. Not an engineer, correct me if I am wrong.
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ESD is greatly over exaggerated in modern technology.
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I know this is anecdotal, but I’ve fried a few components with ESD, so I definitely support some kind of disclaimer.
ESD damage is super unlikely, but when it does break things it does so in particularly annoying ways. It doesn’t have to break 100% to count as damage - instead it might do something like reduce tolerance on a data line so your USB port works fine with most devices but not others. Or it might weaken a trace on a chip so it fails once you put the chip through a few thermal cycles.
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