The Best Anti-Static Bags?

Hi, I was wondering if any of you know what are pretty much agreed to be the best anti-static bags available. I never bought any before, but I want to have a box lying around just in case I need some and I want top quality bags. Any information on the subject would be helpful, thank you!

i don't think there is a big difference between best anti-static bag. I'm still using the ones which came with my motherboard and they work fine.

-1cem4n

I was not aware that there was even different brands of anti-static bags. I would imagine that even if there is different brands they would all come from pretty much the same manufacturer seeing as the market for them is pretty small and mainly OEM (this meaning there is no real need to try to differentiate the product).

Also the job that they have to do is actually pretty simple so I am sure they would all work at the same level.

You can reuse them, I do. Don't really think that there is a 'best' brand.

Well I noticed that some are clear whereas some are 40% transparent and some are even opaque. I've noticed differences in thickness, and some of them are even rated to be waterproof (provided you seal it well). So, I was just wondering if there was much difference. I'm only really concerned wtih the anti-static capabilities and durability. I figured the clear ones would be lower quality since the shielding, which often takes the form of an alloy, should make the film translucent or even opaque. Thanks for the input so far, any more thoughts?

Zip loc bags do me well

Haha, might want to be careful with that, ziploc bags seem to retain lots of static sometimes straight out of the box, but especially when rubbed. I can get them to stick to my clothes pretty easily!

Anti static bags, mats, and wristbands conduct electricity. If the static builds up and releases via various types of low power MOSFETs, it will damage them.

The number of anti static products are pretty high. Every product that has static sensitve components needs something to protect it during shipment and handling. I have a friend that sells preprogrammed pic processors as well as a complete line of serial I/O for medium speed, high volume I/O applications. He bought 10,000 tubes to ship them in. I wouldn't be suprised at all if american computers outnumber americans.

A number of products have components that required an antistatic bag at one point. Various accessories, TV's, VCRs, DVD players, MP3 players, decent coffee pots, many modulators in cars. Much of this crap has static sensitive components.

The good news is that if it is called anti static, then it will protect you investment.

Ziploc bags will seem like an ok idea untill you find yourself buying twice.

Allow me to add that an antistatic bag needs to be "good enough". After a certain point, you would be fully protected and adding more protection is not really going to help you out. In fact, if you tried putting an antistatic bag inside another antistatic bag, you could possibly create a crude capacitor and that would not be something to wrap around delicate electronics.

As far as wrapping the material around DVD players, coffee pots and the like, I just don't buy it. That has only been going on for a relatively short time and stuff was shipped with little more than Styrofoam and cardboard around it for decades with not static shorting issues. However, with the use of such products to ship expensive stuff, I think that people have made an association that they are good for shipping in general.

In any case, I get almost all the bags that I need just by buying stuff. As an occasion comes up to supplement my bags, I can get a dumpster diver to grab me a double handful from a computer store for a couple of bucks.

Malpine Walis said:

In fact, if you tried putting an antistatic bag inside another antistatic bag, you could possibly create a crude capacitor...

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'Splain please.

A capacitor is composed of alternating layers of insulator and conductor. If you take apart a 70's era AM radio, you will see an open air type variable capacitor in action when you turn the tuning knob.

Bags within bags could hold a charge (especially when humdity is low) and if they are disturbed, any excess charge would have to go somewhere. If that somewhere is further inside, the you will have dead parts.

Haha, yeah, I actually tried that once a while back because I figured it would act as a capacitor, and I was right! It was a good lesson because I probably woudl've ended up double-bagging a punctured anti-static bag in the future if I didn't know any better.

I do have a small supply of anti-static bags that I too have collected from just buying stuff, but I just thought it might be nice to get a box just because they're cheap and just in case I end up selling tons of my spare parts. I guess they're all pretty much the same, but I'm not going to buy the clear ones, haha!

I thought that the metal-coated bags were always the best, but then an engineer warned me to not to lay a PC board on top of one because most have a metal coating only on the inside ("metal in") and can build up static on the outside, and only "metal out" bags are coated on both the inside and outside.

The LinkSys stuff I bought came in fancy bags made of pink bubble wrap coated with a black carbon plastic on the outside. Does that mean the pink plastic itself can be inadequate?

I would think so since there would be nowhere for the static charge to go should a static buildup exist.

a bag is a bag

Trombe said:

Zip loc bags do me well

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Same here. I don't move the Stuff in baggies a lot, so it doesn't do any harm.

"Why do they ship static RAM in an anti-static bag? Sounds fishy to me!"