How To Protect Your Printer Cartridges from Electrostatic Discharge in the Winter Months

Take special care when handling print
cartridges during the winter months.

In the winter months, you must take special care when handling and installing printer cartridges because of the dry winter air. Electrostatic discharge or ESD is harmful to many electronic components, including standard office equipment like computers and printers. ESD happens when a person has accumulated a potential electrical difference - through friction or even dry winter air - and completes a circuit, usually by touching a conductive surface such as metal. This produces an electrical discharge that may be too much for an integrated circuit to handle and thus burns and ruins it, as the flow of electrical current follows the path of least resistance.

Printer cartridges are vulnerable to ESD and thus measures have been created to prevent blowing out cartridges when someone needs to change them. Some measures include adding protection circuitry into the components, anti-static packaging, shielding covers over conductive surfaces, and anti-static devices such as grounding wires or grounding rugs. An external solution exists, so that companies do not have to redesign their products or buy expensive anti-static devices that cease to work when removed.

For printer cartridges, ground rings and spark gaps can be implemented to the exterior of the product. Ground rings work by forcing a new path of least resistance, so ESDs pass by the vulnerable circuits unscathed and dissipate into the printer safely. Spark gaps work by having contact points on the printer cartridge that all connect to several empty spaces, so ESDs readily follow these points to the gaps, where the potential electrical difference is lost when the ESD has to jump these gaps. Ground rings and spark gaps even reduce the chance of ESD during the manufacturing process.

This article about how to protect your printer cartridges from electrostatic discharge was brought to you by IMSinkspot.com