What is ESD footwear tester?

An ESD footwear tester is an instrument used to test and verify verify the electrostatic discharge (ESD) resistance of footwear such shoes and heel grounders/straps. Its primary purpose is to ensure that the electrical resistance of the footwear worn by personnel is within the specified range, preventing the accumulation of static electricity and the associated risks of electrostatic discharge.

What is ESD footwear?

ESD footwear refers to a specialized type of footwear designed for electrostatic discharge (ESD) control. The main categories of ESD footwear include:

1. ESD shoes: These shoes have good conductive properties to effectively dissipate static electricity from the human body.
2. ESD shoe soles/insoles: These conductive shoe soles or insoles can be used in conjunction with ESD shoes to further enhance static electricity control.
3. ESD shoe covers: These shoe covers can be worn over regular shoes to provide static control capabilities for footwear without inherent ESD protection.
4. ESD heel straps(heel grounder/foot grounder): These conductive ankle straps can be worn to quickly discharge static electricity from the body.

How to test ESD shoes?

Using an ESD footwear tester allows you to quickly and conveniently test the grounding effectiveness of ESD shoes, ensuring the effectiveness of static control measures.

1. Ground the ESD footwear tester to a reliable ground point.
2. Put on the ESD shoes, ensuring good skin contact.
3. Stand on the Dual foot plate.
4. Press the test button and observe the reading on the display.
5. The reading should be 750 Kiloohms to 35 megohms, indicating good grounding performance.
6. Readings outside this range mean the shoes need replacement or repair.

By using an ESD Defender personnel grounding Tester, the test data can be automatically collected and maintained as documentation.

How do I test my ESD strap?

When testing ESD footwear (such as foot grounders or ESD shoes) with an ESD combo tester, a “High fail” result often leads users to assume that the footwear does not meet specifications or that the testing device is malfunctioning. However, in most cases, the test value simply lies between the upper limit of the combo tester’s shoe test and the actual resistance of the ESD footwear. This does not necessarily indicate that the footwear is non-compliant.

Taking the ESD Combo Tester G4 as an example, the factory default setting for the High Limit Resistance is 35 Megaohms(It can be adjusted to 10 Megaohms, 100 Megaohms, or 1 Gigohm, depending on the testing needs).

To obtain the accurate resistance of the ESD footwear, it is advisable to follow up with the ESD Defender Surface Resistance Meter 19290 for further measurement.

How often should ESD footwear be tested?

ESD (Electrostatic Discharge) footwear and wrist straps should be checked daily to ensure that the personal grounding path is effective, preventing static electricity from damaging ESD sensitive devices.

ESD Defender combo test station can quickly perform test for both the wrist strap and the footwear simultaneously, providing an efficient solution without the need for personnel monitoring.

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