I thought I’d share this critical piece of hardware for my sim setup. I live in a dry climate, and often get static buildup when rising or sitting on my office chair. I attached this metal plate underneatch my desk as shown, and the wire goes to the ground plug adapter I got from Amazon.
The main issue this is solving is that when I’m “staticky” and I put my hands on my Boeing TM Yoke, I naturally touch the small screw on the left side of the yoke, and the Zap can trigger a USB disconnect/connect event, often causing the sim to momentarily freeze. So I make it a habit, particularly in the winter, to touch the plate when I stand or sit.
Excellent advice. I have the same problem and use full on antistatic mats with ground bleed wires on my desk under my keyboard and on my workbench.
Static shocks are tough on electronics. There’s protection circuitry built in on most electronics but they can only do so much.
It’s fun to look at micrographs of static damage. It’s like a bomb has gone off. Some parts can continue to work but may be more susceptible to failure, can cause errors and lockups, and so on. Damage accumulates and it’s just a decline to eventual failure.
One thing, though. Just running a grounded wire to a metal plate actually introduces a little danger. If you get across live AC and a ground wire/plate, there is no safe current limit and you can be shocked or even killed under the worst circumstances. Static grounding systems have a 1 or 10 megohm resistor in series with the touch pad so even with direct contact of a live wire, currents aren’t deadly.
