ESD-safe board handling

ESD-safe handling protects inverter circuit boards and other electronic parts from electrostatic discharge, which can damage them beyond repair or destroy the inverter. It applies to any work inside an open device where electronic components, terminals or assemblies could be touched, such as board swaps and retrofitting extra circuit boards. Before you touch any component, ground yourself by touching a grounded enclosure part or another grounded object, and wear an ESD wrist strap the whole time you work on assemblies. Do not touch the PCB unless you need to. Wear suitable protective gear, such as cotton clothing and ESD-rated gloves, and follow the ESD safety regulations. Only use spare boards from sealed, undamaged packaging, because that is the only way to be sure they have no ESD or other damage. When you return a defective assembly, keep it ESD-protected, for example by wrapping it in ESD foil or reusing the packaging the new part came in. The sources give no figures on how well these measures work. One trainer says a wrist strap tied to equipotential bonding minimizes damage, but the real goal is to avoid damage altogether.

<!-- review notes

• sentence 2: support check: partial - Open devices with touchable components/terminals and retrofitting circuit boards and board swaps are covered, but 'any work' and 'assemblies' generalization is somewhat broader than stated.
• sentence 3: support check: partial - Grounding before touching components and wrist strap for all work on assemblies are stated, but 'grounded enclosure part' appears in u26 only as an example and the rest is fine; u33 says wrist straps are advisable only 'if there is any deviation', yet u10/u25 say always — mostly supported with minor nuance.
• sentence 4: support check: partial - Avoiding unnecessary PCB touching, ESD regulations, cotton clothing and ESD gloves are stated, but u20's PPE list is safety glasses/footwear/gloves, and cotton clothing is from the trainer's remarks, not an ESD-rule requirement.
• sentence 7: support check: partial - The trainer's wrist strap remark (minimize damage, better to avoid it) is in u33, but the absence of figures across the sources can't be confirmed from passages, and the strap 'tied to equipotential bonding' is accurate. -->