About 15 minutes ago, I adjusted a blanket covering my legs (it's kind of cold in here) and picked up a huge static charge. I reached for the mouse and ZAP I could feel a huge spark come from my thumb and go into the mouse.
For some unrelated reason the thumb buttons quit working....Funny.
Now, electrically, is the only casualty likely to be the mouse? I am thinking that the static charge arced in and fried some weedy little IC that the thumb button switch is wired directly to (probably goes right to a couple pins on the chip). And the mouse has a whole circuit board with other ICs, ending up in a chip that communicates on the USB cable with my host machine.
Is there any real chance that the static charge could have gone down the USB cable and into my motherboard? I'm thinking not, that the mouse soaked up the jolt (and the rest of the mouse works fine - only the thumb buttons are down). But I'd like the opinion of some more folks out there, maybe one of you reading this knows something about electronics repair/electrical engineering and has a more definitive answer.
One other comment : this is why I have a spare mouse :biggrin:
And a spare keyboard, and a second monitor, and a whole spare desktop computer...nothing is worse than downtime to me.
Wonder if I should RMA it to Logitech. Technically the mouse should be able to tolerate ESD to it's outer casing - it should have had internal grounded shields to protect itself from such events. Or conductive paint, or something. An occasional static shock from a user is not an unreasonable thing for a mouse to tolerate - that's the whole reason my computer is in a big grounded metal box.
For some unrelated reason the thumb buttons quit working....Funny.
Now, electrically, is the only casualty likely to be the mouse? I am thinking that the static charge arced in and fried some weedy little IC that the thumb button switch is wired directly to (probably goes right to a couple pins on the chip). And the mouse has a whole circuit board with other ICs, ending up in a chip that communicates on the USB cable with my host machine.
Is there any real chance that the static charge could have gone down the USB cable and into my motherboard? I'm thinking not, that the mouse soaked up the jolt (and the rest of the mouse works fine - only the thumb buttons are down). But I'd like the opinion of some more folks out there, maybe one of you reading this knows something about electronics repair/electrical engineering and has a more definitive answer.
One other comment : this is why I have a spare mouse :biggrin:
And a spare keyboard, and a second monitor, and a whole spare desktop computer...nothing is worse than downtime to me.
Wonder if I should RMA it to Logitech. Technically the mouse should be able to tolerate ESD to it's outer casing - it should have had internal grounded shields to protect itself from such events. Or conductive paint, or something. An occasional static shock from a user is not an unreasonable thing for a mouse to tolerate - that's the whole reason my computer is in a big grounded metal box.
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