ESD Flooring, My company is building a new facility and we plan to install 15K sq' of ESD flooring for PCB assembly.

15K sqft sounds like a good size facility, you should have someone that knows or learns about ESD and owns it. Check Out esd . org, ipc . org, smta . org for standards & info. Tile vs Epoxy = Tile's better but much higher initial cost. Pay attention to the installation surface flatness and prep requirements. Go with an established ESD Materials provider, there's still so called ESD experts popping up that are just resellers. Testing is easy and not costly. Both types need to be maintained so ask what the recommended refinish rate is, the time and cost of materials to perform it and how it's done without moving equipment.

This message was posted the Electronics Forum @ SMTA

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Where is your company located and what is your budget?

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If you decide on an epoxy floor, make sure you use a contractor that is experienced with installing ESD epoxy floors. The epoxy needs to be continuously mixed to keep the media consistent throughout. We had a contractor who failed to do that, and when we went back and measured our floors the conductivity was sporadic. As the media sits in the bucket, gravity pulls it to the bottom. Thankfully our floor still passed the ESD testing, but it was definitely a lesson learned.

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