Creating a Safe Working Area

Another key to safety is a having a good working environment. There’s no need for you to dedicate a whole
room or garage to building a PC, but having a good workspace makes the job of building a PC safer and easier. Figure 1-1 shows the wrong environment for building a PC, and Figure 1-2 shows the right one.

Here are the top requirements of a good, safe working area:

• Have an assigned work space and work area. Pick out the spot where you are going to work. Your work area is the place you’re going to be working in (corner of the living room, kitchen counter, bench in the garage), while the work space is the area you are going to be moving about in when working in the work area.

• Find a large enough work area. The smallest work area we recommend is 3 ft by 2 ft. A table or bench is ideal. Ideally, you should be able to leave things on the bench or tablefor several hours of days until you are finished. If this isn’t possible, then make sure you have a space that you can pack everything away into when you’re done for the day.

 Throw a dust sheet over the project when you’re not working on it to keep contamination to a minimum.

• Do not eat or drink around the PC as it is being built. A spilled soda or a poorly placedpeanut butter and jelly sandwich can cause a major setback, not to mention damage.

• Set up a bright and well lit work area. Natural lighting is best because it is diffuse anddoesn’t cast harsh, dark shadows, but artificial lighting will do if you can’t work near abright window. Augment what lighting you have present with a good flashlight.

• Be sure to have a power outlet nearby. Ideally, it should have a good grounding point nearby too (such as a water pipe or radiator).

• Avoid working on carpeted surfaces, if possible. A carpeted work area increases the static electricity that you generate when walking about. However, if you can’t avoid this, don’t worry, we’ll show you how you can deal with static charge build-up in the section “Electrostatic Discharge (ESD)” later in this chapter.

• Cover the work area with white paper. This makes it easier to see things like little screws when you drop them. Also, the white encourages you to be tidy and others to keep away!

• Keep children and pets out of the work space.We agree that pets in the work space are a bad idea for a variety of reasons, but kids might be interested in what’s going on, and both you and your child might find the PC-building process interesting and educational. If so, then a good idea is to set up an observation area where they can watch what’s going on in safety and without getting in the way, messing about with things, or stepping on expensive electronics.

• Keep all the tools and equipment you will need close at hand in the work area. The less you walk about, the less likely you are to knock stuff over or trip. Building a PC involves having cables and boxes in and around the work area. Be careful that these aren’t in places where you can trip over them.

• Keep the work area tidy and clean and free from liquids. Liquids are especially nasty, as a small amount of liquid can go very far indeed!

• Keep a small first aid kit and fire extinguisher nearby—just in case! Outfit your first aid kit to deal with small cuts, and make sure that you have plenty of bandages in the kit!