Hot Things
Where there’s electricity, there’s usually heat. A PC that’s been switched on for a few minutes can generate a lot of heat, especially from the power supply, hard drives, and CPU, and this heat can be enough to give you a nasty burn. Getting a burn on the back of your hand while trying to do something can be bad enough, but it can also mean that you drop things or knock against things and cause further damage to your hand or your PC. As a general rule of thumb, if a PC has been switched on for more than 5 minutes, then it’s a good idea to wait 5 minutes before setting to work inside it, and if it’s been on for an hour or more, then wait at least 10 minutes.Taking the side panels off the case will help it to cool down quicker.
If you want to test for hot components, then a good trick is to use the back of your hand. By moving the back of your hand close to the metal surfaces, you have a good, safe way to judge how hot components are. This method is far better than using your fingertips, which you don’t want to burn because you’ll be needing them later, and it’s hard to work with a bandage on!
Sharp Things
The inside of even the best PC case contains a number of sharp metal edges and corners all waiting to catch you. There are some things that you can do to help reduce the number of sharps that are present (check out Chapters 3, “Choosing a Suitable Case and Power Supply,” and 13, “Assembling the Case and Fitting the PSU”), but no matter how carefully you choose a case and how much you try to remove edges, some will still remain (the edges and corners of hard drives are particularly nasty!).
The best advice for working with sharp things? Take care and take your time.Working on a cool PC makes accidents from sharps less likely, too. Snatching your hand away from something hot is the number one cause of PC-related cuts, so it’s another good reason to give the system a cool-down period before setting to work on it.
Spinning Things
Many people are surprised by the number of exposed “spinning” things that are inside a PC. These are fans of one sort of another, and most are quite unlike other fans that you have in your home because many, if not all, have no wire guard to keep your fingers away from them. However, there is little danger to fingers from the fans that live and work inside a PC. All of them will have blades made of light plastic, and while some might be big and spin quite fast (up to a rate of several thousand revolutions per minute), they have little power behind them. You would hardly be able to feel the blades hit you, let alone have them cause you any damage. In reality, the biggest danger from fans is getting your hair or clothing caught up in them. Keep your hair and clothing tidy, and keep them away from fans when they are in operation.
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,
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 table for 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 placed peanut 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 and doesn’t cast harsh, dark shadows, but artificial lighting will do if you can’t work near a bright 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!
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