How to look after your CMOS chips - with ordinary kitchen or garage stuff

Your CMOS chips are delicate little beasts - in particular, they're very sensitive to static electricity!  You really don't want this happening..

The trouble is, those nano-sized tracks inside them are easily damaged by even quite small currents sparking between them, & since the static from you, your clothes, the environment generally, is of the order of several thousand Volts, it doesn't take much to cause a spark between tracks, which are burnt out by the discharge & so that/those track(s) is/are useless & irreparable.

My little CMOS EEPROM chip is one of those, & the way to safeguard them is to:
   short-circuit all the pins to each other! 
That's why you see them "plugged" into tinfoil, conductive foam & the like.  I spent the princely sum of (ta-DA!)..

$2 - one spectacles case;
$2 - roll of heavy duty kitchen aluminium foil;
$2 - bath sponge;
---
..$6 at the local '2N5' shop in Great King St (near Countdown)..

..& here's a pikkie of the finished product!

Inside the lid you can see a pair of plastic tweezers for handling CMOS chips, & a little chip safe & sound in its protective CMOS-motel.

You've prob'ly got stuff like this @ home: kitchen foil (i folded it 2-3 times), old bath sponge (you can snip a lump off your existing one), & any small container  - doesn't really matter what it is..  & you have a (free!) CMOS chip-carrier. 

They'll be perfectly safe in there (unless you put your electrically grubby paws on them & kark them before they get their chance to Shine!) until it's time for them to Do Their Stuff!

On the right you can see another device for safeguarding your CMOS chips.

You can buy these things, with fancy conductive foam wristbands, but i made this one, coz i happened to have this peice of wire with a crocodile clip on it, so i stripped the other end & connected that to the EARTH terminal - the silvery BOTTOM one in the photo - don't do this unless you KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING!

230Volts AC up your arm won't leave you feeling on top of the world (unless that's how high you jump)!!!

The crocodile clip attaches to my (sterling silver - good conductor) bangle.  
Failing that, a stainless steel pot-scrub (another kitchen item) would make a useful 'hand-wipe';   very dry hands aren't good.