The magic EMP-proof box

A Faraday cage is going to block cell phones and radio put one around at town and it would be isolated.

I’m trying to understand the reason for building a Faraday cage. If an EMP attack takes out the power grid and fries most electrical equipment, what would you use your computer to do? There would be no internet; cell phones wouldn’t work; all utilities would cease. Even if I have solar cells to recharge batteries, what would I do with my Faraday-protected cell phone? I’ve seen ingenious plans for saving electronics, but what is the goal? I’d appreciate a serious response, because I just don’t get it.

I built a Faraday cage a couple years ago after I retired. Needed something to do. I utilized an old metal shelf I had laying around. Wrapped it in window screen wire, built a screen door for it, and grounded it. Tested it by placing a radio inside and then closed the door. It worked, nothing but static came from the radio with door closed. Had some friends that thought I was nuts (most of them), none-the-less they thought it was pretty cool. Located it in my garage and I have all my electronic equipment in it. Even though I will probably not be around because of what we all know causes of an EMP it was still fun to build and test. Great conversation and educational piece.

Aren’t the common anti-static bags that sensitive computer peripherals (such as RAM and hard drives) come in, a type of Faraday cage? If so, I could just buy various sizes and store my external backup drive in it and my laptop when not in use, etc. Here is an example of the type bag I am referring to: http://www.extrapackaging.com/anti-static/zippered.php

Regardless of what you do to protect yourself and your family, do you really think you have much of a chance for survival if you live in or near a big city? There are some movies out there that suggest you don’t really have a prayer any more than someone else. Let’s be realistic. Do you have access to a chopper to fly you elsewhere? Do you have a car like the POTUS does to protect him in hostile countries? Do you have an underground bunker you can safely live in that the neighbors don’t know about, and will you or someone in your family go nuts waiting for the moment to exit? AND, if you don’t have a gun, do you think slingshots, pots and pans and baseball bat’s are going to save you? Come on. Think about it. If you can’t handle chaos, and there will be chaos, you are doomed. Examples of what some have suggested. Grow your own food. Catch and save water. Have a pool for fish. If you live in an apartment, where are you going to do this? I know people that currently live in the country, AND THEY DON’T FEEL SAFE. Only solution is to pray, and maybe it will come out alright for you. There are crowded and blocked freeways in normal times. Do you remember the videos showing cars stacked up exiting from New Orleans? And, do you remember that people died there because they couldn’t escape, and the stadium they went to was a filthy mess? Guns were confiscated. People killed people. Put that on a massive scale and tell me you have all of that covered. Anyway, good luck.

Most likely, you already have a small Faraday cage in your home. It’s the shielding in a microwave oven so that the microwaves don’t escape and cook your brains. (In the 1980s an associate of mine told me that a state could build a really cheap, safe means of execution by simply using a larger microwave oven with the interlock disabled, since it “cooks” from the inside out, and because the brain has no pain receptors, it would simply destroy the person’s brain and they’d never feel a thing, they’d just die.

In reading all this on EMP attacks from various entities, I find that unless one is wealthy enough for two of everything you want to “save” you might as well give up. I cannot run my computer, cell phone or anything else fast enough to the Faraday unit to save it. As I do not know when this will occur and doubt there will be much if any warning, my electronics would only be safe if I stored them in the cage and if I was blessed enough to have the EMP come when I was not using the items. Sorry to rain on your stuff but on my limited budget I need to be practical. Thanks for continuing to send information.

Well casing is one of the very best grounds. However, any ground can be overpowered by high energy electricity! We test high-energy electric fence ground
rods by leaning a few steel fence posts on the hot wire and then touching a ground rod while touch the ground with your other hand. You keep adding more
ground rods until you are no longer getting zapped!
I would say grounding a truly monstrous amount of energy would be impossible.

Hi, Eric;

Sorry, quick disconnects wont help a bit unless you can unplug them faster than light, and I really doubt it. It MIGHT help to use shielded wire like the RG-8 or RG-58 coax used by Ham radio operators for antennas – then run it through metal pipe, such as electrical EMT – and solidly ground ALL pipes & shields! Also, a grounded.metal screen like “Hardware cloth” over your photocells and ground the generator case. Keep all these grounds separate from the power wiring. Then keep your electronics in a grounded Faraday shield, and use EMP-rated lightning arrestors on all wiring going into the shielded area. This MAY provide protection against an EMP, but nobody can guarantee it.

Good luck & God Bless!

Save your burnt-out microwave ovens! Get them from neighbors. Pick them up at the curb.
They are designed to keep a lot of energy in the box, so surely they can keep it out. I keep things like inverters, radios, etc. in mine. A cheap tablet full of pdf files on various subjects is next.

foilback wallpaper and foilbacked insulation is gonna do the trick. r make a runn for the doctors offices xray room with your pc in one hand the tv in the other and the frig strapped to your back if your gonna be there a while in case of martian attack

Yes an old wicrowave will work despite it’s ‘window’! Look carefully at/into that window, you will see that it contains a screen. (Actually a perforated [metal] plate.) It allows you to see into but not let the microwaves out.
An EMP is a very short duration PULSE, containing many, many frequencies, most of them fairly short (high in frequency,) hence screening will work. Metal screening is good, in order of conductance ability: Gold, (expensive!) Silver (also expensive!) Copper, (good, also inexpensive, when compaired to the previous metals!) Aluminum (nearly as good as copper, also inexpensive.) and finally Iron (and Steel) ( also fairly inexpensive.)
Aluminum and steel can be obtained as sheets. Aluminum, copper and steel can be obtained as screening. Copper screening is somewhat more expensive than Aluminum and usually harder to find locally.
For CME’s, being from a more natural source, the “Pulse” is made up of longer wave radio frequencies so chicken wire Might work. I think that a better choice would be ‘hardware cloth.’
Hardware cloth can be gotten at local big box and many local hardware stores in 1/4″ and/or 1/2″ mesh (holes.) Hardware cloth is much stiffer than screening.
To use either screening or sheeting, any opening (doorway) must be bonded (a couple of jumpers across the pivot [hinge] side and a solid contact all the way around. (? Maybe use metal ‘V’ weatherstripping all the way around the door to make a good electrical connection?)
Inside, wood (treated to preserve it) to provide insulation/distance from the walls and make your shelving from.
Screening or hardware cloth is good for small areas, up to a room. Sheetmetal can be used for room sized or larger. Every joint must be almost a continuous bond.
Do Not Forget To GROUND the sheet metal or screening.

Hi Frank,

I have heard two differing sides to the faraday box idea. One says that you have to ground it with a length of grounding that reaches your area’s water table and the other that says you do not have to ground it. Of course the faraday box or faraday cage is a metal enclosure to protect items inside from an EMP but the inside must be insulated from the outside metal ‘skin’ of the faraday box. Nothing you want protected inside a faraday box can be touching the metal outside of the box. Such insulation can be rubber, wood or whatever non-conducting material so that items inside the box does not touch the metal skin of the cage. Such things as a micro wave with its window would be a poor choice for a faraday box, but a washing machine, dryer or a refrigerator would be OK because of their exterior metal skin.

I have also heard that EMP waves are long waves not short waves. The long waves of an EMP would therefore not penetrate something like chicken wire. If you had enough chicken wire you could completely enclose say a car.

Either way on the grounding I have double faraday boxes for my zip drives. I insulated a small metal box put the zip drives into it and put them into a metal safe. Double your protection.

The problem with the differing ideas about faraday boxes is that most of the information about EMPs is classified military information. So we don’t really know the info except from an electronics expert and even then they can only speculate on the information that the military has and how to protect from it.

And if you are trusting in a surge protector forget about it even the best surge protector is no match for an EMP. Then there is the resulting fires that an EMP could cause. electrical fires could easily result from an EMP. Imagine fire coming out of each outlet in your home. Remember the story goes that while Carrington may have observed that massive solar flare in 1859 there were telegraph stations that sparked and started fires on desktop papers where the telegraph tappers were located. imagine how many fires may occur in a city when an EMP hits.

I know that this is fear based info but maybe fear is a motivator for change and preparedness.

Bob M

We have known the effects of EMP for over 20 years. “We” I mean the holders of Amateur Radio licenses, and participants in the Military Auxilary Radio System. A strong EMP device detonated at more than 200 miles above the Central U.S. can and will disable anything with a transistor, or diode. That means the power grid we all depend upon, and every piece of electronic gear you or your town, county, state, or Country uses from coast to coast. Anything that is not rated as EMP protected will be useless to you. Only vacuum tube operated equipment that has no transistors, diodes, or integrated circuits in them will be usable.

If you put necessary receivers, entertainment, or communications gear into a steel box that has a tight lid, then cover the seams with adhesive aluminum tape, then that gear will survive the attack. A new aluminum or steel garbage can sealed the same way will work. DO NOT ground the box or can to an earth ground, or have it attached to any metallic object. Having it stand on concrete, wood, or a piece of dry plywood will isolate it very well. ALWAYS make sure you wait at least 24 hours before you unseal your communications gear in case of further attacks. If you want a very good example of what will ensue after an EMP attack, read the book “One Second After”, by William Forstchen. The Author has it VERY right. I keep two sets of everything in my “Faraday Cage”, so I can unseal it once to get only the necessary gear out, then if attacked again several days or weeks later, I still will have spares sealed away.

BTW David, wavelength has nothing to do with EMP. The EMP tests in the 50’s covered the whole radio spectrum from VLF into the Gigahertz range. Some EMP tests were enough to melt generators, transmission lines, and power transformers to slag. Radio transmitters, receivers or transceivers inside bunkers almost melted due to the heat created by the transistor/diode operated power supplies in them (PASS transistors and diode rectifiers, or the new switch mode power supplies?).
I wish you Luck!

Of course the government knows about EMP and Faraday Cages. Their protection devices are called “Submarines”

This is from the Survivalistblog.net and is pretty informative
EMP, CME, Grounding, and the Faraday Cage.

by Guest Blogger on January 3, 2013 · 112 comments

This guest post by blogRot and entry in our non-fiction writing contest.

This is a bubba-fied explanation of what it is, what it does, and how to build an effective one. If you’re going to cite this as a source in your college research paper, you’re nuts.

Electromagnetic Pulse (aka EMP) or a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) from our sun produce high powered electromagnetic ‘rays’ that are very damaging to electrical and electronics based equipment.

Rubbing your bare feet across the carpet generates a significant electro static potential that you feel when you then touch something metal like a door handle – that spark is a discharge of roughly 4,000 volts to 35,000 volts. Lightning cracks across the sky are 10,000 volts and more . YES, the voltages created from you rubbing your feet and lightning is roughly the same but there is an ‘umph’ factor behind the voltages that I could explain but do not want to have anyone’s eyes cross. Ever tried to heat up some Earl Grey with your DW’s gold trim porcelain tea cups in the microwave? Did you notice the fireworks from that boneheaded move? For comparison EMP is both similar and different to the above but much more powerful the closer to ground zero one is, and CME could not only be up to EMP powerful but is also sustained – the Earth could be in the sun’s blast zone for hours or days whilst an EMP burst is miliseconds. EMP from a nuclear detonation can still be higher than 100,000 volts hundreds of miles away.

What this electromagnetic energy does is to create (‘induce’) energy potential (voltage) in equipment even when it is not plugged in. This is bad, as not only is this not controlled (like plugging something in backwards the energy doesn’t go in the correct pathways and it burns up) but also that that energy could very easily exceed tolerances of the components of the equipment – something as low as 30V inducement could irreparably damage electronics. And electronics are everywhere, and are needed for/included in electrical systems like your car, generators, central air conditioners, etc. If that electronic control goes kaput it is hard if not impossible to get that electrical system it controls/manages to work. Furthermore, susceptibility of electronic memory components needs to be considered: even if the electronic memory component physically survives the inducement there is a strong chance that the critical programming codes it contains may be altered enough to ‘break’ it! Your Kindle or laptop may survive undamaged but the software it needs to power up and run would be corrupted enough to make it useless and its data irretrievable.

To be honest, until there is a detailed study of a modern day nuclear detonation near a population center I do not believe the magnitude of EMP effects are truly understood, anticipated or expected – I can only fantasize about what the results are and believed that most experts just don’t know every cause-and-effect nor the true extent of the damage (the good-stuff data is Classified). Yeah, there was Project Starfish Prime in Hawaii, but that was more of an incidental byproduct and not specifically set up to be monitored – “uugh… Honolulu just called and said their streetlights all went out; did we just do that? Yes, but let’s call it part of a study so Congress will fund it. Ka-ching!” I do recognize EMPs and CME events as being catastrophic no matter what.

So how does one protect his precious ham radio, her dc/ac inverter, or their computer from these high energy discharge events? While some special equipment can be ‘hardened’ by design the chances of you acquiring this military-grade engineering or old-school manufacturing is not expected. Automobiles and airplanes used to be made without electronics; today nearly everything is and today’s products are soundly engineered using the least amount of material necessary in its construction. Great for cost savings, but no wiggle room for extra capacity. Grandpa’s wire wound antenna I inherited in his vacuum-tube based radio weighs more than my entertainment center – this is the old-school manufacturing that I am referring to. The wiring in those old electrical systems would be considered over-engineered in today’s standards; they were bigger back then and those bigger wires can conduct more power through them before overheating and burning out. Hardening and modern RF shielding is a whole ‘nuther bag of beans topic-wise, and this is just a brief snippet to show contrast to the other option.

…and that other option is to Shield it. There is a reason UFO nutters wear tinfoil hats – it is actually sound physics in shielding from electrical waves; however, unless it is properly Grounded then it is useless. So do you truly know what ‘grounding’ is?

Earth ground is special in that it is ASSUMED to be able to absorb an unlimited amount of Current without changing its potential (Voltage). Another way of saying it is that earth ground is always ASSUMED to have zero volts, no matter how much current/power it is subjected to. Electromagnetic radiation continues to propagate until dissipated through earth ground… err… it travels until stopped by the earth.

Let us assume the equipment is plugged into the wall outlet and is exposed to EMP. This means that is being zapped and induced with ~100,000 volts of energy, more than likely turning whatever was plugged in into a heavy paperweight. Light bulbs will explode, electronics will pop n fizzle, and if it was already running then it may catch fire. Not to mention that the power lines are already saturated with its own induced energy, causing further mayhem and destruction. “But I had it turned OFF” you say; well, unfortunately most On/Off switches only opens one leg of the circuit loop so that induced power will flow through the ‘neutral’ just like if it was running (and destroying it) or it will flow at the speed of light through the ‘hot’ and then to another piece of equipment you have running and THEN back to earth ground. It still go ‘poof’. Or it may even arc the distance across the leads of the On/Off switch. Multiply this effect by all of the items you have plugged into the walls of your house, then all of the houses tied in to your electrical grid. Many, many ‘poofs’. Even if the mains breaker on your house trips you’re still left with 100,000v inducement in the house wiring.

“So just leaving it unplugged will protect it, right,” you ask? Not really. Let us say you’ve got a nice 1000W dc inverter tucked away on a shelf. It will still get zapped by 100,000 volts, but that induced energy potential doesn’t go anywhere until that energy potential is great enough to overcome the resistance of air(!) to get to Ground. And since we know from the paragraphs waaaay up there at the beginning that lighting can arc through air at somewhere around 10,000, we’re still turning that nice 1000W inverter into a paperweight as that induced energy somehow, someway discharges itself to ground. Or it might not immediately, and stay at 100,000 volts potential; but then you touch it… ouch, or plug it in.. ‘poof’.

“But I want my eyes even further crossed – what else you got?” You are masochistic, my friend. Let us continue to Shielding.

Electromagnetic radiation wants to go to earth Ground – it is its destiny, that’s its sole purpose in the universe, its feelings would be hurt if it couldn’t. To protect equipment we either need to “hide” it ten feet or more underground or “shield” it before the energy waves find it. Hiding doesn’t mean putting it in the basement or the storm cellar – you need at least ten feet of earth above your abode; we’re talking underground bunkers here. By surrounding it with – but not touching – a grounded conductive enclosure the electromagnetic waves and/or static discharges are harmlessly shunted around the sides of the enclosure. Some dead dude name Benjamin Franklin (I’ve never heard of him either) noted as the discoverer of this but some other dead dude named Faraday codified it, thusly the Faraday Cage.

Almost anything can be made in to an effective faraday cage, provided it is:

conductive (“Yay!” screams the tinfoil hat crowd),
properly Earth Grounded (“Hissss!” boos the tinfoils),
adequately surrounds whatever is trying to be enclosed (“Hey, we need to breathe yo!” the tinfoils’ excuse is),
whatever is inside is sufficiently insulated from this cage. (“I got nothing.” Me either.)

Microwave ovens are designed and built as faraday cages and continue to function as such even if it doesn’t work anymore. Ever loose cell phone reception in an elevator? That is the faraday cage effect my friend. A grounded safe or vault. Properly grounded tinfoil around a box. You can use a military surplus ammunition can, drill and tap a hole, screw in a lugged ground wire and clip it to the metal shelf support next to the other ammunition cans you’re using as such, and tie that shelf into earth ground.

“But what about using bird cages, chicken wire, and/or DW’s heirloom spaghetti strainer bowl?” Depends, and this is where the lack of public information comes in to play. The spacing of the electromagnetic permeable conduits acts as a wave-guide of sorts and determines what frequency of electromagnetic radiation is rejected, attenuated or passed. WAIT- Please don’t leave, I didn’t mean to get too technical! Think of an EMP burst as a golf ball passing through a faraday minefield of putting holes of different sizes – too small a hole and the ball will roll over it and too big a hole the ball will bounce out and continue on. Complicate that further by not knowing what size of the golf ball is to begin with. So it might just be that the hole spacing in a bird cage and chicken wire won’t be able shield out enough of the EMP. I can’t say for sure that these materials would be 100% effective against EMP or CME events, but something is better than nothing and this something is *significant*. I use chicken wire over certain things I’ve got in the shed; if you think the holes are too widely spaced then add another wrap around it. There is no Prepper Law that says you can’t have DW’s spaghetti strainer covered by chicken wire over a bird cage. Solid cage is best, next is the smaller the spacing of the holes the better off you are. Just make sure whatever you use is properly grounded to earth ground.

“So what does properly earth grounded mean?” A good earth ground is a conductive rod that is driven into the ground 10 feet or so – and the depth is dependent on where the damp earth starts; Texas building code is 10 feet so that’s what I stuck to. The licensed electricians I work with say some houses have copper plumbing that acts as the earth ground. The shield has to be connected to it and you need to make sure the grounding wire is thick enough to handle the ‘funneled’ energy (if you’re covering an entire safe room then tiny 24ga speaker wire will not be sufficient – use a battery jumper cable) and makes a good, solid contact to whatever earth ground you are using as well as the shielding material.

“Properly insulated?” If the equipment you want to shield is actually touching the cage then there is a conductive path for the energy burst to follow that could compromise your equipment; it becomes part of the shield therefore it is fully exposed. Put that inverter in a cardboard box, wrap it in a garbage bag, then put it in that properly grounded junky microwave. Throw in a desiccant bag for good measure.

“’Conductive’; you keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Copper is the best common material that conducts electricity and the higher the content of the copper in the conductor the better it does that job. Aluminum (probably the worst), steel, brass, tinfoil and other commonly available alloys do work but are not as efficient as copper. But those *do* work as conductors, so don’t disregard them if that’s what you’ve got available.

EMP or CME related puns welcome in the comments; I enjoy electrifying conversations. (<- see what I did there? Hah! I kill me!)

Hello, I was wondering why a person cant just use a metal garbage can for small electronic devices, I don’t understand why we have to spend a Lot of $ to have a Faraday cage…

I have a pacemaker. How will an EMP effect it? How do I protect myself?

I’ve heard that a problem from EMP can also come from solar flares. This year there’s supposed to be some serious solar flare activity, part of a cycle in the sun’s activities. Last time this cycle happened it knocked out the telegraph system. Now we have even more electronics than then. So, foreign countries aren’t our only possible source of problems from this. Good to be as prepared as possible. So, a metal storge shed wouldn’t be sufficient to deflect an EMP? It has to be copper mesh? Reminds me of the movie “Enemy of the State”.

I wrapped my house in a radiative barrier that keeps the bricks from radiating heat inside. However, this metallic Mylar film also acts as a Faraday cage. One item to note, is that I can not get phone calls inside the house unless my phone is by a window. It also has protected my house electronics from 3 lightning strikes. This is not a plug for this specific product, but to give the idea that any continuous house wrap that is metallic, is in essence a Faraday cage. By the way, the wrap is about R-19 for radiation and very useful for housing in hot locations trying to keep as much heat out as possible. I am not sure it would be a good fit for cold climates. It also works much better with an airspace to allow the radiated heat to escape..such as in brick facade construction, or siding with vertical nailing slats.

http://www.radiantbarrier.com/house-wrap.htm

In 1996 I worked on a construction project for the development of the F-22 Stealth Fighter. Two of the structures we built had for paint on the interior walls a layer that was copper and a percentage of 99.9% pure silver. We were told that this was just like the coating inside a microwave oven to contain radiation, but in this case was to shield the building from spy satellites. The ceiling and walls were painted with this paint, and a conductivity test was administered for quality control. I know wonder if this was also in preparation for EMP’s as well as to shield from spy satellites.

So I am just wondering—maybe put your laptop in your microwave to keep it safe??

Really interesting. I have known nothing about the EMP.

Just one more tool of the New World Order. they will not be effected n thier underground cities. They can now even chnage the weather with thier HARP system. You would think that the 6.5 Billion people that are targeted for extention would be interested in stopping them. But no watchin TV is paramount. And of course the 6p news.

I’ve worked extensively with Faraday cages in the course of my work as an electronics engineer. They are very expensive to make (copper) and any leaks (power input, doors) can make them ineffective in stopping electromagnet waves.They can also be problematic at certain frequencies due to resonance and standing waves.

So what is your product?

Here is good article on North Korea’s effort to make and use super EMP bombs
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/18/inside-ring-north-korean-emp/?page=1