Bulid a Faraday Cage - EMP electromagnetic pulse

Build a Faraday Cage to protect your electronics from an EMP blast also known as a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) An electromagnetic pulse can destroy electronic equipment. Watch for my next video on what an EMP blast is.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Build
• Faraday
• Cage
• EMP
• electromagnetic
• pulse
• HEMP

[OneFabFisher]

what about the ground, will the ground become energized next to the ground? Can the unit be on the same ground that it is grounded to?

[HowIPrepare]

Just like a lighting bolt an emp will follow the easiest path. In basic terms lighting like an emp is seeking ground. The small foot print of the cage is not enough contact. Also the reason we use an eight foot ground rod is that we will reach moist soil. Just putting your cage on the dry ground is just not good enough. Good question.

[XEPER888888888888888]

What does the second part of the video do? the part with the copper wire, is that just for the radio? I wanna build this, but im just gunna store my laptop i spent my hard earned $ on. Will this work for computers?

[w0tm]

@NobodyOwesYouAnythin why the cardboard? just make sure batteries don't short or touch metal or they will discharge. 31 gallon galvanized steel trash cans from Home Depot work great! No need to ground. Test by putting radio turned all the way up in the bottom then put the lid on. Lid adds about 10 decibel of attentuation. Try everything from AM radio to cell phone to cover full frequency range. Lot of work when a stop at Home Depot takes ten minutes, I have five.

[charlie8071]

in small faraday cages a wire running to a ground is likely to just function as an antenna, and possibly as a very efficient antenna for gathering EMP. Grounding for EMP is a very specialized area of technology. In fact, grounding for just about any application other than simple static discharge or some basic kinds of electrical safety are also very specialized areas of technology.

[ts1435]

Are you comprimising the faraday cage when you screwed the flattened grounding rod to the frame of the shelf with metal screws? This always the metal screws inside you cage? That is like running wire inside the cage? Help me here. Just a mechanical engineer.  Tim

[bluebankai061464]

Can someone tell me in baby words what does ground mean in electronic terms

Exp. "He said grounding was not required

[NobodyOwesYouAnythin]

I just built my Faraday cage out of a new 31 gallon galvanized steel garbage can, lined with cardboard in 20 minutes. Works like a charm too. And just to be on the safe side, check the lid and sides of the can for holes. If you find them, take a piece of thick aluminum or something like Turkey Pan foil and tape it over the holes. Then line with the cardboard; under the lid, at the bottom of the can and around the inside of the can, in that order works best actually. Hurry, We dont have much time

[string11]

Faraday himself said grounding was not required and his cage experiments were done insulated, not grounded.

[DerekL337]

Again: this WILL NOT WORK against an EMP resulting from an upper-atmospheric nuclear blast. It will block the longer-wave radiation (see: FM radio band) but plenty of other frequencies can pass straight through this.

[DerekL337]

@Kurwynd More than likely, what you refer to was actually intended to protect against RFI (Radio Frequency Interference) since: 1. A lot of military equipment is not particularly hardened against EMP. 2. If you could see through the screen, any EMR with a shorter wavelength than light would pass right through. 3. A minesweeper is delicate electronics. Stray RFI could give a false positive or, worse, potentially a false negative.

Similar screens are commonly used to attenuate interference.