I took on a small project this evening, and it was dead simple… I have been thinking about building a faraday cage for my small electronics, or the small electronics I am going to want in the event of an EMP. I was at the Army Surplus store in Hackansack, NJ the other day, and they had some larger ammo cans. I took the Ammo can this evening, lined it with cardboard, because your electronics should not be touching the metal, and then realized both my Asus netbook and my iPad would fit in the box, as well as my:
- Midland Walkie Talkies,
- Small Maglite Flashlight with multiple modes,
- Mini Cassette Recorder with one Cassette,
- my old iPod with my music library loaded on it,
- Eton Emergency Crank / Solar Radio
- Soon my Portable Midland CB Radio
- Old Digital Camera
- Small ziplock of plug accessories,
The Budget Faraday Cage, holds a surprisingly substantial number of electronics, and was a pleasant surprise. Now I need an old steel file cabinet so that I can put my Duracell Emergency Battery Pack in their to keep it from getting hit by an EMP, and use it as an ad-hoc Faraday Cage for larger items…
My husband built a faraday cage about a month ago using an old metal Coca cola cooler we have. He put some car parts in there thinking if an EMP damaged the part in the car he could swap them out and have a running car. I can’t remember which part it was now though. He lined the whole thing in cardboard.
Very cool Tami! I need something like that I can put some battery powered power tools in…
Technically I don’t think you even need the cardboard. How can you test it?
John, there are plans online for an EMP Rifle/Gun. We can build one and test 😉
I did the same thing a while ago but I also lined the outside of the cardboard box with aluminum foil. Not sure if that was necessary (or even a good idea) but it sounded like more protection at the time.
would an old unused microwave work as a faraday cage?
I have been told it will, but do not know for sure… I have to be honest… If anyone knows, I would love to hear.
would an old unused microwave work as a faraday cage?
Just put my cell in the microwave, signal values decreased markedly, but not to zero, so I believe a microwave would not be an effective Faraday Cage.
Interesting, I have not tried this yet, and I know it has been loosely speculated.