Faraday Cage

[Neb]

There is no capacitor INSIDE a capacitor. The capacitors are in series and in three dimensions.
The E1 "pulse" is a positive electric field (plasma) produced by the displacement of the electrons and their capture by the magnetic field lines of the earth's magnetic field. The E1 is a "singular" pulse, it is not a wave. It doesn't propagate rather it is formed in place.

A plasma is any gas that is stripped of polarizing particles. In this case the atmosphere, ground, and water is stripped of electrons by neutrons that are not used in the cascade from the nuclear material in the bomb. It all becomes positively charged from the upper atmosphere to a depth of about 7 to 10 meters below the surface. This is why you don't want to ground your protective box or envelope and why a Faraday box won't work.

Fair enough.

But I thought of a cool project and setting up an experiment where we found something cheap that we use to experiment on what if anything works.

What could we purchase that was less than $15 ea to destroy in our testing?

What could we use to simulate the EMP?

A big Tesla coil?

Ben

 

[INresponse]

Since cement is grounded by contact to the ground would cement walls on a cement slab with a steel plate ceiling provide protection? I understand you would need a metal door that can have all edges sealed. And probably a supply of the large moisture absorbers, but as I type this I am thinking electric floor warmers sealed inside the concrete, no wires protruding into the enclosure, would keep the room warm and prevent moisture build up similar to the electric warmers used inside a safe.

 

[Supervisor42]

What could we use to simulate the EMP?

A big Tesla coil?

Ben

Something like this:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-25197786

 

[Neb]

Something like this:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-25197786

A smaller one of these?

Ben

 

[UrbanHunter]

Something like this:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-25197786

Awesome Post, one thing he said that grabbed my attention was that older cars (I assume non-computerized) would be harder to stop. I have also heard that the older diesels (which don't rely on a spark) are much more EMP resistant.

 

[UrbanHunter]

A smaller one of these?

View attachment 67160

Ben

Cool, I see that they sell very small units for ~$200, they also sell wireless lights that illuminate when in the field, so you could put a video camera and a wireless light inside a closed Faraday cage, with the camera running bring the coil close to the cage (allow lightning to hit the outside of the cage) and see if the wireless light inside the cage with the camera, lights up....
Or you could put a cordless transistor radio with the volume turned up full and place the lid on your cage listen closely, no sound no signal, good cage .

 

[Supervisor42]

Awesome Post, one thing he said that grabbed my attention was that older cars (I assume non-computerized) would be harder to stop. I have also heard that the older diesels (which don't rely on a spark) are much more EMP resistant.

It's the semiconductor junctions that are vulnerable.
On 68 or earlier gas-powered stuff with point-ignition, best you could do is kill the alternator.
The direct-injection diesel, you aren't going to phase those.
I worked on equipment that lived in the flammable environment of oil rigs.
Air starter, not a single wire or battery anywhere on them.
A plastic tube going to the oil-pressure gauge, a capillary tube going to the temp gauge, and a choke-cable going to the pump to shut it down was all it had. Good luck stopping one of those .

 

[Hardcalibres]

Awesome Post, one thing he said that grabbed my attention was that older cars (I assume non-computerized) would be harder to stop. I have also heard that the older diesels (which don't rely on a spark) are much more EMP resistant.

Some diesel vehicles with mechanical injection engines, only use electricity when you need to start or shut them down. For those, if you park them on a hill, you can roll start them and when you need to shut down, you just operate the shutdown solenoid lever manually (under the hood).

Some like the Unimog, even have manual shutdown - so all you need to do is park them on a hill to roll start (or you can roll start under tow from another vehicle - or jack one wheel, run a rope around the perimeter of the tire and a few guys can pull start it like a big lawn mower).

Apart from roll starting, a Unimog that has had every piece of wire cut out of it, is completely functional (apart from lights and obvious stuff).

 

[SheepDog]

OK, that test equipment used to stop cars is NOT anything like the E1 pulse of an HEMP. Notice they said it used radio frequencies?
There is no way to simulate the ionization of the atmosphere to 50,000 V/M in less than a nanosecond. That device is like a microwave tube on steroids and it can be used to damage electronics but it takes time on station. So if you build one and get close enough to your target and can stay there for the minutes it takes to work then you have a poor man's emf gun. (it is not cheap to produce but it is easier to get than a missile and atom bomb to detonate in space)

What can you use as a test subject? How about a 5 - 10 cent diode? You could use a small transistor or a 555 IC but they are more expensive than a diode. If you have some junk electronics around you could pull some diodes off the board and you have a free test unit. Now all you need is a way to produce a 50,000 volt plasma field at 15 or so PSI and surround the diode with the plasma in about 1/2 a millionth of a second.
That is the hard part and to even get close to that (about 10 times as long) it is VERY expensive. You can't use a neutron projector because it would take years to affect the amount of space that an E1 pulse covers in .5 nanosecond.

A side note: most of the tests conducted after the fishbowl experiments used microwaves. FAIL!

 

[Neb]

OK, that test equipment used to stop cars is NOT anything like the E1 pulse of an HEMP. Notice they said it used radio frequencies?
There is no way to simulate the ionization of the atmosphere to 50,000 V/M in less than a nanosecond. That device is like a microwave tube on steroids and it can be used to damage electronics but it takes time on station. So if you build one and get close enough to your target and can stay there for the minutes it takes to work then you have a poor man's emf gun. (it is not cheap to produce but it is easier to get than a missile and atom bomb to detonate in space)

What can you use as a test subject? How about a 5 - 10 cent diode? You could use a small transistor or a 555 IC but they are more expensive than a diode. If you have some junk electronics around you could pull some diodes off the board and you have a free test unit. Now all you need is a way to produce a 50,000 volt plasma field at 15 or so PSI and surround the diode with the plasma in about 1/2 a millionth of a second.
That is the hard part and to even get close to that (about 10 times as long) it is VERY expensive. You can't use a neutron projector because it would take years to affect the amount of space that an E1 pulse covers in .5 nanosecond.

A side note: most of the tests conducted after the fishbowl experiments used microwaves. FAIL!

Good thought on the diode as a test subject. I have a roll of diodes from a pick n place machine that i could use.

I still have to figure out what I can use to destroy them before figuring out the best way to protect them.

Ben

 

[SheepDog]

I did my testing using the math associated with timed capacitive reactance. I searched for a way to generate a pulse but even the best generators take a long time to generate a wimpy pulse. The equipment required would be a box (spherical) made of gold, silver, copper or aluminum as the "environment". Then you would have to have a way to drive the electrons out of the environment leaving the plasma behind. Capacitors won't discharge fast enough and you would need 50,000 volts times the volume of the box (sphere) that you could zap in .5 nanoseconds. The diode has to be placed on a non-conductive post in the middle of the internal volume.

My stumbling point was generating the pulse. I could do it in about 10 milliseconds but that is as close as I could get to the speed necessary - about 2000 times slower than necessary.

 

[Neb]

This place seems to be able to do the testing.

https://www.elitetest.com/testing-services/emiemc-testing/lightning-hirf-emp/emp-testing

Ben

 

[SheepDog]

Military standard 461 uses microwave and the test is to determine compatibility with other equipment.
You can go to Wikipedia or just look for the text of the MIL-STD-461 testing.
Basically it is a test to find out whether equipment will operate in close quarters with other military equipment.
THIS is a good read onmilitary emp testing.

 

[Neb]

Military standard 461 uses microwave and the test is to determine compatibility with other equipment.
You can go to Wikipedia or just look for the text of the MIL-STD-461 testing.
Basically it is a test to find out whether equipment will operate in close quarters with other military equipment.
THIS is a good read onmilitary emp testing.

While in the shop I took a look around to see what I had on hand.

Test fodder. Check

About 25 years ago I worked in the physics lab at U of Pitt. A bunch of the Phds were given offers to retire and their labs were emptied out and loaded into a walk in dumpster. I spent a lot of time in that dumpster. One if the treasures I dragged home was a pair of high voltage power supplies. I harvested all of the components from them... just in case.

This is one of the step up transformers.

Earlier you posted a spec of "50,000 V/M".

Those units "V/M" are Volts per meter which talks about the the magnitude of the the electrical field.

That would be 2 plates 1 meter apart with a 50,000 volt potential across them.

Am I off track so far?

So if I applied 22KV across 2 plates seperated by 0.44 meters I will have required electrical field.

ALL I have to do is come up with the correct pulse shape to develop the high frequency components.

That is a big ALL.

What do you think?

Ben

 

[SheepDog]

Ben,
If we were talking about alternating current you would be halfway there. If you were to put an HV diode on the output you would have a half wave generated each 1/30 of a second at just about 11KV.
We need a single pulse that climbs from zero to 50KV/M in half a nanosecond

It's easier for me if I look at the cause of that pulse. The bomb detonates in about a billionth of a second and those atoms each release 2 to 3 neutrons with each collision. 1 or 2 of those neutrons goes free. Those that head for the earth start running into air molecules about 7 to 10 miles up. Every time they hit an electron or a proton it separates them. The electrons get captured orbiting the magnetic lines of earth's field. That leaves positive ions in place. Since the neutrons are traveling close to the speed of light (they are a little slower every time they hit another molecule) the voltage within the atmosphere turns positive and that polarity continues from 7 miles up to some 20 to 30 feet into the ground. The whole thing happens in less time than we can perceive. It only lasts around 5 milliseconds as it dissipates toward normal.
There is no waveform as the voltage goes from zero to peak and tapers off like a capacitor. OK, that is a wave form but it is a DC wave form. The graphs that were made during the fishbowl tests were incomplete because the equipment limits were exceeded. The voltage at ground level was higher than expected and it ruined the instrumentation. All the numbers I work with are best calculation of the military scientists. They tend to be on the conservative side so I use their numbers and make the protection based on 110% of the protection needed. I can only hope that's enough. I use 4 layers on my laptop, power supply and hard-drive storage. I do tend to "over engineer" everything I build.
I have fixed too many things engineered to meet the specs.

I would love to help on your quest but I have tried everything to duplicate the pulse without getting there. Maybe you can do what I failed to do. You will likely get some recognition from doing so. I wish you good fortune!

 

[Neb]

Hit the primary of the transformer with a 500 pico second 120 volt pulse. Not looking for recognition. Just running thought experiments.

Ben

 

[SheepDog]

With a pulse that short the transformer will never saturate. Remember that a transformer has to saturate and collapse the field to get power into the secondary.

Gosh I'm starting to sound like a "negative nancy".
Hey, you could try a magnatron, it's not meant for long duty but you could rig a voltage multiplier circuit from your transformer and charge a high voltage capacitor through a rectifier bridge. You might be able to trigger it with a high power mosfet. It may not be as fast but in a small space it might trigger a reaction..??
Super capacitors weren't common when I was playing.

 

[Neb]

With a pulse that short the transformer will never saturate. Remember that a transformer has to saturate and collapse the field to get power into the secondary.

Gosh I'm starting to sound like a "negative nancy".
Hey, you could try a magnatron, it's not meant for long duty but you could rig a voltage multiplier circuit from your transformer and charge a high voltage capacitor through a rectifier bridge. You might be able to trigger it with a high power mosfet. It may not be as fast but in a small space it might trigger a reaction..??
Super capacitors weren't common when I was playing.

Run a cd current through the primary then break the circuit like the cil on old engines

Edit then short out the primary.

Ben

 

[SheepDog]

You will need to push more wattage than the primary should take but with a short burst it might work!