Just wondering if anybody has had luck finding somewhat large sized EMI/EMP/faraday gaskets. You know, the type that have a metallic fabric over a foam core. I found some on ebay but they are all very small and the one I did did (which worked perfectly on my 5ga trash can lid) iis no longer available. Basically I’d like something to provide EMP/EMI/etc protection for some electronics that I like to store in a 50cal ammo can. Looking at some testing this can work extremely well if it replaces the rubber gasket but the few places I see gaskets that would fit and they cost $30+ per ammo can’s worth of gasketing.
You knew that a tin can is the best mu metal available? And its even easy to solder
Better to have some more wall thickness, for less permeability.
Wellp, being that both lid and tub are physically/electrically connected at the hinge, and there’s overlap of the lid over the tub, and the latch is also electrically conductive on the opposite end of the hinge… would a separate gasket be that necessary?
You’d have to scrape off the paint on both tub and lid to make contact (and expose those surfaces to rusting), and if it’d rust over anyway, even the lightest coating, it’d break that electrical contact anyway.
Unno, I’d be happy with them as-is.
Worst case, take something like a cellphone jammer (ie, high freqs), lock it in the can, and see if any signal leaks out. If not, then chances of anything leaking in would be about as dim.
I dunno how effective it truly is but I’ve tested a number of things using an app from mission darkness. It is uses WiFi and cellular signal strength as an indicator of how many db of shielding is offered. So far the best has been a galvanized garbage can with emi gasket around the lid and foil tape over all seams. According to “disasterprepper” on YouTube this is even better using an emi gasket in a ammo can (plus the size is more ideal for me).
I wouldn’t replace the rubber gasket with emi gasket. The emi gasket will not be water/air tight. Look at using conductive copper tape around the seam maybe. You will need to remove some paint around the lip. I have used both copper tape and gasket to modify a piece of equipment from Germany that was CE labeled. It was so bad it was making my equipment fail from 30ft away…
Good: wack off a length of aluminum foil, fold it a couple times. Line the can. Closure should be good.
Better: Aluminum tape (or copper $$more). Ebay or Amazon. Harder to access your devices though.
I go with garbage cans and foil lined with items foil wrapped and non-conductive bags (free- Seimans rejects). I keep my batteries out of the devices together in a pouch on top. There’s a tag with the date I last charged them up.
BTW, Once you start thinking of things you’d want to have access to after an CME or EMP, it will fill up fast:-) Worthy of notation, no “How to prep for a EMP” article mentions these 3: TS80 soldering device, Qualcomm QC3.0 power brick, multimeter. Every damn one has “Radio” so you can listen to the world fall apart, some have solar panel and battery charger, but most have nothing which you utilize can rebuild. I happen to have bought a bunch of Fluke 27/FM that were listed as non-operational. Now I have 8 operational and 1 non-operational and I’ve wrapped @5 of them up with foil, put them into cookie tins and they’ll be ready for any engineers who survive but forgot (or were not able) to prep.
I just noticed that Aneng has a USB powered soldering pen sized device for @$5 buckeroos. I have no knowledge if it would work but have a couple on order.
Best to you sir, good luck and may none of us ever need the damned things used for their intended usage.
True true… I’m looked down the rabbit hole but haven’t jumped all the way in. Basically I just try to keep “extra” stuff that doesn’t get used in my “emp bin” and I’m looking to make a more quick-acccess friendly one for more often used lights. Really good point on the other stuff like DMM and soldering irons. Since if this type of SHTF ever actually happened we would def be grid down and likely have limited to zero generators functional have you tried any of these butane powered soldering irons? Worth a damn?
I think solar flares are more likely. Because the sun has no skin in the game. It don’t give a damn. So definitely assume the grid is going down. It’s already happened before so it’s not really a crazy thing to plan ahead for. Toss in a water filter, solar cell, Nitecore F1, and iodine tabs.
You are wise to toss them into a ammo box. Most people do not consider these things. Wife bought me a massive and tight stainless steel tool box for my birthday (this thing is like 5 feet tall, wide and on wheels). For things I want semi access to I put them in a cookie tin (like you give at Christmas) which slides into the tool box. I have a labeler I use to mark what it is. For key/important things I’m wrapping them up in min. 3 layers of heavy duty foil, outer non-conductive bag, then into the EMP (Garbage) can.
I was in my teens and had fired multiple different country’s pistols, machineguns/machine pistols, practiced blowing up most of the different explosive and ignition systems (C4, Dynamite) in the US Army and was working with Nuclear weapons daily. I study history and have learned to have no faith or trust in other countries scruples. It can all turn on a dime in an eyeblink and as technology improves along with munitions the likelihood of the SHTF increases daily. Not just some crazy fatboy in Korea, but in case anyone thinks it’s limited to crazy leaders in other countries, take a moment and add this (link below) into your odds calculations. As AmbinetSix notes in the post above me, there is an estimated 12% chance that in the next 10 years we see a massive Coronal Mass Ejection that will wipe out crazy amounts of anything not from the stone age. And that number won’t change for the next 10 years.
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/23jul_superstorm/
and
https://www.wired.com/2012/02/massive-solar-flare/ That should get you started on a more through search about that.
My wife thinks I’m a bit over the top with it, well- I am: but she wasn’t laughing when she learned recently that I had more than a full case of N95 masks and the local hospital didn’t have enough for their workers. (I spread them around to folks that needed them, nursing home and woman with severe respiratory issues and then gave her a crapload and kept 2 for me). It can be hard to keep up with replacing things regularly as this isn’t buy and ignore. I need to replace the cartridges for all of my gas masks and restock the N95 soon. The N95 get used for wood and metal working as well.
The NASA link abouve last line is a good summation:
Great, can’t get away from coronas trying to kill us…