Fortunately with a little planning and work you can protect your most important devices and the way to go about doing that is by building a faraday cage which can protect those devices from harmful electromagnetic energy so today I’m going to be showing y’all three different ways that you can build a
Faraday cage using stuff that you either have laying around the house right now or you could just go to the hardware store after this video and pick it up the first thing that you can use to make a faraday cage isn’t all metal trash can these are available in a few different
Sizes and can be found at your local hardware store and what I like about these is that you can fit a lot of stuff inside of them including mid-size solar power options when you’re picking out your trash can try to get one that says round up top as possible and get a lid
That fits it well and also take a look at it make sure there’s no damage to it especially on the seams and when you get your can home try to find any gaps that may be present to do that place a light inside of the cannon then set the lid on
Top turn off the lights in the room that you’re in and like you can see here there’s light coming out from where the handles are installed on the can and the way that those kind of cans are designed that’s pretty common most of them are
Going to have that but you want to check for that and you also want to inspect the area around the seams to make sure that there’s no light escaping from there to deal with these gaps I Place several layers of metal tape inside the can where the handles come through when
I was doing this I was careful to not let the tape tear because the tabs that hold the handle in place do have some sharp Corners also put some over the seams on the side and bottom of the can in case there were any small gaps there
The next thing that you want to do is add a gasket to the top of the can because even if the lid fits really well there’s still probably going to be at least some small gaps you can buy special conductive gaskets specifically for this but they can be a little bit
Pricey and you usually need to order them online but they would be a good option if you’re going to be taking that lid on and off a whole lot to access the contents inside but for mine I just use heavy duty aluminum foil that I folded
Over itself a couple of times and then placed on top of the can if you need to you can always add additional layers and adding some sort of gasket is necessary the can without the gasket did a decent job blocking radio signals little precipitation for the year now stands unfortunately cellular signals went
Right through I placed my phone inside of the can and was able to activate the find my phone alarm from my computer but when I added the foil gasket to the top I wasn’t able to do that anymore the next thing you need to do is add
Insulation to the bottom of the can and its sides this is going to prevent the devices inside from coming into direct contact with the metal on the can for mine I just use cardboard and I started by tracing the bottom of the can with a sharpie and then cut that out I went
Ahead and did this twice just to be safe for the sides I measured the inside of the Canon marked the cardboard to be slightly shorter than that and the reason for that is that I didn’t want that cardboard to prevent the lid from seeding all the way when doing this make
Sure that the lines on the cardboard run straight up and down because the next thing that you’ll do is roll the cardboard so it’ll conform better to the side of the can and having it in that orientation makes it a whole lot easier after you do that place the cardboard
Panels inside of the can here I only have one layer of cardboard but it’d probably be a good idea to go ahead and add a second layer with the edges staggered but one thing I didn’t do was add cardboard to the lid and one reason
For that is that I’m not going to be stacking things high enough to touch the lid and then also like I said before I don’t want to do anything that’s going to prevent that lid from seeding down all the way as far as what I’ll be keeping inside of there I’ll have an
Ecoflow delto which is a pretty good solar power station they sent me this a while back and if there were an EMP I would definitely want a backup power option and I’ll show how I’ll be protecting my panels later in the video I’m also going to keep a spare battery
Charger for my rechargeable Double A’s Triple A’s and D cells in there along with the charger for my power tool batteries also put a gmrs radio inside that can be powered with a solar power station along with a spare flashlight now one thing that I did do differently
Is that I added a second level to this Faraday cage to do this I cut a piece of plywood so it would fit inside of the can and right on top of that Delta that particular power station has a flat top which makes that pretty easy but if you
Don’t have anything with a flat top you can always just add legs to that piece of plywood having that shelf allow me to add a additional items like a second smaller solar power station an LED Lantern a spare power tool battery and a battery operated motion sensor I like
How the Shelf makes everything just a little bit more organized I’m not having to pile everything on top of each other so I’ll probably end up adding more items to that Faraday cage it’ll probably end up being the new home for my lights out kit that I showed in a
Previous video a lot of those are items that I don’t use a whole lot but they’d still be easy to get to if I needed them this setup was able to stop AM FM and cellular signals and the entire cost for materials was around 60 or 70 dollars
The next thing that you can use to make a faraday cage is an ammo can I used a 40 millimeter can however something like a fat 50 would be a good size as well the good thing about ammo cans is that they’re made of heavy duty steel and
They’re already waterproof so you’re not going to have to do that much work to the body of them the main thing that you’re going to have to pay attention to is the lid start by pulling out the rubber gasket and then remove the paint underneath it a flap disc on a Dremel
Tool works well but it may not reach everywhere you need if you don’t have a right angle attachment a wire brush was able to reach into place as the flap wheel wasn’t but it didn’t work as fast of course you can always do this by hand
But a lot of y’all probably know by now that I look for any excuse possible to use power tools next sand the top of the can to remove paint from there removing this paint from the top of the can and the lid will ensure that you have solid
Metal on metal contact which will make your Faraday cage much more effective after that I added some heavy duty aluminum foil to the lid where the gasket used to be to do this I tore off a piece of foil to the appropriate length and then folded it over itself
Several times and I did this to all four sides the purpose of this isn’t to seal up the can but it will help ensure that you have as much metal on metal contact between the main gasket and the lid as possible since the old rubber gasket that came with the ammo cans pretty
Thick your conductive gasket is going to need to be thick as well like with the trash cans you can buy special conductive gas gets pre-made but once again I’m cheap so I just made my own to give it the right amount of thickness I started by cutting some foam that I had
Laying around the house into some strips that were about the same size as the original gasket I then rolled each of these into a piece of heavy duty aluminum foil since the foil goes around the foam several times it’ll give you full metal on metal contact between the
Lid and the body of the can the foam will also give the foil a flexible backing to help it conform to the body of the can just be careful as you install the gasket pieces into the lid because the tabs that hold it in place can be a little sharp especially on the
Corners after you’ve taken care of the lid move on to the body of the can measure the inside of it at the bottom and then Mark a piece of cardboard to match cut it out and then place it at the bottom of the can I went ahead and
Added two pieces to the bottom just like I did with the trash can then do the same thing to the sides after you get done cutting the pieces place the straightest edges at the bottom to make sure that nothing accidentally touches the side of the can I also added an
Additional gasket to the top of the can to give it as much contact between it and the lid as possible to do that I folded a piece of aluminum foil over itself several times and then placed it on top of the can when you place the lid
On top you should feel some resistance as you try to clamp down those latches if you don’t you probably need to add some additional foil to get some more contact ammo can Faraday cages like this one are good for protecting small and mid-sized items that you use somewhat
Frequently these can include things like walkie-talkies emergency weather radios and flashlights and another good thing about Ammo canned Faraday cages versus something like a trash can Faraday cage is that is going to be way more portable now if you have larger items that you need to protect like solar panels then a
Trash can or ammo box isn’t going to work in situations like this a cardboard box wrapped in several layers of aluminum foil may be your best option the main downside to this is that you’re basically going to be making a metal coffin for whatever you’re keeping
Inside you aren’t going to be able to open this up and take stuff out of it just when whenever you want to willy-nilly so this is really best for items that you want to protect but you’re probably not going to have to use all that often and in my case since I do
YouTube I do have some extra solar panels and the best way that they could serve me and my family is to just be held in reserved and protected I started by adding duct tape to the corners and edges of the box to eliminate any sharp areas that could poke through the foil
Then I added the first layer of foil to the sides and bottom of the box then I placed the panels inside and close it up after that I added a piece of foil to the top that overlapped what I already had in place as far as tape goes I went
Ahead and used the same metal repair foil tape that I used to seal the gaps on the trash can Faraday cage this will help seal up any gaps and has the added benefit of being metallic next I added a second layer of foil going the opposite direction of the first doing this and
Overlapping each piece of foil that you use will ensure that your Faraday Box doesn’t have any gaps for the ends I did the same thing that I did for the top and bottom of the first layer I set a piece piece of foil on it and laid down
The sides and tape down the edges from there I added another layer of foil just like the first end when doing this I tried to be as meticulous as possible it may have been a little Overkill but I think that protecting my emergency backup power is worth it but by the time
I got to the fourth layer I’ll be honest I was completely fed up with it it was taking way longer than I expected but I had to keep going I added more foil the exact same way as I did for the second layer and then moved on to the fifth
From the test that I’ve done three layers of heavy duty aluminum foil are usually enough to stop cellular signals but for this I went ahead and did five just for a little bit extra peace of mind and a little bit better protection for the devices after I applied the
Fifth layer I added some packing tape to the bottom to protect the foil that’d be touching the ground and you can go ahead and do that to all the corners and edges if you want to just to protect them from accidentally getting torn this large box
Used two rolls of foil tape a 150 foot box of heavy duty aluminum foil and part of a roll of packing to tape so doing this project the exact same way that I did it’s probably going to end up costing around 40 bucks you can also use this method to protect other large
Devices like gas generators just be sure to do things like drain the gas tank and carburetor to prepare it for long-term storage but when you’re dealing with larger equipment like that of course you’re not going to be able to move the Box around once it’s inside so what you
Probably want to do is go ahead and completely wrap the sides in the bottom do your three to five layers set the device inside probably have a friend or somebody help you just lower it straight down in there close it up and then make a multi-layer lid of sorts that you can
Set down on top that overlaps the foil that you already had and then use some foil tape to seal that up now if you want to see other things that you need to do to survive an EMP check out this video and if you want to check out
Something that every prepper should be doing right now to make sure that they don’t run out of food check out this video thank you all for stopping by y’all have a good
