by Dr. Arthur Bradley
There is a great deal of confusion about
DIY Faraday cages and Faraday Boxes. Not only about how to build
them, but also what they actually protect against. In this article, Dr.
Arthur Bradley, author of Disaster Preparedness
for EMP Attacks and Solar Storms, answers a few basic questions and
perhaps debunks a few myths.
A Faraday cage (a.k.a. Faraday shield or Faraday box) is a sealed enclosure that has an electrically conductive outer layer. It can be in the shape of a box, cylinder, sphere, or any other closed shape.
The enclosure itself can be conductive, or it can be made of a non-conductive material (such as cardboard or wood) and then wrapped in a conductive material (such as aluminum foil).
There are also readymade military-grade Faraday Cages that are meant to protect large electronics and gear such as portable gas or solar home-use generators, compact solar panels, computer towers, radios, electric medical equipment, smart home appliances, power tools, lights, and other large devices – check out this one to see what I’m talking about. These are even more effective than anything you can build at home.
A Faraday cage works by three mechanisms: (1) the conductive layer reflects incoming fields, (2) the conductor absorbs incoming energy, and (3) the cage acts to create opposing fields. All of these work to safeguard the contents from excessive field levels.
A Faraday cage is particularly useful for protecting against an electromagnetic pulse that may be the result of a high-altitude nuclear detonation in the atmosphere (a.k.a. EMP attacks).
Despite rumors to the contrary, a Faraday cage is not necessary to protect against solar coronal mass ejections because the frequency content of such disturbances is at much lower frequencies—they don’t couple energy efficiently into small-scale electronics, except through conducted paths (e.g., wires coming into the system). A better precaution against solar events is to unplug electronics and use quality surge suppressors.
Field cancellation occurs when the free carriers in the conductive material rapidly realign to oppose the incident electric field. If the cage is made from something non-conductive, the free carriers are not mobile enough to realign and cancel the incident field.
The conductive layer can be very thin because of something known as the skin effect. That term describes the tendency of current to flow primarily on the skin of a conductor. As long as the conducting layer is greater than the skin depth, it will provide excellent shielding because the absorption loss will be large.
The skin depth is a function of the frequency of the wave and the conductor material. As an example, consider that for a frequency of 200 MHz, the skin depth of aluminum is only about 21 microns. EMP pulses can have a frequency content that ranges up to 1,000 MHz.
Therefore, wrapping a box in a couple of layers of heavy-duty aluminum foil (typically about 24 microns thick) provides the necessary conductor thickness to protect against high-frequency radiated fields.
Not much. The conductivity of nearly any metal is good enough to allow the carriers to easily realign to cancel external fields. For example, if silver (the best conductor) is used in place of aluminum, the skin depth at 200 MHz is reduced to about 4.5 microns. Of course, the high cost of silver would prevent using it for such a purpose.
Yes, as long as the holes are small with respect to the wavelength of the incident electromagnetic wave. For example, a 1 GHz wave has a wavelength of 0.3 meters in free space. As long as the holes are significantly smaller than that dimension (i.e., a few millimeters), they won’t let in much of the incident wave. This is why fine conductive mesh can be used when constructing a DIY Faraday cage. In practice, the cage’s lid or door usually causes the most leakage. Taping the seam with conductive tape helps to reduce this leakage.
Yes, there are many conductive enclosures that can be used, including ammo cans, metal garbage cans, anti-static bags, and even old microwave ovens. Each has its own level of effectiveness as covered in my book, Disaster Preparedness for EMP Attacks and Solar Storms. The key criterion is that the gaps and seams remain very small.
There is a great deal of confusion regarding grounding of a Faraday cage. Grounding of the cage (i.e., connecting it to some Earth-referenced source of charge) has little effect on the field levels seen inside the box. Grounding primarily helps to keep the cage from becoming charged and perhaps re-radiating. The bottom line is that an ungrounded cage protects the contents from harmful electromagnetic fields as well as a grounded one.
Anti-static bags are readily available to protect electronic components against electrostatic discharge. They can be purchased in many different sizes, including some large enough to hold radio equipment. While they do offer shielding from EMP, not all products are created equal. Testing confirmed that products certified to MIL-PRF-8170 and/or MIL-PRF-131 offer the greatest protection from an EMP.
The results from testing three different types of bags are provided in Disaster Preparedness for EMP Attacks and Solar Storms. When selecting an ESD bag, consider not only the shielding effectiveness but also the physical ruggedness of the bag. A tear or large hole can compromise the bag by allowing EMP energy to enter.
Storing a larger set of electronics might require an entire room. Engineers who work in electromagnetics often use “shield rooms” to conduct experiments because they do an excellent job of filtering out interfering signals, providing in excess of 100 dB of shielding. A poor man’s Faraday shield room can be made inside a house by lining a small closet with heavy-duty aluminum foil, covering all four walls, the floor, the ceiling, and the inside of the door.
Overlap and tape the seams using either conductive or regular cellophane tape. There can be no conductive penetrations into the room, or it will seriously degrade the shielding. Cover all electrical outlets, light switches, etc. with aluminum foil. Do not plug anything into the electrical outlets. Also, lay a piece of plywood or cardboard on the floor so that it can be walked on without damaging the aluminum foil. Rooms built in this way have been shown to offer more than 50 dB of shielding up to several hundred MHz.
This video shows how to use RF cloth to protect red-dot, laser, and other electro-optical sights from an EMP. Testing was done in my laboratory to determine which RF cloth performed best for EMP protection. This particular cloth is made with stainless steel fibers. You can use this for guns that are kept outside of a metal safe, or as an additional layer of protection for those kept inside of a safe.
This video describes how to protect generators and cars from EMP using a conductive cloth to protect cars and generators from a high-altitude nuclear EMP attack.
Many people are looking for an inexpensive Faraday cage to protect personal electronics from a nuclear-generated EMP. Unfortunately, it requires quite a bit of test equipment to determine shielding effectiveness.
On the transmit side, it requires a signal generator, a high-power amplifier, and a broadband antenna. The receive side requires a small, battery-operated spectrum analyzer. I’ve done quite a bit of testing on various makeshift Faraday cages, and this article discusses the effectiveness of a metal garbage can.
A baseline open-air measurement is first taken to determine the ambient field levels at some predetermined frequency (i.e. 500 MHz in this case). The levels at the spectrum analyzer are shown to be at -36 dBm.
When placed inside the garbage can, the measurement is shown to be -46 dBm, meaning that the can offered 10 dB of shielding. Not too great!
Much of the energy was believed to be coming in through the seam around the lid. It was, therefore, taped with conductive tape and the measurement repeated.
Next, the spectrum analyzer is placed into a metal garbage can, and the measurement is repeated.
The new measurement was shown to be at -77 dBm, meaning that the taped can offered 41 dB of protection. Much better!
This experiment showed that a metal garbage can can serve as a very good Faraday cage, but only if the seams are taped. Remember, it is not small holes that matter most, but rather long narrow slots, such as those around the lid’s seam.
Expensive EMI copper tape and cheap aluminum duct tape both
worked equally well, so a quick stop at the hardware store will get you
what you need.
To learn more about EMP protection, check out Disaster Preparedness for
EMP Attacks and Solar Storms. Also, to find the highest quality EMP bags,
see http://disasterpreparer.com.
To order Dr. Bradley’s EMP book please go to Amazon.com. To sign up for his free Practical Prepper Newsletter, Email: newsletter@disasterpreparer.com .
