The Quick Way To Build A Budget Faraday Cage For Less Than $10

I’m going to level with you in this one: I’m not exactly a person who is preparing for ye olde “zombie apocalypse.” While it’s certainly a creepy, cataclysmic scenario, I’m thinking that an apocalyptic event concerning the infected undead just doesn’t seem to be a viable possibility.

And I think that Hollywood might have something to do with our worries, but I digress.

However, if we were to consider which cataclysms have their candy-apple-red warheads, pointed squarely in our direction, then we arrive at a few very different conclusions.

For instance, we’ve talked about EMPs in previous posts, because it seems to carry a very high likelihood that one might just be headed our way in the future, and shut down the power grid for months or years. So what is an EMP?

An EMP, or electromagnetic pulse, is an energy wave of electrons that can be emitted unidirectionally or omnidirectionally. When this pulse comes into contact with electronic devices, it essentially overloads their more delicate components and fries their circuit boards. In fact, you can even hop on YouTube and build your own small EMP device that will emit a blast to completely wipe out electronic devices as large as … well, a small desk clock.

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However, let’s just say that the EMP devices we should be worried about have the potential to wipe out a couple billion desk clocks. Who possesses such devices? Well, for one, governments that have nuclear arsenals. And that’s just another reason why hearing about Russian or North Korean threats of WWIII gets my dander up.

How Would an EMP Be Delivered?

A nuke will blast a massive EMP, which will wipe out any electronic devices that are presently plugged in to the power grid, along with anything that has an exposed three-foot antenna. At which point, we’ll have to re-adopt the Pony Express as the most viable form of sending a text.

(Listen to Off The Grid Radio’s in-depth report on EMPs here.)

Basically, 99.99 percent of all electronically dependent devices will be rendered useless. We’ll have no way to communicate, no water treatment, no medical assistance, no economic supply chains, and emergency services will be dead in the water without the ability to coordinate rescue and crime-stopping operations.

By the way, we might also end up taking the equivalent of an EMP in the event that we’re directly blasted by an X-class solar flare — because those have basically the same effect.

What Would Stop an EMP?

So, if you have certain electronic devices that you want to keep protected from an EMP, a nuclear warhead, or a solar flare, then a faraday cage is the ticket.  Here’s how they work …

When that energy wave is emitted, it acts like a lightning bolt, except for the fact that it expands and doesn’t travel in a linear direction. A lightning rod, for instance, attracts that energy surge and causes it to travel along the wire and into the ground — thereby bypassing any of the electrical components in the building (since no electrical components should have been connected to the lightning rod).

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The problem with an EMP is the fact that it’s an expanding wave — and doesn’t just hit one thing. So that means you’ll need a sealed “lightning shell” of sorts. Essentially, you’re placing a metal shell around the devices you’re trying to protect. As long as your devices aren’t touching the metal on the inside of the faraday cage, then they won’t even feel a thing. So here’s how you build one …

1. Go to the local hardware store and purchase a metal 5-gallon paint bucket with a metal lid.
2. Remove the wire handle.
3. Line the inside of this bucket with Styrofoam (or use canned expanding foam spray).
4. Place your electronic devices inside the bucket.
5. Secure the metal lid.
6. Using HVAC metal foil tape, seal all holes where the EMP could “leak” into the inside of your faraday cage bucket.

BONUS: For added protection from the elements if you decide to bury this bucket, then spray the entire surface of the container with rubber sealant.

Defending Against Big-Budget Warfare on Little-Guy Budgets

In addition, you can also go to your local craft or dollar store and purchase a smaller tin container. If you make sure to wrap your smaller electronics in protective non-electrically conductive materials, then simply seal it up with that HVAC tape mentioned above, and you can spend less than $10 on the finished project.

With little things like this, I simply find enjoyment in the fact that an enemy military will spend a few hundred million bucks on a mass-destructive weapon — only to be “foiled” by an average-Joe that read an article like this, and made an $8 trip to the dollar store.

What suggestions would you add? Share them in the section below:

When An EMP Hits, Could You ‘Live Off The Land’ With Your Gun? Read More Here.