EMP Shakedown

[The Expendable]

Not sure if this is the right category to post this under, but...

The night before last I got a chance to try out my lighting preps. A car hit a power pole about a mile up the road and knocked out power to 2000 homes in my town. Power was out for about two hours. It gave me an excuse to light up some candles, some oil lamps and some battery lamps. All I know is that if we ever get hit by an EMP, I hope it's in cool weather... those oil lamps put out some heat!

I have lamp oil, kerosene, plenty of candles, three 20 pound tanks of propane and about a dozen one pound propane canisters. The big hole in my lighting preps, as I found out, was solar-rechargeable "D" cells to power my electric lanterns. They put out so much more light and run so much cooler. Plus, they're a lot safer. I think the next thing I'm going to try as far as my PAW lighting is going to be a bunch of those solar powered lawn lights. Just stick 'em out in the backyard during the day, and bring 'em in at night.

[realist]

The problem without society is that we are up all hours of the night. In days of old when the sun went down they would go to bed. In an EMP I see that same thing happening so we can conserve fuel and for the most part there is not a whole lot to do. Long winter nights stay under the covers to keep warm then long days in the summer to get things done.

I have a bunch of those solar lights that I got for $2 each and they have worked for the past two years, not bad. I plan on picking up some solar floods for more lighting. They have motion detector lights now that are solar that work very well. Probably the best lights are the small LEDs. They do not take up much energy and don't give off a lot of heat.

[Evolver]

Good points! I too have lighting backup and all of them produces heat and some type a emissions. The solar yard lights are a great idea.

[The Expendable]

They have double power (with two LED's) or triple power available. They cost more than the single LED versions, of course. I think the 3x power usually cost around ten bucks, but they would theoretically put out three times the light that the cheapies do. Just remember to bring them in at night, or the neighborhood zombie kids will take off with them!

[realist]

That must be where they went. How do they hide them in the light?

[Daybreak]

Don't mean to be a buzzkill but, if an EMP takes down the grid, wouldn't the circuitry in solar lights be fried too?

[ak474u]

Don't mean to be a buzzkill but, if an EMP takes down the grid, wouldn't the circuitry in solar lights be fried too?


Nobody really knows for sure, some think the EMP fying everything theory is overblown, I REALLY hope so. I do have spare diodes for my main flashlight in a faraday cage inside my gun safe just in case. I would think that underground storage i.e. burying some extra cheap LED lights in an insulated ammo can or tube would be pretty good protection as well, just dunno if it would be necessary.

[Alas Babylon]

Of course the other part of this is - If there is an EMP, or other large scale catastrophy that takes out the power grid, we would need to be very careful with having lighting of any type showing. It could be seen as an advertisement - hey, I got lights and maybe other stuff, come and get it.
but to the original point, I too have several solar power lights and lanterns around the place in addition to kerosene lanterns candles and rechargable battery lights. Best deals I found were at end of summer sales at the "mart" type stores, in the clearance section.

[The Expendable]

Don't mean to be a buzzkill but, if an EMP takes down the grid, wouldn't the circuitry in solar lights be fried too?

I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be using them until I needed them. I'd keep them in a cardboard box covered securely with aluminum foil. I have done experiments (which I detailed on the other forum I belong to) that show aluminum foil to be a better material to build a Faraday cage out of than steel. Supposedly, copper works the best, but I didn't have any way to test that. Anyway, they'd be protected until I needed them.


Nobody really knows for sure, some think the EMP fying everything theory is overblown, I REALLY hope so. I do have spare diodes for my main flashlight in a faraday cage inside my gun safe just in case. I would think that underground storage i.e. burying some extra cheap LED lights in an insulated ammo can or tube would be pretty good protection as well, just dunno if it would be necessary.

I think your way of thinking is prudent. Better safe than sorry, but I also agree with you that the effects of an EMP are exaggerated. Books like "One Second After" would have us believe that every car built after the early 1980's would be disabled, but extensive testing commissioned by Congress shows that this isn't the case. At the time the testing was done (about 2001, I believe), something like 10% of all late model cars tested were completely disabled. The test used cars of various makes and models, and of different model years. The cars were both running and shut off. A larger number of cars (can't remember the percentage) were either temporarily disabled, meaning they just had to be shut off then restarted, or experienced minor problems (i.e. flashing dash lights).

Anyway, I am rambling. Sorry. My point was that it's better to be safe than sorry.

[Evolver]

I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be using them until I needed them. I'd keep them in a cardboard box covered securely with aluminum foil. I have done experiments (which I detailed on the other forum I belong to).


Ok... now you have to share it here :) What cha got?

[Taz Baby]

Not sure if this is the right category to post this under, but...

The night before last I got a chance to try out my lighting preps. A car hit a power pole about a mile up the road and knocked out power to 2000 homes in my town. Power was out for about two hours. It gave me an excuse to light up some candles, some oil lamps and some battery lamps. All I know is that if we ever get hit by an EMP, I hope it's in cool weather... those oil lamps put out some heat!




I have lamp oil, kerosene, plenty of candles, three 20 pound tanks of propane and about a dozen one pound propane canisters. The big hole in my lighting preps, as I found out, was solar-rechargeable "D" cells to power my electric lanterns. They put out so much more light and run so much cooler. Plus, they're a lot safer. I think the next thing I'm going to try as far as my PAW lighting is going to be a bunch of those solar powered lawn lights. Just stick 'em out in the backyard during the day, and bring 'em in at night.


We use solar lights for almost everything here. I even have solar Christmas tree lights. The spot lights are great. We have the walkways lit up with them also. We also have the solar security motion lights which work well, except they go off with every movement. We have bought most of ours from Harbor freight which are cheap. When we build our kitchen onto our little trailer we are going to use the string of white Christmas solar lights inside around the top molding and put the solar box outside. I say you can never have to many solar lights of any kind.

[Evolver]

Redundancy is the key. Have a backup for the backup all the way down to knowing how to make fire to knowing what to do without fire.

[austinrob]

the big question is always of course what will an EMP fry. understand that what does the frying is the EM field passing through conductive matter and inducing an electric current. If that current is higher than that part is designed for, it MAY fry. So just about anything with an antenna (or an unintentional antenna) will generate significant amounts of current in an EMP. A solar light? dunno... also don't know how much it can handle. How to protect electronics from an EMP? Is a grounded metal box enough? Opinions vary. My plan is a metal gun cabinet with electronics stored inside and grounded. Keep in mind that the shorter your run of your grounding wire from your ground post to your object to be grounded the better. I don't fully understand it, but a long ground wire can be essentially useless for grounding EM. Braided ground straps do better than solid core, but shorter is still better. (it has to do with EM travelling primarily on the surface of the conductive material).

[The Expendable]

From what I have read, a steel cabinet is not very resistant to EM fields. Copper is about the best, and aluminum is nearly as good. I will repost an experiment that I conducted in another thread.

[patdow1]

Don't forget to store a spare ECU in the event you plan on using your post 79 vehicles.

[RedJohn]

Don't forget to store a spare ECU in the event you plan on using your post 79 vehicles.

What's an ECU? E..something Control Unit?

[patdow1]

ECU stands for Engine Control Unit and without it you car won't run because all modern vehicles are so computer reliant. ECU's are usuallly located in the passenger side foot well if you are curious to see what one looks like. I've got spares for all my vehicles with the exception of my 11 300C. I'm currently researching methods of protecting them from a EMP.

[patdow1]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I've been consulting with my Special Forces contacts and they have advised me not to throw out those dryers that no longer work as they are the "Perfect" Faraday Cage that will protect electronics from a EMP attack. Just thought i would share that info with those willing to listen.

[The Stig]

......they have advised me not to throw out those dryers that no longer work as they are the "Perfect" Faraday Cage that will protect electronics from a EMP attack.

By dryers I'm assuming you mean clothes dryers?

[patdow1]

Yes sir! The only modifiction I was advised to make to the dryer was to install a grounding strap.