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Become Very Unpopular Very Fast with this DIY EMP Generator

posted by martyb on Sunday October 16 2016, @07:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the do-not-try-this dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Taking a break from his book, "How to Gain Enemies and Encourage Hostility," [FPS Weapons] shows us how to build our own handheld EMP generator which can be used to generate immediate dislike from anyone working on something electronic at the hackerspace.

The device is pretty simple. A DC source, in this case an 18650 lithium battery cell, sends power to an "Ultra High Voltage 1000kV Ignition Coil" (as the eBay listing calls it), when a button is pressed. A spark gap is used to dump a large amount of magic pixies into the coil all at once, which generates a strong enough magnetic pulse to induce an unexpected voltage inside of a piece of digital electronics. This usually manages to fire a reset pin or something equivalent, disrupting the device's normal operation.

Fun project in the spirit of TV-B-Gone.

[Ed note: This may or may not be legal in your area. It is definitely not recommended for use when a passenger on a moving vehicle.]

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  • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @02:33AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @02:33AM (#415060)
    I have my own version of the fairy tale. A wise guy named Isaac Newton long ago realised that there was a universal law that an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an external force. So a car filled with all these newfangled electronics speeds towards the baddie, and he fires portable EMP generator, which fries all the electronics dead, but otherwise applies no external force to it, so the car keeps speeding towards him, breaking into his lower torso and squashing his entrails, and he realises that the fundamental laws of the universe do not care much about his nasty portable EMP generator. The End.
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