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.]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Bot on Sunday October 16 2016, @07:44PM
"and so," said the grandma while gently rocking her nephew's crib, "the baddie realized, as the hood of the car broke into his lower torso squashing his entrails, that old fashioned cars with carburetors and mechanical distributors do not care much about his nasty portable EMP generator. The End".
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @02:33AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @04:10AM
Old fashioned cars do not care; newfangled robotic drivers do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @07:52PM
How do I build this so it has more range? This EMP needs to be held RIGHT NEXT to what you're trying to pulse... This emp device is for whimps... I want something that can pulse shit in *at least* a 3 yard radius. THAT is how you make enemies...
(Score: 3, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday October 16 2016, @09:46PM
How do I build this so it has more range?
My friend Kim can help you there.
(Score: 2) by zeigerpuppy on Monday October 17 2016, @12:55AM
Inverse square law is a bitch,
Probably not going to be pocket size if you need that much power
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @01:54AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_pumped_flux_compression_generator [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @07:15AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @07:55PM
Seems like it would make a great replacement of the smokescreen spy-gadget in a car chase - just put a directed EMP device facing out the back-window and fry the electronics of any car chasing you too closely.
(Score: 2, Funny) by cmdrklarg on Monday October 17 2016, @05:00PM
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @07:56PM
It looks like a poor design with little to no effect unless you use it very close to what you want to zap. It would work better using a picture tube coil out of an old CRT TV, giving you at least a somewhat directed pulse instead of an omni-directional leaking POS like this design has.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @09:44PM
The fact that it was pointed directly at his webcam, and yet he could still film it when demonstrating phone/gameboy resets, proved that it had a range of at most 1cm !
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday October 17 2016, @03:02AM
"How to Gain Enemies and Encourage Hostility," [FPS Weapons]
"As always, have nice day".
(Score: 5, Interesting) by RamiK on Sunday October 16 2016, @08:08PM
Very narrow frequency range. Very low power. Some 90s' kids toys had similar designs for sending morse code back and forth.
Look up the mil spec standards for EM protected electronics and find the civilian-to-military ranges. Reach that much and it's an EMP. Bellow that, it's a jammer.
You don't even have to go nuclear. A big enough inductor\capacitor or just using an explosive will do. I'm sure there are designs floating around for these sort of things.
The thing is, if you have explosives or the electro know how, what's the point? There's so many worse things you can do other then a silly EMP...
compiling...
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday October 16 2016, @08:51PM
What did you expect? It's set of DIY instruction found on Youtube ferchrissake... I made a more interesting "EMP generator" out of a doorbell and a car ignition coil when I was a teenager decades ago.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @08:35PM
So, who will go to prison for helping a prankst.. *ahem* terrorist? SN? Phoenix666? Me for reading the summary??
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @09:01PM
If you burn out some electronics of mine with one of these, you might not go to jail, but you will be pulling that "Ultra High Voltage 1000kV Ignition Coil" out of your ass.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday October 16 2016, @09:03PM
Someone with the skills/desire to make this will be "popular" in prison.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @08:44PM
This device produces EMI (electromagnetic interference) not EMP (electromagnetic pulse).
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday October 16 2016, @08:55PM
It produced a cheap Youtube video and an uninteresting article on SN - also called "internet noise".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @10:00PM
Agreed. Back in the late 1970s I had a CB radio with a 100 watt linear amplifier, it did a good job blanking out TVs and radios in a 1 block radius, opened garage doors, and set off burglar alarms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @09:17PM
Great for krykian photogtaphy. EMP nope. We dropped 400 VDC (rube transformer) into primary if 12v to 50kv intuition coil. Made great sparks. Even had to go over my sink when one unit had a ground error. Feels like ants everywhere.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @09:57PM
Sounds like that device had more than just a temporary effect.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday October 17 2016, @12:07AM
Wikipedia page about Kirlian photography:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirlian_photography [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @10:12PM
immediate dislike from anyone working on something electronic at the hackerspace
Oh, at the hackerspace, you say. That's easy. Just be old. Over 25 and you're too old to exist.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday October 17 2016, @03:26AM
Military forces use RF weapons.
http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/russia-offers-new-types-of-radio-frequency-weapons-155634935.html [prnewswire.co.uk]
They can ignite fuel vapors or cause munitions to detonate.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160818083843/http://www.navair.navy.mil/ibst/03_E3/hero_herp_herf.html [archive.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by TrentDavey on Monday October 17 2016, @03:26PM
I've thought something like this might be neat to quiet (vandalize) those goofy woofers in audio-amped boombox cars. Charge it, hold it over the speaker, fire it and it uses Lenz's Law to overdrive the speaker coil. Voila - quiet. Would probably just encourage procurement of speakers to handle "more power". Sigh.
Also: Get off my lawn ya hear!