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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] 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 [youtube.com] 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 [hackaday.com] 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 [hackaday.com] in the spirit of TV-B-Gone [wikipedia.org].

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