Never thought of that. Nice one.
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SHTF Solar power
- Thread starter Laufen
- Start date
Never thought of that. Nice one.
No, in fact it would be best if the microwave is not plugged in. The power grid is the most vulnerable to an EMP because of the massive lengths of wire. The E-3 part of an EMP will cause massive amperage to propagate across lengths of wire. I have read that if you choose to use your microwave as a faraday cage, you should cut the power cord off so it doesn't act as an EMP antenna.
Apparently a good test is to place an AM/FM radio inside and check both AM and FM for reception. These are the most harmful ranges of frequencies of an EMP. A microwave's faraday cage is likely designed to restrict the 2400 mhz range, IIRC. AM and FM frequencies are much lower. If you still get AM or FM reception inside the microwave, chances are it won't be effective against an EMP. See the link I posted earlier in this thread.
Here's some interesting reading, assuming you're interested in the topic.
http://www.futurescience.com/emp/emp-protection.html
http://www.futurescience.com/emp/test184.html
I'm looking at building my own solar generator now. For about $1300 I can build my own unit that will satisfy all of my needs for the price of the $1700 Goal zero, and give me roughly twice the power and better components. Thank to everyone for getting me interested in solar power, what an interesting learning experience this has been.
I use small solar panels to keep auto batteries charged. One is for 12 volt gas pump, the other for key ignition gas powered generator. Certainly not as independent as total solar generator, but a good interim measure or to create a redundancy. I believe the panels were $25 and $50 at Northern Tool. I have been using them effectively for about 2 years without a hiccup.
What do you estimate your power requirements to be, and what components are you using?
Thanks
I'm looking to run a refrigerator, laptop and some led lights for 4-6 hours/day.
I'll need a 100 watt panel, approximately 360 aH of batteries, 30 amp charge controller, and a 1500W converter. I'll probably have to go with a pure sine wave converter running the laptop.
I read a neat story about a guy in Florida who got tired of hurricanes and tropical storms knocking the power out for days to weeks and losing the stuff in his freezer, etc. He came up with a good plan using solar panels with batteries, and a generator. He bought two chest freezers that were very energy efficient and connected them via an inverter to the batteries which were charged exclusively by solar panels. He also added in some small battery chargers (think: cell phones, tablets, radios) as well.
The chest freezers held his frozen goodies and he filled the rest of the space in them with 2 liter bottles full of water. When the power went off he could use the generator to power lights/fans and such in his house. He would trade the frozen 2 liter bottles to neighbors for gas or food - they would put the bottles in coolers to keep their own stuff cool. The next day they would come back and swap the 'water' bottles for frozen bottles. He would charge their cell phones for them as well.
The biggest problem he had was some folks assumed since he had emergency supplies he should just give them stuff. One person strongly hinted he should share the generator among others who never felt the need to buy one of their own! The guy said after a few years several of his neighbors had a similar setup in their homes so they could enjoy the benefits of being prepared and share with whoever they wanted to.
Wow.....back to life after 4 plus years.....also reminds me that I kind of miss "He who's name shall not be spoken"....
I don't...not a bit
Wholly thread resurrection! Oh and I don't miss psycho!
