EMP Resistant Vehicles

I believe all vehicles are EMC tested which would include being subject to radiated EM pulses.
If you mean 'not susceptible' then it depends on the magnitude of the pulse.
There are standards for testing these things especially as most cars are heavilly reliant on their electronics.
There are stories of cars' engine management systems dieing as they passed certain radar installations and suchlike but, that was before such rigourous testing I believe.
If you are worried about your car...have you flown in a fly by wire plane?

I also think the military/police have considered EM pulses for stopping vehicles.

The vehicle itself probably acts as a faraday cage and the electronics need to be pretty robust to be imune from the ignition system's own radiated and cinducted noise. A car's engine bay is a pretty hostile environment for any electronics.
Del

sailboat

sailcar

rickshaw

bicycle or pedicab

skateboard

cart, sled, or cairrage draw by horse, donkey, mule, dog, llama, emu, zebra (lord tennison did this in london), or cats.

an elephant, camel, or horse.

Benbenben

This deserves a "Good Punchline" --

Perhaps we could petition the the CR4 folks to add "GP" or a smiley as a checkbox response...

Given your previous question (http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/47416) you shouldn't believe everything the media says you know. Really, what has brought this on (and what country are you in that you are scared of this).

I am interested in finding a vehicle that is not subject to electromagnetic pulse events (EMP.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse

I would recommend a standard car (for normal travel), a push bike for use in the event of a disaster -natural or man made (no petrol required, can navigate off road, resistant to EMP, etc) and a good dose of healthy optimism.

I live in the Northwest part of the USA. It is kind of a hobby with me. "How cheaply can you prepare for any disaster?" I'm not in a panic or anything. It seems to me that the two most likely potential mega-disasters are (1) hyper inflation followed by an economic meltdown and an (2) EMP caused by high altitude nuclear explosions above a major land mass. I guess I've always been a survivalist. We prepared for an economic meltdown in the 80's and Y2K in the 90's. I had a business for 20 years that required continuous power input 24/7 so I had backup generators and fuel supplies. My thinking doesn't stop with just personal needs. I'm am also interested in my local community and ways to organize public safety and services in a disaster event. We have flooding in our area on a regular basis. In the last flood event we had more helicopter rescues than any national emergency since the Katrina hurricane in New Orleans. Part of my motivation to ask the question about EMP resistant vehicles is to be able to move around to help others.

Any auto that uses point type ignition system, diesel systems that are mechanical that don't use electronics are less affected. The alternators and or starters and any solid state regulator or any other items that has coils.

Shielding of wiring with ferrite chokes, grounded metal shielding around sensitive components may help also.

I have read about this some time back on nuclear emp's damage. But I can not recall what publication it was in.

I'm sure others on here will have more info.

Charles

Wow. Brings back memories of Jessica Alba from Dark Angel. Anyone else remember that TV show? It was about life in Seattle after a massive EMP.

It's all a matter of degree. The EMP from most nearby lightening strikes will not bother a modern car. A direct strike is another thing all together but I would expect more direct damage this way than the coupled toasting of semiconductors an EMP produces. Once you start considering the EMP from a thermonuclear device, well I think you will have considerably more problems than how to start your car.

EMP though is not as effective a method to destroy semiconductors as some people think. While reflections from conductive surfaces make many localized higher EM field nodes, low EM field anti-nodes are also created. Where and how intense these nodes will form is much too complicated to predict for it depends on the spatial orientation of the source, all reflectors and absorbers, loop antenna orientations just to list the obvious parameters. So a vehicle that suffered EMP damage to critical electronics, may have been just fine if it was just located a few feet away from where it was at the time of the pulse.

Just buy one of any of the cars mentioned in the thread "What was your first car". Some of us old farts had cars that didn't even have a radio.

Anything built before 1960 will do fine.

Any newer vehicle is subject to EMP. My neighbors car got struck by lightning and it fried three other cars nearby that did not get directly hit. insurance nightmare... funny thing is it struck my metal roof and dissipated outward and hit the car. Not so much as a scorch mark on the house.

Were there other cars nearby that weren't fried? I'll bet there was.

not in 50 ft. radius

I remember that dumb Tom Cruise movie, War of the Worlds, where he had like a '55 Chevy, and the Martian invaders disabled all the modern cars with an EMP-like pulse. I thought, "How cool! The 55 Chevy will still work!" Alas, they never followed that thought (people in Hollywood don't understand anything about cars, especially about how to drive them), so Tommie adjusted the fuel pump or something on his station wagon and everything ran again. Didn't make a bit of sense.

Good luck in your search. I've seen (1986) a chrysler rental car fried when sitting too close to an EMP test set near Washington DC. Electronic watches were also rendered useless.

your best bet in that environment would be an older mechanically injected diesel. The process of emp proofing a vehicle is daunting at best. I've spent the last 45 years in electrical engineering including a stint working on EMP proof satellite terminals for the army. When you start thinking of bonding between panels below 0.025 ohms, and hundreds of amps flowing in the skin of the vehicle then you have an idea about the difficulties.

as said before good luck.

Satcom-Bill

Finally a good use for those compressed air cars that don't make sense in any other circumstances. Make sure to take off tin foil hats prior to EMP and never look directly at the blast from a thermonuclear detonation (as if you would have time to look away).

Heck if it's gonna kill you, you may as well enjoy the show

YES! You have discovered my philosophy for life! I think I will make that my new tag line Del.

"In any event, connection for high currents (as generated by nuclear explosion or lightning) is all but impractical when the vehicle is in motion."

That is why i recommend the old diesel vehicles.

The only thing you will notice on an old diesel struck by an emp while running is your radio and lights will no longer work, as the electrical system may well be useless. The truck itself will just keep going,and going... merrily along.

When you have to stop, a good little push or hill will get it going again, although without the electrical system, as there is nothing electrical required to start an old diesel vehicle.

The compression ratio is so high, the fuel will autoignite under the heat created by the fuel/air mix being compressed in the cylinder.

Even the one or 2 fuel pumps in old diesels are driven directly from the engines motion. No electric required.

Although, if it is cold outside,and the diesel has cooled down, you need a good hill/ tow vehicle or several helpers to get her to fire sometimes.

In very cold weather, only a modern diesel engine MIGHT start due to the high injection pressure and the resulting very tiny droplets that are produced....Common rail will start from the droplet size but as it is electronically controlled, probably not from that aspect.

Even the old diesels had a valve that was opened with 12/24 volts to allow diesel to even get to the engine. Removing this means you nee a new method of stopping the motor!!!

One should not forget that any electronics NOT active (powered on) at the time of the EMP will most likely be OK after the EMP. Especially those in some form of Faradays Cage (any vehicle made of metal for example).

I personally see no reason why a lead acid battery will be affected by EMP in the first place.....

The general opinion/knowledge at this website (is the same):-

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread125394/pg1

No one truly believes that batteries will be affected.....my opinion too.

I also believe that you need to be really close, within 20 miles (guessing a bit) or so for the worst effects inside Faraday's Cages to happen.......otherwise I feel that the EMP strength would be too little to affect them......and if you are within 20 miles, you have other probably problems that might take your mind off driving around!!

us military standard ops is to disconnect all batteries when a nuke strike is imminent. The old diesels and many tractors, have a knob you pull, to cut off fuel flow. This knob is manual, and pulls the gouvenor linkage all the way back to "stop". Yes, i did have to rearange the datsun linkage. Had to get away from the powered fuel linkage, as all the bushings were worn out and it didnt work right,anyway. I rigged a manual control on the fuel injector pump linkage. Could kill it, as well as open it wide up while running. It is the only 4 cyl diesel i ever saw that could "smoke" the tires,lol.

If you are close enough to worry about EMP you are dead anyway.

So, while we're all still here, why don't you GET A LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Those tin foil hats must chafe after a while. And how do you ever keep them on the numerous dogs you must have lying about?

you missed my post,"If you are close enough to worry about EMP you are dead anyway" not true. An airburst 10 km above the planet would not kill people on the ground, just electronics. You are talking with an army trained emp mitigation specialist here,the emp effect is more widespread than the radiation. The last aboveground nuke blast test knocked out a lot of the power grid in Hawaii, over 800 miles away. Who knows, maybe his life is preparing himself or someone else for somthing we dont yet know about.

Hey Army EMP expert--How about if we did an airburst over part of Afghanistan? That would cripple the terrorist communications systems, right? No more cellphones, Internet access, COTS radios and so on. If we pulled our ground forces back a hundred miles or so, they wouldn't be affected. To keep it confined to that mountainous region and not affect grids a few hundred miles away, how small a device could we use? Once the terrorists are deprived of their communications, they could not coordinate their defense, and our military could charge in there and wipe them out. Would that work?

Once the terrorists are deprived of their communications, they could not coordinate their defense, and our military could charge in there and wipe them out. Would that work?

Jeez, you just don't get it do you?
Terrorism and geurilla type fighting is the poor man's response to hi-tech armies...
The whole point is they DON'T RELY on technology.
Small cells communicating by word of mouth if necessary with simple weapons, stealth and terror. If a target is well protected, just choose an different softer taret.

We throw more troops into South West Afghanistan?... and we are surprised when all of a sudden there are more terrorist attacks in the North East.
What a surprise...we are led by morons....no wonder the Russians don't want to get drawn in, they tried last time and failed...
Do our leaders learn nothing? The terrorists can just blend back into the general populace if needs be...wait until we withdraw and then start up again.
Conventional tactics can't beat an unconventional enemy...that's why they fight like that...they aren't going to form neat lines and march out onto the battlefield.
Del

I heard this AM that the bad guys have hacked into the Predator video feed and can now see what we see. "Software to do this can cost as little as $25.95"USD.

Maybe we do need an air burst over there.

They can't possibly do that! I heard they communicate only by word of mouth (I heard that right here in this thread). Where would they get the technology? Must be a mistake. You are implying that they have modern communications, computers, internet connections and all that in those mountain caves. Can't be so. Can it?

I am sure bin laden and his terrorist network would love a big emp pulse.Incidentally, the caves where they are hiding in and storing supplies would be shielded from the emp pulse. They could go back outside, and have the ONLY communications systems working in that part of the world. The numbers that have been run suggest a 10 kiloton blast about 10 km above the earth would knock out an area about the size of the united states. The might of the US military has not been able to take a country the size of texas with good intel and commo yet. I would hate to see how far they could get once all of their intel no longer has a way to comunicate with the troops. The terrorist peoples whole lives revolve around no tech. No mtv would not bother them in the least. And, if you watch and listen carefully to the news footage , you will see the terrorists have LOTS of the little old 4 cylinder diesel pickup trucks running around throughout the mideast.

Bummer. How about a neutron bomb, then? Whatever happened to neutron bombs, anyway?

Short answer as follows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb

There were also issues about American generals not liking the fact that there is no damage pattern like you would get in conventional ordinance. Yes I am being serious.

Perhaps one of these:

I love it! Unfortunately, my philosophy is, "The happiest two days in a horse owners life are the day he gets the horse and the day he gets rid of the horse." Maybe I should rethink my philosophy.

Heard that about boats, never horses. Someone once told me that a horse eats 4 times as much forage as a cow. We had horses back on the farm, but there was plenty of grass to eat.

BTW wanna buy a boat?

Make sure you have figured out how to store all the fuel you will need, since the pumping stations will all be disabled in your area too!

When you find the vehicle (old chevy etc.) buy all the spare electronic parts you might need to replace and put them in an EMP proof vault...I think there's one in a mountain in Colorado you might like! :-)

An emp proof vault can be as simple as a grounded ammo can. Place a non conductive liner inside, stick in your electronics stuff,close the lid and ground the box to a good ground pole,that should work in most cases.

I do believe that most Military equipment is "hardened" to work even after an atomic bomb's EMP pulse. How this is done I have little idea, but I did read once that there are simple(expensive?) electronic devices available that cut the high voltage developed in the equipment to a level that does no damage....

I am pretty sure that somewhere on CR4 is a member that probably worked on such equipment and can give more and better infos....

How this is done I have little idea...
They line the chips up and shout abuse at them you 'orrible little man
Del

....and what do they do with the fish?

Worked on some of the spook satellites in the '80s. They were hardened against EMP, among other things. As I recall, about 1/8 inch of aluminum was required to shield the sensitive stuff from damage by EMP. But, it's been a while.

when we finally got our(us) hands on some russian mig fighters, they discovered that all flight essential electronics were made with old style vacume tubes, instead if electronic chips, Vacume tubes are 25 times more resistsnt to emp pulses than electronic circuits

Warsaw pact countries army field radios are still vacuum tube driven the last I heard.....

Thats probably the reason that many electronic catologs here still sell valves (tubes for the USA!) made in Russia.....

WOW! I Think I'm going for a smoke.

Get an old car with carburator injection, very basic and few electrics...but higher petrol consumption.

The cars battery, being grounded to the frame, would probably fry, along with the coil,sparkplugs and wiring harness. An old diesel vehicle will run without any of those things.

Diesels don't have electric chip calculators ?

you missed the word "old" Old diesels have none of that electronic crap.

How old is "old?" I'm interested in cars, tractors, pickups, ATV's. I am also interested in both gas and diesel. On an old enough gas vehicle you could have an extra battery, distributor, alternator, condenser, spark plugs and wires in an EMP resistant container. I'd want to have those parts available anyway.

My 1981 datsun diesel king cab was old enough to run without any electrical components,but i had eliminated the little injector pump relay that changed the pump setting from stop,start and run. I hooked up a manual linkage,instead. I could roll start it without too much trouble when the battery was dead. The glow plugs didnt even need power to them for it to start up. Just about any diesel with a mechanical fuel delivery system should start if you rig manual controls on the injector pump setting. If it has a ''brain" or electronic injector defuel delivery, its ok.

EMP only fries car batteries if the car was parked at or very near to ground zero.....

A diesel engined car parked nearby would also (amongst other things) get its battery fried!!

but the old diesels dont need the battery to start, just a hill,or the altenator to run the coil if the battery is fried. Yes, a clutch trans gas vehicle will start if you roll it downhill also, but it wont start if the battery is fried, only if the battery is low. After a gas engine starts,it still needs electrical components working somewhat to run. An old diesel needs nothing electrical to start or run.Unless you just HAVE to have a radio. That is why to turn off an old diesel, you have to manually turn off the fuel supply to the injector pump. Some did it electricallt, with the keyswitch,but if thats fried, you have to turn off the fuel pump by hand.

...and don't forget the lead additive!!

No lead additive needed, if running on veggie oil.Which i do.

You should have read what I was replying tp before posting, which was:-

Get an old car with carburator injection, very basic and few electrics...but higher petrol consumption.

That is NOT a diesel engine!!!!!!And it won't run on veggie oil either....!!!!!!

Think out of the box!!

It wont run after an emp fries the battery, sparkplugs coil and/or altenator either. An old diesel will run without any of these things.They fire the fuel from engine compression, not electrical spark ignition.ALL Gassers are DEAD after a nearby emp. Old diesel engines wont even notice the pulse even if they are running.If the explosion doesnt physically destroy the diesel vehicle, it will still keep going,and going,and going... And the old diesels will run on filtered waste veggie oil, which will be easier to obtain than gasoline, which is kept in below ground tanks.

Has anyone actually tested/demonstrated the EMP incapacitation of an old fashioned gasoline automobile, other than in the moovies[sic]?

Lead/acid battery is damn near impervious to EMP, It's a chemical system. The spark plugs, the coil and the points and condensers are an EMP device albeit a tiny one. The alternator might suffer, but the diodes can probably be replaced.

My Saturn is probably toast after am EMP because it has plastic body panels, but somehow the 1964 Olds F-85 seems impervious. Many years ago it got struck by lightning the CB antenna & radio were obliterated, but I drove it home that night. Didn't even realize the event until the next morning in the light.

Faraday Cages can dissipate enormous energy leaving whatever is inside unaffected.

GA sir for a breathe of common sense, many thanks.

Our local genius is way off base.......

Is there anyone else in here military trained in nuclear, biological and chemical mitigation techniques? If they are, they will affirm what i said about what vehicles would be ok. The battery sitting around may be unaffected, but the cars frame and the big wires to the battery would chanel an electrical blast right to the battery from an emp detonation if it was mounted in your car. Yes, the tests have been run, and are now unclassified.More or less. You can sometimes find copies of the us army emp mitigation manual at gun shows . You can rely on some electrical component to make your vehicle run after an emp if you wish. I only need to rely on a hill, or a couple of nearby friends.

I was looking at a 1981 Kubota tractor that had glow plugs to warm up the cylinders before you start it with the starter. Would such a vehicle start by rolling it down a hill?

The glow plugs working make the diesel MUCH easier to roll start, but if the tractor has no other electronic controls it will still start up, if the engine turns over fast enough. Yes you can roll start it off a hill with no electric glow plugs. You would probably have to have the tractor in a higher gear. As low geared as tractors are it would just break something or skid if you popped the clutch into first while rolling. In my old datsun diesel truck i used 3rd to pop start it, a lot. 1st and 2nd would just lock the back tires, unless i was moving pretty well. The wheels are big enough on a tractor you may be able to raise one, and start it by hand spinning a tire, while it is in 1st or 2nd. A boss of mine used to start his old diesel stump grinder by spinning the grind wheel. If you try this raise a tire trick,which you really shouldnt, the engine may start up backwards, causing damage. It is best to get familiar with your particular diesel and hill requirements before you need to know how it works with your vehicle. Your tractor could have an electric fuel pump or injector pump that requires electricity. Best way to find out on your particular vehicle is to disconnect the battery and have a tow vehicle get you moving, and pop the clutch a few times in a higher gear, allowing the engine to turn over while giving it a little push on the fuel pedal. for a tractor, 5 mph should be a fast enough pull. Be careful though. If you pop the clutch in too low a gear and the engine doesnt turn over, you will get quite a jolt as the traction from the tires suddenly stops you. And, your tow rope may break, so be sure to use a higher range. NOT low. On a diesel car or truck, 10 mph will let you know how it will work. Pop clutch in 2nd or third, though. First is pretty low on most diesel vehicles, too.

no not until the air in the cylinders were warmed first thats what the glow plugs are for.

although if you ran down hill you may warm the air enough for it to start i suppose

problem is if it doesnt work you are now even further away from where you started if this is a problem

You are not following this blog too well the last few days I feel...

Read back and catch up!!

Depends on how old.I have a 1948 Allis Chambers gasoline engine with magneto ignition.Can be cranked with a hand crank on front of engine.Some old VW's had a hole for hand crank also.Many of the really old cars had magneto igniton, which generates it's own spark.Guess everyone would be running around on T Models or tractors after an EMP.Or some of the older riding mowers with magneto ignition.Lots of Ham operators still use vaccum tubes in their equipment.Not many countries making tubes anymore.Some tubes are no longer available anywhere.

I wonder what amazing discoveries might have occured with vacuum tubes if solid state had not been discovered? I still think it is a under explored and immature technology that was put to rest prematurely.Not knocking solid state, but I think we could possibly have learned much more about ZPEF and other forces of nature, perhaps a revelation of the nature of dark energy? Who knows if Russia is not once again ahead of us on this front,like they were in space and lunar robotic exploration.

HTRN

You may want to explore the MDI Air Car (or others).

Selling in India for now, maybe someday around the world. French company did not pass the EU crash/security tests so could not make it in Europe - sold it to Tata for some ~€20M.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4217016.html

http://www.cyber-media.com/aircar/

http://www.mdi.lu/

Show me an air compressor that doesnt run on electricity, and i may go with an air car.An air compressor that will fill the air tank to a useable pressure, say 250 psi, (before someone puts up a pic of a bicycle pump.)

There is an air compressor incorporated into the car but only charges the air tanks once the car is plugged to the electricity, after that the car runs mainly without electricity - there is still a battery present to heat the pre-injected air and raise the pressure even more before entering to the cylinders.