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solar flare resistant PC cases ?



 
 
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  #1  
Old May 16th 13, 12:06 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
BW[_4_]
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Posts: 17
Default solar flare resistant PC cases ?

A friend of mine keeps his USB drives in biscuit tins, to protect
against a monster solar flare.
He said there were flares in 1859 and 1921 that would have crippled
lots of electronic devices, and there is a good chance of another
within our lifetime. And when it happens, banking and utilties would
crash, so you
might not be able to rush out a buy a replacement anyway.
So it got me thinking: how many devices are inside a metal box that
can shield them? I had at look at some PC cases. Obviously the wanky
gamer cases with perpex sides are out. And in many cases, the front
panel
is mostly plastic - covers for DVD or floppy bays, and a plastic mesh
air filter lower down.
So what cases have a front that is nearly all metal? And what of the
ventilation holes you see all over cases?
How small do the holes have to be offer protection?
  #2  
Old May 16th 13, 04:34 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
DC[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 31
Default solar flare resistant PC cases ?

On Thu, 16 May 2013 04:06:18 -0700 (PDT), BW wrote:

A friend of mine keeps his USB drives in biscuit tins, to protect
against a monster solar flare.
He said there were flares in 1859 and 1921 that would have crippled
lots of electronic devices, and there is a good chance of another
within our lifetime. And when it happens, banking and utilties would
crash, so you
might not be able to rush out a buy a replacement anyway.
So it got me thinking: how many devices are inside a metal box that
can shield them? I had at look at some PC cases. Obviously the wanky
gamer cases with perpex sides are out. And in many cases, the front
panel
is mostly plastic - covers for DVD or floppy bays, and a plastic mesh
air filter lower down.
So what cases have a front that is nearly all metal? And what of the
ventilation holes you see all over cases?
How small do the holes have to be offer protection?



0.000001 NM


--
  #3  
Old May 16th 13, 04:48 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 13,364
Default solar flare resistant PC cases ?

BW wrote:
A friend of mine keeps his USB drives in biscuit tins, to protect
against a monster solar flare.
He said there were flares in 1859 and 1921 that would have crippled
lots of electronic devices, and there is a good chance of another
within our lifetime. And when it happens, banking and utilties would
crash, so you
might not be able to rush out a buy a replacement anyway.
So it got me thinking: how many devices are inside a metal box that
can shield them? I had at look at some PC cases. Obviously the wanky
gamer cases with perpex sides are out. And in many cases, the front
panel
is mostly plastic - covers for DVD or floppy bays, and a plastic mesh
air filter lower down.
So what cases have a front that is nearly all metal? And what of the
ventilation holes you see all over cases?
How small do the holes have to be offer protection?


The secret to any form of protection, is knowing what the threat is.
I wouldn't be "reaching for my biscuit tin", without knowing
whether it would truly be effective or not.

*******

Solar flares affect satellites, because the satellite is outside the
protective layers around the Earth (the atmosphere, the magnetosphere).
Solar flares also affect long-distance power transmission lines,
by inducing a current into them. Your computer does not have
long enough dimensions to be affected, but the connection
to the power grid, might be an exposure. (I don't know what
the rise time of such an event is. It could be slow enough,
the HVDC transmission system is destroyed, but other levels
of the power system, open breakers in time.)

If an actual radiation pulse made it through, it would likely
have as much affect on you, as on your computer. There are
other mechanisms, unlikely ones, that can do something like
that. I'd be more concerned about one of these events. Move
to the basement, and cover the ceiling with lead plate.

http://news.discovery.com/space/astr...ays-130207.htm

If the threat you were protecting against, was E1 from an EMP,
perhaps a Faraday cage constructed around the computer would suffice.
With a rise time of 5 nanoseconds, the fundamental is going
to be somewhere around 200MHz.

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

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

Maybe you could find a biscuit tin as big as the computer,
but then, you'd have a *lot* of biscuits to eat.

Your microwave oven door, demonstrates the size of hole
to block 2.45GHz radio signals. Just to give some idea
how it's done. The door is a high pass filter, which cuts
off 2.45GHz or lower. Being a high pass filter, it passes
light (which is a very high frequency by comparison).
Changing the size of the hole, changes the filter corner
frequency. Apparently, the circular shape of the hole,
is so there is no filter performance dependence, on
microwave polarization.

(Figure 5-7 on page 63.)

http://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent...context=theses

While the fundamental of the E1 of the EMP, might be 200MHz,
you might still want to raise the high pass frequency of
the filter, just to ensure the large magnitude of voltage,
is filtered out. For all I know, a small mesh might still be
called for.

*******

Physicists like Faraday cages. There is an example of
one here. A physicist typically makes the cage large enough,
so the human operator can sit inside (so you can monitor
equipment or make adjustments).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...raday_cage.jpg

We had those kinds of cages in the basement of our university
physics building. The Faraday cage used pure copper window screen,
which admitted fresh air. The seams are done with copper foil.
Stuff was likely soldered together, for good electrical performance.
Really very nice looking construction job. And at the time,
graduate students used to do their homework inside them. The
cage was big enough for a card table and chair, and grad
students would fight over who got to use them (it was a bit
of a joke amongst them - they have a strange sense of humor
anyway - you should try working there sometime...).

Paul
  #4  
Old May 16th 13, 05:58 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Timothy Daniels[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 208
Default solar flare resistant PC cases ?


"BW" wrote:
A friend of mine keeps his USB drives in biscuit tins, to protect
against a monster solar flare.
He said there were flares in 1859 and 1921 that would have crippled
lots of electronic devices, and there is a good chance of another
within our lifetime. And when it happens, banking and utilties would
crash, so you
might not be able to rush out a buy a replacement anyway.
So it got me thinking: how many devices are inside a metal box that
can shield them? I had at look at some PC cases. Obviously the wanky
gamer cases with perpex sides are out. And in many cases, the front
panel
is mostly plastic - covers for DVD or floppy bays, and a plastic mesh
air filter lower down.
So what cases have a front that is nearly all metal? And what of the
ventilation holes you see all over cases?
How small do the holes have to be offer protection?


Solar flares are charged particles thrown off the sun by giant bursting
loops of magnetic field. They are not gamma radiation or other kind of
electromagnetic radiation, and that is why we get a day or two warning
of their arrival. They are largely deflected by the planet's magnetic field,
and some of the particles are funneled into the polar regions (not exactly
at the poles, though) where they impact the upper atmosphere, giving the
Northern and Southern Lights. Since the sun doesn't have much in the
way of heavy elements, most of the particles are hydrogen nuclei (protons,
and a few proton/neutron pairs from deuterium), and helium nuclei (two
protons bound with one or two neutrons), and single electrons.

Since the particles are charged, those that reach the ground are greatly
diminished in kinetic energy due to interactions with the atmosphere,
and simple charge-dissipation should suffice to bleed off any charge
build-up.

*TimDaniels*

  #5  
Old May 16th 13, 07:55 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Geoff
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 692
Default solar flare resistant PC cases ?

A friend of mine keeps his USB drives in biscuit tins, to protect
against a monster solar flare.


I hired a crane to place a large faraday box over my house . . .


  #6  
Old May 16th 13, 11:30 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Loren Pechtel[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 427
Default solar flare resistant PC cases ?

On Thu, 16 May 2013 04:06:18 -0700 (PDT), BW
wrote:

A friend of mine keeps his USB drives in biscuit tins, to protect
against a monster solar flare.
He said there were flares in 1859 and 1921 that would have crippled
lots of electronic devices, and there is a good chance of another
within our lifetime. And when it happens, banking and utilties would
crash, so you
might not be able to rush out a buy a replacement anyway.
So it got me thinking: how many devices are inside a metal box that
can shield them? I had at look at some PC cases. Obviously the wanky
gamer cases with perpex sides are out. And in many cases, the front
panel
is mostly plastic - covers for DVD or floppy bays, and a plastic mesh
air filter lower down.
So what cases have a front that is nearly all metal? And what of the
ventilation holes you see all over cases?
How small do the holes have to be offer protection?


It won't work--you've got a nice antenna feeding the power into the
drive--namely, the USB cable.
  #7  
Old May 16th 13, 11:58 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Flasherly[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,407
Default solar flare resistant PC cases ?

On Thu, 16 May 2013 04:06:18 -0700 (PDT), BW
wrote:

....a monster solar flare.
He said there were flares in 1859 and 1921 that would have crippled
lots of electronic devices, and there is a good chance of another
within our lifetime. And when it happens, banking and utilties would
crash . . .
--

That would be the prototypically the emergent consciousness within
such empiricism of the loci standi of eminence ensuing from Prussian
and then Austrian collectivism preceding a fundamental nature and
behest for mechanistic warfare, as the world knows even residually
today;- typically regarded for patriotic fervor at its highest frenzy,
when the King of Waltz Time, Strauss the Younger of Johann, was in
spirit of jubilant times resurrected for suitable flurries of waltzing
on a polished porticos, everywhere, whence trodden boots of a newly
organised German militia steeped in a lively two-step, indeed, to a
newly regained frontier given Austria, once again, under old Germanic
auspices.

Although predominate Dutch mercantilism allied with Royal Navy of
course predates any such custom as first discovered by templars
erected to coffee houses, wherein conduct ensured its earliest
securities were formally invested bylaws of contractual agreement on
and in a hold figuratively fraught with debilitating tempests,
naturally or otherwise incurred-- margin options for shoring goods as
capitalistic expenditures succicently were so in such entrenched, well
in form and manner -- for the societal omnibus, weighty indeed, to
exact a pervasive power inveighed to bear upon in reception and
consequence to mechanistic warfare, whenupon a saddled Germany was
charged to remunerate over a sum(s) debt to total expenditures shared
by all within the gestalt of an inspired Michavillian juggernaut
directly unveiled.
  #8  
Old May 17th 13, 11:33 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
BW[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 17
Default solar flare resistant PC cases ?

On May 17, 6:30*am, Loren Pechtel wrote:

It won't work--you've got a nice antenna feeding the power into the
drive--namely, the USB cable.


He is not operating them in the tins; they are just for storage. They
are kept in a different room to the computers, to minimise the chance
of damage to both, and also hidden out of sight of burglars.
  #9  
Old May 17th 13, 06:01 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Loren Pechtel[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 427
Default solar flare resistant PC cases ?

On Fri, 17 May 2013 03:33:53 -0700 (PDT), BW
wrote:

On May 17, 6:30*am, Loren Pechtel wrote:

It won't work--you've got a nice antenna feeding the power into the
drive--namely, the USB cable.


He is not operating them in the tins; they are just for storage. They
are kept in a different room to the computers, to minimise the chance
of damage to both, and also hidden out of sight of burglars.


Then he wants a faraday cage. Someone with more knowledge of it than
I can tell you how small the holes must be. The case is *NOT*
adequate.

It still doesn't matter, though, if we get hit that bad they'll be
useless becuase there won't be any power.
 




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