How To Make A Homemade Slot Machine Jammer

The EMP
Kadin Graves
2018/19
I am assuming since we are all in speech, especially the info category, that we like to read. One of the ways that we can find books is scanning the new york times best seller list. When we look at that list, we look for your favorite kinds of books, such as: action, crime, drama or science fiction. One of those best sellers is a book called “One Second After” written by William R. Forstchen. The story starts out by following john matherson, who is the main character in the book. John is only carrying out his everyday life when he receives a call from his friend in the pentagon. When john answers the call he hears yelling on the other side. John asks, “what is going on?” the call ends abruptly. When john looks out the window he sees three airliners falling out of the sky. You may ask what happened? And the answer is, an ElectroMagnetic Pulse or an EMP happened. Today we will Ignite your brain with what an EMP is and the types of EMP’s out there. Then we will countdown with how we can defend against EMP waves and what the government is doing to prevent an attack. Lastly we will detonate with the effects that a small scale EMP can have on our daily lives. You might want to put your phones in a faraday cage for this one.
What is an EMP or electromagnetic pulse? Well, in short, an electromagnetic pulse is a pulse that destroys electronics. But since you are in the informative room you want me to give you the long answer, I can see it in your faces. The long answer according to techopedia.com is quote “a short burst of electromagnetic energy interference caused by an abrupt and rapid acceleration of charged particles, which can damage electronic components by short-circuiting them.” What does that mean? Well, larger EMP waves are created by larger pulses such as explosions, and the smaller waves are produced by smaller devices such as electromagnets.
So, you may be wondering, why does an EMP disable electronic devices? Through emails, I interviewed a pulse energy engineer from a company in Florida, who prefers to go by the name of Angstrom 88. He answered me on January 28th, 2019 so this information is very current. He says quote “An EMP will be collected by the conductors and too much voltage will be forced to flow through the circuit which creates arking and the destruction of all components in the loop.” This means that the energy will overload the wires in a circuit and create immense heat because the energy needs a way to exit out of the circuit.
There are two ways these electromagnetic pulses can be produced. The first is the natural way from solar flares and lightning. Our atmosphere protects us from most solar flares, but Solar flares could still be a big problem if the flare is large enough. If the wave from a flare breches our ozone it would interfere with our power grid, the power lines that connect all over the US. That power grid acts like a giant antenna and absorbs the energy. During a lightning storm, we are fairly protected from the pulses that lightning produces because the EMP waves are not as powerful and we are almost never close enough to lightning to experience these waves. Another way for EMP waves to be produced is by man made devices. These can either be a variety of sizes of electromagnetic pulse generators, or nuclear weapons detonated in atmosphere. The part that makes man made EMPs so effective is that they are already past the protective part in our atmosphere and can be stronger than lightning strikes. A hand-held, small scale EMP, though less powerful, can still be very dangerous. These EMP’s are concealable and they can be held against the electronic device that the user is trying to blast. EMP’s can also be made to attach to a vehicle.
But the ones that are frightening, are the ones that can change the world. In Fact, they are the most powerful weapon and they have the strength to wipe out the entire world’s power within an hour. Visualize this scary fact: there are nine countries on Earth that have the capability to wipe out every power supply and any communication. According to NBC.com there are around 14,000 EMP ready nukes just waiting to be fired off. Techopedia.com says nuclear weapons generate an EMP via the gamma rays emitted by the blast, reacting with the earth's atmosphere. The nuke is first detonated in the mesosphere. The rays that are emitted create a shockwave and react with the mid and lower stratosphere creating a pulse of electrons flying at lightspeed back to earth to be collected by anything that is conductive. The range of a nuclear generated EMP is affected by the size of the explosive and the height at which it is detonated. This is what makes nuclear EMPs so effective.
Now that we have spent some time talking about what an EMP is, and had time to visualize the magnitude of its impact, we now know EMPs are not what you may have learned from the movie “the matrix.” So, let’s talk about the real world and why we need to worry about EMPs. Knowing that an EMP can destroy anything that runs on electricity, there are very few objects that would still work after a horrific blast. Most everyday inner workings of America would be at a total loss. Hospitals and medical care clinics, 9.1.1 services, any heating or cooking devices, and even our powerful military would not be able to function in the wake of an EMP. Remember, since the early 1900s, all factories run on electricity so, there would be no way to produce any products. You would have to grow your own food because you couldn’t have food transported and there would be no way to store food as we do now without the use of a fridge or freezer. No one could drive a vehicle without a carburetor. And according to autotrader.com, that is every car sold in america after 1994.
Hopefully you are now wondering what the government is doing to protect us from such a dangerous weapon? According to Colin R. Miller a Major in the United States Air Force, quote” The cost of hardening systems against EMPs in the design phase is relatively inexpensive, usually between 1% and 5% of system cost. Unfortunately, the U.S. has only hardened a portion of its tactical force and virtually none of its infrastructure. Hardening systems after fielding is significantly more expensive. Making matters worse, U.S. forces are increasingly embracing commercial-off-the-shelf systems, dramatically increasing their vulnerability to EMP waves.” end quote. Sounds a little scary, in my opinion. According to the Congressional EMP Commission, it will take billions of dollars to protect our power grid, and our government would rather spend that kind of money in other places. So, we are left vulnerable to attacks and our life as we know it is on the line.
Take a deep breath, even though our government may not choose to protect us from this danger, let me tell you some ways that we can protect ourselves. To begin with, it is imperative to make sure that your house is properly grounded, which is so important for lightning storms but may be needed if any larger EMP’s happen. A person can shield any devices by adding a conductive plate to catch the waves before they hit your object. A prime example of this is called a faraday cage. The most simple type of faraday cage is just wrapping a box in tinfoil and sealing the tinfoil with aluminum tape. You could easily place your phone inside that. But let me tell you a little more about the faraday cage method because it is the only way to fully block an EMP. By definition of oxford's dictionary, a faraday cage is a grounded screen surrounding a object or building to exclude electromagnetic influences. These are pictures of a faraday cage in use. In Order to get rid of the electromagnetic energy, the faraday cage must be completely grounded. To do this, the energy that is caught in the system is expelled through a wire and into a spike that is driven into the ground. The energy which is redirected into the ground is forced into the soil, and soil is actually a very good conductor. Once in the ground, the energy is dispersed to the point that it can cause no harm to anybody or anything. Most of the electronics that are being sold today have either grounding or shielding, but could still very much be affected by EMP blasts. Electronics are not entirely protected unless it specifically says that the electronic is EMP protected. So, when you are buying devices, you should look for this extra protection.
Now, if I haven’t scared you enough, I will also share about a danger that we truly need to worry about in our everyday lives. These are small scale EMP generators. They work in the same way as a large scale emp but instead of requiring millions of dollars, it can be made in your neighbor’s garage, from parts found in old cars, a computer and a 9 volt battery. Yes, these homemade EMPs may not be able to take out a continent but they are capable of disabling or jamming up your small system at home. This is a diagram that I have drawn that shows how an EMP generator could be made. When the switch is depressed it allows the current from the battery to flow into the boost converter, which changes the 9 Volts into almost 1 million Volts. The 1 million volts of current flows into the capacitor which stores the current until the capacitor is full. At this point the electricity jumps across the spark gap and then all that stored current is instantly released, all at once, into the coil, creating a electromagnetic pulse. It is very scary that a fifteen year old like me can find the diagrams and the parts needed to build a small scale EMP generator. That means that if I can build a generator, than anyone can. Someone can spend just under one hundred dollars and build an EMP generator small enough to conceal easily, but powerful enough to take out security systems in office buildings or cars. One example of EMPs being used often for fraud, is a slot jammer. According to wired.com a slot jammer is a small EMP that jams the slot machines and causes them to give the player a win. It is also stated on a document written by Colin R. Miller that quote “EMPs could be used to break locks and even shut down large security systems.” Picture James Bond or Oceans 11. Maybe the bond movies really are based on reality. Naw there’s no way that bond could truly blast his way into the White House.
In conclusion, please recall how I Ignited your brains with facts telling what an EMP is and the different types of EMP’s. Then we counted down with how we can defend against EMP waves and what the government is doing, or not doing, to prevent an attack. And Lastly we detonated with the effects that a small scale EMP can have on our daily lives. So, don’t forget, the next time you upgrade and buy a new phone, you just might want to check its EMP rating.