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How to Build a Faraday Cage

A Faraday Cage is a solid or mesh covering made out of a conducting material that protects your electronic devices from electromagnetic disturbances.  You can make it cheaply with minimal supplies. Being portable, it offers you an easy option to keep your sensitive electronic devices safe.

How does a Faraday Cage Work

When a Faraday cage or Faraday box is placed in an external electromagnetic field, the electrons composing it re-align themselves to neutralize the effect of the field in the interiors of the box. As a result, any object kept inside it
remains shielded from the effect of EMPs or any other electromagnetic field that can damage the device.

Faraday Cage

Faraday Cage

Steps for a Simple Homemade Faraday Cage

The tutorial guides you on making a Faraday cage for a cell phone. You can use the directions to make a Faraday box  for any essential item of regular use that contains an electromagnetic component such as a clock radio, walkie-talkie, and mp3 player.

Materials Required

  1. Heavy duty aluminium foil
  2. Plastic wrap or plastic bag for each of the electronic items that you want to shield
  3. Old pieces of cloth for wrapping
  4. A mobile phone
  5. A small cardboard box (the phone should fit into it)

DIY Instructions

  1. Wrap the phone nicely with the pieces of cloth.
  2. Cover it with the plastic wrap or put it inside the plastic bag.
  3. Now wrap the cellphone with at least 3 layers of aluminium foil. You can use your hands to gently mold the foil every time you wrap it around to ensure that there are no gaps in the covering.
  4. Place the covered phone in the cardboard box.
  5. Now, wrap the box with a couple of layers of foil, taking care that none of the outer foil touches the inner one covering the phone.
  6. Store the box on the ground.

Choose a size of box that suits the dimensions of the item that you want to shield. If you have a fairly large cardboard box, you can use it to accommodate multiple small objects that have been covered individually, following the above process.

If you have very large objects, then you can cover them as stated above and place them in an empty galvanized garbage can that has been lined completely with cardboard on its inner surface.

Faraday Box

Faraday Box

How to Make a Faraday Box: Video

Now that you are conversant with the simple steps we are sure you can make one on your own within less than an hour’s time.

Published on February 25th 2016 by under Science Fair Projects. Article was last reviewed on 15th November 2023.

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