MachIVshooter
Member
First, No, this is not exactly gun-related. But given the nature of this forum, I think it is appropriate subject matter.
last night I caught the tail end of "Future Weapons" and they did a bit on EMP. Now, I've known for a long time what EMP is and I know what it's effects on modern digital electronics are, since digital circuitry is very sensitive to voltage spikes. However, it got me thinking about what systems may not be affected, or at least less affected.
EMP has never had a permanent effect on conventional batteries and simple circuits of wires, motors, switches, speakers, etc. I am pretty familiar with more complex linear circuits, but I never really thought about how they may or may not be affected by EMP. My question to any of our members is this:
How would EMP affect linear circuits, active or inactive? As an automotive technician, I am well aware that EMP will fry a PCM in a modern car, but what about some of our older vehicles. I know the effects on a vehicle with breaker points would be momentary at best, since their systems are strictly mechanical, but how about the ones new enough to be beyond breaker points, but old enough to still be using analog solid state ECM's? And what about the sensors in a modern car? Would we just be looking at computers, or is EMP powerful enough to cook, say, a CKP sensor (or hall-effect switch)? Such sensors are analog, but use electromagnetism and are quite sensative to input voltage. And if EMP did affect them, would it be momentary or permanent? In other words, we know the vehicle would stall immediately, but would these linear sensors survive and function once the digital components were replaced? And what about digital components that weren't powered at the time of EMP?
I'm pretty good with DC electronics, but have never really researched EMP. I know some of our members here are in the hardware side of IT, so I was hoping they might be able to answer some of these questions.
last night I caught the tail end of "Future Weapons" and they did a bit on EMP. Now, I've known for a long time what EMP is and I know what it's effects on modern digital electronics are, since digital circuitry is very sensitive to voltage spikes. However, it got me thinking about what systems may not be affected, or at least less affected.
EMP has never had a permanent effect on conventional batteries and simple circuits of wires, motors, switches, speakers, etc. I am pretty familiar with more complex linear circuits, but I never really thought about how they may or may not be affected by EMP. My question to any of our members is this:
How would EMP affect linear circuits, active or inactive? As an automotive technician, I am well aware that EMP will fry a PCM in a modern car, but what about some of our older vehicles. I know the effects on a vehicle with breaker points would be momentary at best, since their systems are strictly mechanical, but how about the ones new enough to be beyond breaker points, but old enough to still be using analog solid state ECM's? And what about the sensors in a modern car? Would we just be looking at computers, or is EMP powerful enough to cook, say, a CKP sensor (or hall-effect switch)? Such sensors are analog, but use electromagnetism and are quite sensative to input voltage. And if EMP did affect them, would it be momentary or permanent? In other words, we know the vehicle would stall immediately, but would these linear sensors survive and function once the digital components were replaced? And what about digital components that weren't powered at the time of EMP?
I'm pretty good with DC electronics, but have never really researched EMP. I know some of our members here are in the hardware side of IT, so I was hoping they might be able to answer some of these questions.
