Source of Small Faraday Test Chambers?

Butter cookie tins with 33 nF Russian feedthrough caps and SMA F-F bulkhead mount barrels.

I mostly use 70-mm film cans that I got from Surplus Shed.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

What do you use them for?

They were most likely made BY Nokia. I'd go get them back from the customers that stole them! They are probably worth serious money, perhaps $1000 each, as they were hand made.

You COULD make them yourself. The only tricky part looks to be the front bezel that the hinged cover mates to. Maybe they got this from somebody that makes mil-spec fittings.

Jon

How about a metal tool box? Add some stick-on EMI finger stock at the seams, if that matters.

Friend of mine used a dead microwave oven. He had blocked off the input port and installed feedthroughs into the door. He left the light connected so he could watch for magic smoke through the door.

Mark L. Fergerson

The door only shields well at the specific microwave frequency.

I use the redneck version. A huge thick cardboard box with lid, the kind you could sit on and it wouldn't crush. An alternative would be a plywood box. That is completely covered with thin copper stock. Wrapped around the edges of the open box as well as the lid. There is a small port hole on the side for cables, feedtroughs and stuff. I didn't need a fan because the box is so large that it takes forever to heat up. Works. A good test is to set a portable radio to a stron station, place it in there and watch the audio going phhsssssss when the lid comes down.

An interesting effect when taking the lid off in winter is a serious zzzap .. POP with an impressive blue ESD flash. Got to be careful. When in doubt I have a resistor between lid and box. The nice thing is you can solder to it anywhere.

On Jan 7, 2017, JM wrote (in article ):

Yeah. Send some bills for the purchase of those test cages, thanking them profusely for the sale. The price is the replacement cost, not what you got them for. I bet they?ll come back.

The Nokia boxes look to have been made in a real machine shop.

By the way, what I used back in the day were the large Bud or Hammond die-cast seamless boxes, which are quite useful but not as large at the Nokia boxes. It?s easy to drill or cut holes for connectors and the like. They cost something like $50 each. If you needed to see inside, cut a large hole and cover it with copper screening clamped to the metal with a steel ring and some screws.

A size up from this are the metal chassis intended for building equipment to go in 19? racks.

Joe Gwinn

I used to do that as well. Blue cans and red cans with the Danish mermaid on the lid. However, those are not good for the waist line because someone has to "volunteer" and eat all the contents. I used American feedthrough caps.

Real men use a Fosters can :-)

Honey buckets also work well although my last one dared to rust through after only 30 years.

I assume you dump the beer.

An Australian assured me that they make Fosters for export only, not to drink themselves.

You can make a nice box by soldering up slabs of FR4.

Well, you're doing your 5/8ths life crisis the hard way with a bike, whereas I'm doing mine the easy way with a convertible. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs (Who has also lost 30 lbs in the last few years)

People /drink/ Fosters?

Presumably they are the same people that (allegedly) drink Coors.

A common rookie mistake doing that is to use double-sided board and not solder to both sides of each piece--electrically you wind up with two L-shaped pieces facing each other, instead of a continuous shield.

Cheers

Phil "big fan of Cu tape" Hobbs

Not for reasonable cost, alas, but you'll want a welding shop to build the doorframe, and a plating shop for conductive-surface treatment for all the aluminum parts. Around here, the old standby is copper or bronze screen wire on wood frames for shield boxes/rooms.

The nickel-mesh gasket stuff won't be low-cost, either.

A microwave oven?

If the consolidation of mobile chipset companies hasn't finished yet then the best source is probably other auctions like the one you bought at. The Nvidia lab in the UK that was doing mobile stuff and which shut down also sold a bunch of things like that, but I couldn't justify the shipping to where I am.

If you had to make one, then I would start with something like this:

Before the craft beer movement began, Fosters, Victorian Bitter, Melbourne Bitter and XXXX, etc were very commonly drunk here. They seemed ok back in the 80s. I can't tell whether those beers have changed, or tastes have - both probably. Regardless, the choice of beer is now more a personal expression of narcissism than actual taste, with so many nice beers to choose from. I can't remember the last time I had one of those oldies... but the versions available here are unlikely to represent the export versions anyhow.

Thanks all for sharing your thoughts. I got a quote at a local machine shop for making these type of cages and am still recovering from the shock. I wasn't aware of the original purchase cost of these, so shall just keep a close eye on the one I have, and be grateful I have it.