Carrington scale solar event in a couple days by known geophysicist?

softdown · February 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vyxVOJcKnk

What to do?

softdown · February 2

Delay the next NASA launch for sure.

Graham Parkinson · February 2

Thanks for this informative video. Lots of good info, along with a few bits of entertaining speculation!!

softdown · February 2

Think he gave it a 10-20% chance of being a big deal.

softdown · February 3

No updates in past 20 hours.

softdown · February 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnDlasfHjrs

softdown · February 4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJt9eSRw7dA

softdown · February 5

Dodged another bullet apparently. If we find that a Cat 5 solar storm is coming it may help to turn off the charge controller and inverter? That is my understanding. But civilians have almost no way of knowing. Cat 5 solar storm is a Carrington scale event. We have no idea how often they occur.

SumPower · February 5

My understanding of solar flare magnetic coupling damage is that you have to have a long conductor coupled with the magnetic pulse to create any damage. So just don't connect to those long conductors that we call the grid.

softdown · February 6

^^ So grid tied systems could easily get cooked. One less thing for me to worry about.

JRHill · February 7

I thought the whole thing about a *well* grounded faraday cage was to completely shield something as the Carrington scale event or an EMP would kill it just from the field encompassing the whole area? Of course all this stuff is subject to intensity and distance from the event itself.

I do have spares for the VFXR and FM so have thought about this - at least for a moment or two. But then what about the panels and now the LFP04 Simplify blocks with their BMS? What is gonna be left to operate with the safely stored replacements? The complexities just keep adding up and there probably will never be and opportunity to gain from 'lessons learned' for the future anyway. So when it happens, may it happen directly over me.

I'm more concerned that the tree in the forest that nobody hears falling will land on me.

BB. · 7:13AM

In Theory, the Faraday cage works because the metal "screen" intercepts the electromagnetic waves and converts them into current--inside of the screen itself. And that current is "counter" to the impressed field (the field generated in the screen is the the "opposite" phase of the incoming EM field--canceling the effects of the external fields).

Grounding of the cage does not really change anything (as far as I know). A person inside of the screened area (has to be 100% screen coverage), cannot measure any effects from the external fields.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage

Note that cage (may be solid conductive material or a screen--frequency of the "radiation" does matter).
Faraday cages cannot block stable or slowly varying magnetic fields, such as the Earth's magnetic field (a compass will still work inside one). To a large degree, however, they shield the interior from external electromagnetic radiation if the conductor is thick enough and any hole is significantly smaller than the wavelength of the radiation.

Which brings of the discussion here about Carrington concerns... A Carrington Event is a very low frequency EM effect. And a typical Faraday cage may not attenuate the EM slowly varying solar field. To generate electricity in wiring (for example), the wire has to be miles long (quick search did not give me the frequency or length of cable at risk)...

Pretty much, the segment of the wire/cable needs to be something like a minimum of 1/4 of the wave length of the EM field. Anything shorter is not really affected.

Lightning and EMP (aka nuclear electromagnetic pulse) have much higher frequencies (as far as I know) vs solar "storms". And EMP also has over nasties like gama and x-ray radiation (which has its own effects on electronics/chips).

As long as your solar equipment is not connected to external wiring, I would not worry about a Carrington effect.

If you have equipment connected to AC power lines, telephone, cable, etc... Those can bring in the electrical pulses that are generated by their large physical nature (I.e., miles of copper cables) which behave like a receiving antenna.

Interestingly, I still cannot find the frequency/wave length/length of cables/etc. that a Carrington event would effect.

If you bring in an external cable (without "protection" such as power, telephone, etc.) inside of your Faraday cage, you lose the "protection" of the cage.

-Bill

Carrington scale solar event in a couple days by known geophysicist?

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