- Did you know that when your phone says 5G up there
it's probably lying?
When I type star, pound, star, pound 4, 6, 3, 6 pound star
pound, star; LTE. I paid for 5G?!
Darn it.
What's going on here?
As it turns out, corporations is a liar sometimes
and this kind of trickery is one of the reasons that we
decided to spend nearly $45,000
on an industry standard radio frequency shielded room.
It will allow us to identify and debunk all kinds
of industry connivings like this, as well as test products
like cell phones, routers, even microwaves for things
like signal range, battery drain, interference
regulatory compliance, and so much more.
There's just one small problem.
They shipped us the wrong one, and they stopped replying
to our emails.
So now all we have is this foam, a big pile of wood
some other assorted paraphernalia and a great big project to
turn this into something usable, but don't worry
we got a plan for that, that I'm gonna share with you
along with this segue to our sponsor.
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- When it comes to wireless technology
it's really hard to know what's going on
and it's not like you can see it,
which means that before we can test anything
we're gonna need some specialized equipment.
For one thing, we're gonna need a 4G/5G Labkit
which is essentially a mobile network
in a box that will allow us to spin
up our own access points here
and then measure the performance at various frequencies
across the spectrum with all kinds of devices,
be they iPhones or Samsung Galaxies.
Naturally, we'll wanna do the same thing
for home wireless equipment, be it wifi or Bluetooth,
and in order to ensure that our measurements are accurate
we will need, da da da-da
an EMC chamber.
So let's talk about the kind we were supposed to get.
For those of you in the know
45 grand for a fully assembled 16 by 12 foot EMF chamber.
It's actually not a ton of money.
That is because we bought it used.
Wait, used?
Whoa
No, actually that is completely normal and fine,
as long as it was built by a reputable manufacturer.
These things have no moving parts, so they don't really wear
out the way that you might imagine.
And it's extremely common to see scientific equipment
like this on its third or fourth
or fifth owner decades after it was first built.
Of course, it doesn't really look like anything special.
What makes it a a good one?
Well, this one, honestly not much.
It took three weeks to ship
and not only does it not match the picture on the website,
it is entirely the wrong size.
We ordered 16 by 12 and they shipped us a 13 by 13.
Not to mention that it is in horrible condition.
Like seriously, this thing looks
like they stored it outside.
Look how beat up these foam panels are.
Like, what even happened to the tips on this one
and this one and this?
These are the most critical part of the chamber, but
since it's in this state anyway, I guess nothing prevents me
from cutting it open and giving you guys a
little lesson about foam.
Different kinds of chambers,
those designed for acoustic use or radio frequency use.
Wow, this stuff is pretty heavy.
Ah, come on, open up!
The point is, they will use different kinds of foam
materials and construction depending on their purpose.
Ours is a high performance, fire resistant, theoretically...
so it is,
pyramidal foam EMC absorber.
EMC stands for electromagnetic compatibility and
means that it shouldn't unintentionally generate, reflect
or retransmit electromagnetic interference.
Oh, that stinks.
Of course.
No material is going to be absolutely perfect
in this regard, which is where the shape comes into play.
These pyramids aren't purely aesthetic
but rather, they have a function.
An electromagnetic wave, like a sound wave, can reflect
off of a flat surface, which means
that if you're trying to measure the strength
of a signal from a wifi router, for example
with a sensor here that do do, do bounce, or realistically
many bounces, could interfere with your reading.
Now, to be clear, acoustic and EMC products can be flat
like the acoustic panels that we mounted for, Call me Chris
and that will still help to reduce the energy
of any waves that hit them.
But, by employing this shape
we give the waves multiple opportunities to bounce
off of the sides of the pyramids
before hopefully being nearly fully dissipated.
This elimination of bouncing waves is where
an anechoic chamber gets its name.
An- like not any, and -choic, like not any echoes.
Not all foams are created equal though
like the high density foam that we use
in our super comfortable straps
on the ltt backpack, ltt store.com.
And there are a couple of main differences
between EMC foam like this,
and the kind that you would find in a sound chamber.
First up, while both are made of polyurethane,
the density and the internal structure tends to be higher
for acoustic applications compared to what we need.
The second major factor is that EMC foam
like ours, is carbon impregnated.
Carbon has a lot of space in its outer electron orbitals
allowing it to absorb energy,
which then gradually dissipates causing the electrons to
fall back into their normal orbitals.
This makes it super effective,
like iron, at blocking electromagnetic interference,
turning the entire chamber lined with this stuff
into a sort of Faraday cage, sort of.
For better isolation what we should really have is high
density Ferrite tiling that lines the inside of the chamber
but a two by two inch tile, okay, is eight US dollars.
Which is why comparably sized chambers
with Ferrite can run you into the millions of dollars.
That's a yikes.
The good news is that we don't actually need Ferrite tiling.
Ferrite is useful for blocking lower frequency waves and
with it we could block signals all the down
to 26 to 30 megahertz,
allowing us to test like AM radios and stuff.
But I suspect most of you don't really care about that sort
of thing anyway, and besides without the Ferrite tiling
we can still keep anything above 800 megahertz
from passing through the walls into our chamber.
As for extremely high frequencies, well, we don't
need to worry about those in here either because
we've got a 10 inch thick concrete building all the way
around us that is gonna block them out nicely.
The finish chamber is gonna be assembled right here
and it's gonna be about this big.
I'm walking around inside it right now,
which is a perfect fit for our consumer electronics devices,
along with our 4G, 5G, antenna, cameras and any
other measuring equipment that we will need when it's built.
But first, story time.
As I already mentioned, the picture
on the website didn't match what was shipped, but guys
it gets way worse than that.
The seller never sold that chamber
or even owned it in the first place.
I mean, we thought we were at least buying a comparable one
but it was completely different.
Well, could have been an innocent mistake, right?
No, not so much. Thanks to the contractor who,
ironically, the seller hired to come out
and build this thing for us.
We got in touch with the original seller
of the actual pictured chamber, and it turns
out that they messaged these guys years ago
telling them to remove those photos.
The thing is, the RF industry is pretty small
and it seems like everyone knows everyone.
Now thankfully, we haven't actually wired the money for
this. So the obvious course of action was,
"Hey guys, can you pack all this up and take it back?"
And this, I kid you not, is their response.
(cricket sound)
It has been months of crickets now,
which I guess means I am the proud owner of many,
many piles and pallets of literal garbage.
It's not all bad though.
Through the assembly contractor
we were able to get in direct contact
with some excellent EMC chamber manufacturers,
and we're hoping that the next time we update you guys
on this, it'll be with great news.
And maybe there's a way to make some lemonade out of
these lemons. The thing is, the degradation of these
pyramids means that we cannot trust this foam to
evenly attenuate any RF in the interior space.
But it could still prove useful for our future
sound isolation chamber, which will be a dual wall design.
So there's no reason that we couldn't pack this
stuff into the airspace between the inner and
outer walls to improve the isolation even further.
As for the framing,
well, we can use that to put together our camera testing
chamber which is gonna have consistent lighting and lots
of fun little objects and test patterns that we
can take pictures of to evaluate both standalone
and smartphone integrated cameras.
If I get my way, it'll also have a little model train,
which I think would be sick.
As for the rest of it, well, I don't know.
Hopefully we'll figure something out
and they're not expecting us to send this
back after leaving it with us and ignoring us for months.
I mean, the way that I see it, if they ask for it back
at this point. By the way, you guys, this looked like a lot.
Come, come, come, come, come, come, come over here.
It's two layers thick.
No, no, no, you gotta see.
Yeah, here, here. Can you see that?
Oh, sorry, sorry.
It's two layers thick, so if they ask for it back
I think I'm just gonna send them a storage
invoice for their garbage and it might end up
being a better deal for them to simply walk away.
Like, look, I don't like to have to do it
but, if I have to go ruthless business guy, then I will.
I will. 'Cause this is, this is ridiculous.
Look at this.
It's got like tree debris on it, like all over it.
That's not from us, we've had it inside.
Oh. We haven't tested to see if it actually works at
all for anything. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
- [Adam] Foam fort?
- Foam fort!
- LMG five.
We're sitting at about 60. Okay.
Okay. And going into the chamber.
Wow,
I'm already at 70 and here we are.
While I may not be able to present the data
we would collect from this chamber to you guys
as valid results just cuz of all the issues
with it. Can confirm carbon impregnated foam
definitely does a thing.
In fact, I'm using my onboard recorder right now that goes
to the pack on my hip, and we're gonna switch
over to the one that I am transmitting
to our camera operator over there,
and you guys are gonna see it's pretty bad.
Adam, wanna go ahead and close in the last spot?
- [Adam] Goodnight, sweet prince.
- Here we go.
Also, you're gonna see that when I bust outta here
this red SSID
in the corner here is gonna go from about minus 80 to...
here we go.
(screaming his way out)
I dropped myself up to minus 50.
All right, I can't wait to have an actual working one
just like I can't wait to tell you guys
that you can see the full video of us
building the block board over on Floatplane.com
and oh, I also can't wait to tell you about our sponsor.
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That's actually very funny, I like the talking points.
So check out the RTX 40 90 Suprim
at the link in the video description.
If you guys enjoyed this video, you might also
enjoy the one where we gave you guys a lab update
on what's going on with keyboard testing.
So why don't you go check out that one.
Can I actually get a hand though?
Just get that?
Yep. No, no, for real.
Yep.
Okay. It's just at a really weird angle.
I couldn't get any leverage.