Another Hot-Dang EMP Question and LED Flashlights

YES, it's been asked before, but the replies have been less than conclusive, so let me ask it this way.

Since the flashlight is virtually right up there with knives, water straws and thermal blankets for survival, people want to know no matter what, that it's going to work when they need it to. The last thing they want is to be left in the dark. And that's one of the least inconvenient things about an electro-magnetic pulse event, whether it be an attack or a solar occurrence, like the Carrington Event in 1859.

But the question about EMP is, how would an event affect the electronic aspects of an LED flashlight? Including a protected battery, which has circuitry. Some have said the flashlight itself would be okay if there was no battery in it, but would the battery be okay? In a Stargate episode, they induced an EMP to shut down some equipment, but when it shutdown, they waited a few minutes, turned everything back on an it worked fine. Somehow that seemed too easy.

When I worked for the Navy, they worked on hardening the weapons and shipboard systems; however, the electrical grid in the U.S. would be virtually wide open for attack.

So does anyone know for sure how an EMP would affect a modern LED flashlight? And which would be worse? A solar event or a detonation in the atmosphere. Would leaving the batteries out of the light protect it? And what of the circuitry in the battery itself?

Thanks!

An EMP has the potential to melt semiconductor junctions so the LED itself is vulnerable, as is any IC on the driver board.

A solar event could be weaker or stronger than a man made EMP. There was a solar event in 1989 that disrupted some communications satellites, but didn't harm anything on the surface. There was the massive event in the 1800s that you reference, which melted telegraph wires.

It's my understanding that different wavelengths of EM affect different sized electronics. Flashlight electronics are generally contained in a metal tube. The chances of the wavelength being right to interfere with them is, I believe, slim.
HDS and Peak have both made comments about this subject, and consider their light to be generally EMP proof.

I haven't ever dared to turn on all four of my E01s at the same time in fear of creating an EMP (E01 magnetic pulse) which I'm told could very well destroy all other types of flashlights as well as blow people's minds if they are within a 4 mile radius.

A small handheld device like a flashlight is unlikely to have enough conductive area to channel much of the energy from an EMP into its electronics, unlike appliances connected to the electrical grid with miles of antenna ala power lines.

How about the battery itself? Doesn't it have a protective circuit?

If the flashlight doesn't have a battery in it, wouldn't it be safe from such an event? I don't know if we know enough about the 1859 Carrington happening to know how it would effect today's society, but it would create many problems. The Navy took it very seriously, but the power companies treat it as if it's something that's so unlikely that it's hardly worth worrying about. And yet the last HUGE occurrence took place less than a hundred years ago. If it had left an enormous crater out West, I guarantee people would be worried, but we have a tendency not to be bothered by what we can't see. It's like battleships and submarines. A battleship off the enemy's coast will greatly distress them. They can see the ship's size and the big guns; however, it doesn't hold true with a submarine. A submarine might be every bit as destructive as a battleship, but the sub isn't visible. One can't see it's teeth. From the shore it's invisible.

The Carrington event didn't leave a crater. There were no signs of its destructive power. It wreaked quite a bit of havoc with telegraph operators, but at the time it was merely an inconvenience. Today, it would kill millions.

The grid will suffer enormous damage because of the induced currents long hundreds of miles of power lines. Transformers will pop as will a great many things connected to the grid.

The Navy and Air Force are worried about EMPs because of the size and relative fragility of their combat vehicles, respectively. The Navy is well aware that a nuclear weapon detonated anywhere near a vessel will wreak both tremendous physical damage as well as potentially knock out systems interconnected by thousands of feet - if not actual miles - of wiring. Combat aircraft are always operating on thin margins and apt to be in the air during an EMP event, thus the Air Force has their own concerns especially as modern electronics operate on ever lower voltages (making them far more efficient but also increasing their susceptibility to damage from EMP-induced current flows) than earlier solid-state electronics. It is possible to harden solid-state electronics - i.e. I recall reading that the Amy's solid-state PRC-77 field radio fared better than its vacuum-tube predecessor in EMP testing.

A small device like a flashlight, flashlight battery, or even an automobile has such a small area compared to miles of power line that they're likely to be unphased. Testing done on modern cars has shown low incidences of malfunction up to the limits of the test equipment - warning lights, occasional uncommanded shutdowns, some sensor/component failures, and a small number of lethal ECU failures. But a strong majority were OK - perhaps something to do with how ECUs are already hardened to deal with the harsh realities of the automotive electrical environment as are most of their accessory components.

It's true that utilities are ill-prepared for a massive systemic failure be it an EMP, huge solar flare, or successful cyber-attack on their hideously-vulnerable SCADA command-and-control systems. But if there's an EMP that manages to kill your small isolated electronics you will likely have bigger and more immediate problems such as the nearby nuclear explosion, whatever is following the non-nuclear EMP weapon that was just deployed, or the civilization-ending solar flare.

Interesting subject. I am inclined to agree that if an EMP affects your flashlight you probably are going to have much bigger problems. That said a small kerosene lantern and an incandescent flashlight or two will provide you with usable light in a pinch.

I actually wrap my deep storage and backup flashlights in 5 or so, alternating layers of AL foil and clear food wrap and place them in a sealed metal USGI ammo can (which I hope works as a cheap Faraday cage). At worst, it won't harm the lights, at best, who knows LOL