FARADAY CAGE ...... for RF interference

Was thinking of housing my new Quantum ballasts (240v) in a copper mesh faraday cage.....also thinking of shortening the cable from the ballast to the reflector

which would actually be the reflector cable...and then wrapping the remaining cable in copper foil tape(3M 1182){copper face, copper back, silver adhesive tape.......

Is that the correct cable to wrap? What about the light controller to ballast cable? should I put a ferrite clamp on this cable or wrap also in foil tape?

Does anyone have experience with these methods?

What size copper mesh does the cage require? Can get a good deal on 14x18 mesh .o11 diameter was gonna double wrap cage with this mesh and instead of

soddering ends was gonna use the foil tape to secure seams.

Lots of questions, Any help from anyone with experience and patience would be very much appreciated, thanks in advance.

You are on the right track and you are not on any snipe hunt. Many do not believe ballasts can cause RFI/EMI. All can, and do, but the newer digital ballasts from China seem to be the worst offenders. As a longtime musician I buy copper sheet on eBay to line control and pickup cavities. Use rubber cement after I cut out the cavity shape from copper sheet. It greatly reduces the interference from and to single coil pickups and almost totally eliminates ANY buzz from humbuckers.

The cord to wrap obviously (to me at least) is your cord from your ballast to your light. Simply wrapping heavy gauge tinfoil is very effective even if gauche.

Your Faraday cage sounds interesting. Are you an engineer? Either pro or amateur? Pics of it would be cool later on. Along with a user report.

I am engineering it myself if thats what you mean....no engineer...amateur sure.....just spent the last 48 hrs researching rf interference and this is the combo I came up....serious research lol....haven't purchased the components yet designing it first then spending money as this stuff aint cheap...

Are these materials effective for the type of frequency I'll be dealing with? Quantum manufacturing says it will intefere with Radio and Navigation equipment running at .45-30Mhz...I

put the am radio near it and it starts cutting out at about 10 feet....how do you measure what Mhz is emmiting from the ballast?....Thanks again

There is a lot easier way of building a faraday cage just a simple metal cabinet will do! just seal seams with hvac tape. Grounding them is not important unless your worried about an emp attack :/ But to be honest unless your having trouble with your cable tv i wouldn't even worry about it every electrical device in your house is throwing out rf.

I wrap sensitive musical electronics with same sheet copper I buy to line guitar control cavities with - thin copper sheet. Buy it on eBay. If copper is what is used to enclose an entire MRI machine to protect it then . . . ..

From Wiki:

"High frequency (HF) radio frequencies are between 3 and 30 MHz. Also known as the decameter band or decameter wave as the wavelengths range from one to ten decameters (ten to one hundred metres). Frequencies immediately below HF are denoted medium frequency (MF), and the next higher frequencies are known as very high frequency (VHF). The HF band is a major part of the shortwave band of frequencies, so communication at these frequencies is often called shortwave radio. Because radio waves in this band can be reflected back to Earth by the ionosphere layer in the atmosphere, called "skip" or skywave propagation, these frequencies can be used for long distance communication, at intercontinental distances. The band is used by international shortwave broadcasting stations (2.310 - 25.820 MHz), aviation communication, government time stations, weather stations, amateur radio and citizens band services, among other uses."

Hence the determination to hunt down the source. It is nearly always the neighbor next door or those directly in front of or behind the house the wicked device is living in and transmitting from. Note those distances with skip involved. Intercontinental. Not far in your case though. But far enough if your toy interferes with one of theirs.