Electrical fencing issues

[20kidsonhill]

If you Google electric fencing, you will find the alternating + and - fence in itself like kfacres mentioned.
You have two options, water the rod or make the fence itself a charge and grounder.

My only issue was, don't they have to touch two wires, both the hot and cold, to get that charge? How many animals actually do that?

the neighbor had alternating + and - wires on their electric fence and they let us use a part of their land for grazing and it didn't come close to keeping the goats in. So we had to run a couple addtional positive charge wires on it and ground it ourselves and run it all off of our electric fencer.

I would say alternating + and - wires would probably work if you have 6 or 7 lines of wire closer together than the normal electric fence with just 4 or 5 lines of wire.

 

[secuono]

Ah, that's it. The close wires!

 

[Tokoloshe]

There are a couple of methods to improve the earth to earthpost contact;-

1/. Increase the number of stakes as deep as possible preferably into wet soil, river bed or dripping tap (Pretty obvious)
2/. Add an earth stake every 500m away from the primary stake radiating out from that stake.
3/. Irrigate the stake as described earlier in the thread.
4/. Core out a hole in the ground and backfill around your stake with Bentoniite soil , Vermiculite/Soil mixture or a gel/soil mixture. These absorb moisture and retain it a lot longer than straight soil.

In the dry soil we have in Africa we use a return earth (alternating live and earth wires up the fence) system on every occasion with a post every 500m making sure there is a MINIMUM of 6000v in the fence line

 

[pete495]

Okay everyone, here is an update. I am still having issues. I bought a Zareba Energy digital fence tester, and tested the fence charger, and every post around the 3-wire fence. I disconnected the hot wire from the 100 mile fence charger, and left the ground wire connected. The energy on the hot connector was 9000volts, which I guess is plenty. I am assuming this means I have adequate grounding. I then walked around the fence in a counter clockwise rotation. The fence comes out of the charger, and only reaches 1000 volts right near the charger. 1/4 of the way through, the fence measures only about .5 volts. The fence continues to go around the counter clockwise rotation and gradually increases up to .8 volts, but that is all. The counter clockwise rotation ends back at the charger. I already changed a **** load of insulators, but I'm guessing it wasn't enough. Is this right?

As was before, when it rains, it works great. A day or two later of dryness though, it is back to the above readings. To me this sounds like a grounding issue, but if the grounding voltage is still 9000 volts when it's dry, and I'm not getting a shock, it must be the fence, correct? I just want to be sure before I buy a **** load of new insulators. I have already replaced the ones I thought might be faulty. I do have a little advice also. I have aluminum fencing with wood posts and rubber insulators. I would not ever use the rubber insulators because they are stapled to the wood posts, and it is impossible to know if that staple has gone through the rubber insulator and is touching the aluminum wire.

Thanks for your comments thus far.

Pete495

 

[pete495]

That is funny how they changed my curse word to poop. I am happy they let me post though. Thanks!

 

[cedarcurve]

I agree, your fence sounds grounded out somewhere.

Have you mowed under the fence?

Disconnect each wire from all the others, and hook the fencer up to that wire individually. This will tell you if the problem lies on one particular wire, or all of them.

The rain deal- sounds like your ground rods are dry.

Test the fence dry, then try dumping water on the ground rods, come back an hour later- test the fence, and then wait a day-- and test the fence again. This should let you know if the problem is the lack of moisture in the ground rod.

could be a combo of several problems compounding together to give you nothing on the hot wire.

I also have Zareba chargers- 50-100 and a 200 miler. I have about 600 foot of 3 wire fence on the 100 miler right now, and if the ground rods are good and wet-- you'll get a good zap, but if they are dry-- I'll walk up to the fence and grab it, won't be much more of a shock than sticking a D battery to your tongue.

My 50 miler is on about 100 foot of 3 wire fence, and it doesn't work very good. I think this fence has old junk insulators on it.

My 200 mile fencer is on roughly 1/4 mile of differing stand fence, some has weeds growing under it, as I just don't want to get out in the hills and mow under it. it's still shocking good right now after the dew drys off, however it's ground rod is set plenty deep in moisture.

 

[Tokoloshe]

Hi Pete,
Have a look at this Electric Fencing problem solving page , it may help. If you have an AM radio it helps to search for leaks as a radio signal is given off (Marconi Effect from your old school physics) and is picked up as a "click" on the radio. This gets louder the closer you get to the actual fault.

Was the test for 9000v done between the live terminal and the earth post, the earth terminal on the energiser or did you stick the tail of the tester into the ground? These will result in a different conclusion.

You don't mention if it is a mains unit - if so how close together is the earth wire to the lead out cable. It is possible to generate an inducted current into the earth wire so robbing your energy.

It reads like you will need to resort to an earth return fence and include alternating earth wires so disregarding the ground as an arm of your fence circuit.

All the best,

Paul.