Fence Charger Problem

[skyhightree1]

I have the 12v solar charger from Souther States on a fence at my house and ever since we had rain for like the 4 days straight with really no sun it had died now we had sun for 2 days its not charged up and calves are all over the place do you think I should replace battery or should I totally unhook it and put up another charger and bring the charger in the house and charge it up with bright lamp light for a few days ? I have never had this issue before with those chargers the charger is 2 years old. Do you think no sun plus cold weather killed the battery ? :help:

 

[dun]

Firt thing is to replace the entire charger so the calf problem is resolved. Second is try to charge the battery then test it with a load. If the battery is good the charger probably took a dump.

 

[snake67]

I have the 12v solar charger from Souther States on a fence at my house and ever since we had rain for like the 4 days straight with really no sun it had died now we had sun for 2 days its not charged up and calves are all over the place do you think I should replace battery or should I totally unhook it and put up another charger and bring the charger in the house and charge it up with bright lamp light for a few days ? I have never had this issue before with those chargers the charger is 2 years old. Do you think no sun plus cold weather killed the battery ? :help:

You cannot use just any old battery on these type of solar fencers.

You need a battery that can be run down and charged up again - a deep cycle marine or RV battery.

Personally I do not believe that there is ANY outfit that makes a decent solar charged system.

And I have enough solar panels in my yard that the power company pays me thousands of dollars a year for the power I sell the them - so I may not be a PhD expert, but I am a bit knowledgeable as I am a commercial producer of solar power - yeah, even in Canada we can do this.

Not all solar panels and chargers are created equal either.

Hope you kept the receipt - sometimes a small bump can screw the pooch as well.

Personally I would buy a plug in - electricity is cheap - it take a lot of years of use before you pay for that solar powered system - a heck of a lot!

In the end you seldom save money using solar - it is only good if there is no way to plug in a fencer in my opinion

Bez

 

[skyhightree1]

Firt thing is to replace the entire charger so the calf problem is resolved. Second is try to charge the battery then test it with a load. If the battery is good the charger probably took a dump.

Thanks never had a problem with one of those chargers before. I did take out the problem charger this morning and put the plug in charger on which did stop the calf issue. I have the charger in the shop where its heated and bright light over it for a couple days I did go out there and turn it on and its pulsing again which is more than it was doing earlier.

 

[skyhightree1]

I have the 12v solar charger from Souther States on a fence at my house and ever since we had rain for like the 4 days straight with really no sun it had died now we had sun for 2 days its not charged up and calves are all over the place do you think I should replace battery or should I totally unhook it and put up another charger and bring the charger in the house and charge it up with bright lamp light for a few days ? I have never had this issue before with those chargers the charger is 2 years old. Do you think no sun plus cold weather killed the battery ? :help:

You cannot use just any old battery on these type of solar fencers.

You need a battery that can be run down and charged up again - a deep cycle marine or RV battery.

Personally I do not believe that there is ANY outfit that makes a decent solar charged system.

And I have enough solar panels in my yard that the power company pays me thousands of dollars a year for the power I sell the them - so I may not be a PhD expert, but I am a bit knowledgeable as I am a commercial producer of solar power - yeah, even in Canada we can do this.

Not all solar panels and chargers are created equal either.

Hope you kept the receipt - sometimes a small bump can screw the pooch as well.

Personally I would buy a plug in - electricity is cheap - it take a lot of years of use before you pay for that solar powered system - a heck of a lot!

In the end you seldom save money using solar - it is only good if there is no way to plug in a fencer in my opinion

Bez

Bez,
Its this charger thats got a 12v battery inside not the one that you do put a true battery on it.

http://www.southernstates.com/catalog/p ... r-30m.aspx

 

[cross_7]

I have the 12v solar charger from Souther States on a fence at my house and ever since we had rain for like the 4 days straight with really no sun it had died now we had sun for 2 days its not charged up and calves are all over the place do you think I should replace battery or should I totally unhook it and put up another charger and bring the charger in the house and charge it up with bright lamp light for a few days ? I have never had this issue before with those chargers the charger is 2 years old. Do you think no sun plus cold weather killed the battery ? :help:

You cannot use just any old battery on these type of solar fencers.

You need a battery that can be run down and charged up again - a deep cycle marine or RV battery.

Personally I do not believe that there is ANY outfit that makes a decent solar charged system.

And I have enough solar panels in my yard that the power company pays me thousands of dollars a year for the power I sell the them - so I may not be a PhD expert, but I am a bit knowledgeable as I am a commercial producer of solar power - yeah, even in Canada we can do this.

Not all solar panels and chargers are created equal either.

Hope you kept the receipt - sometimes a small bump can screw the pooch as well.

Personally I would buy a plug in - electricity is cheap - it take a lot of years of use before you pay for that solar powered system - a heck of a lot!

In the end you seldom save money using solar - it is only good if there is no way to plug in a fencer in my opinion

Bez

Bez,
Its this charger thats got a 12v battery inside not the one that you do put a true battery on it.

http://www.southernstates.com/catalog/p ... r-30m.aspx

That's a Parmak, they must make them for southern states also
Probably the battery
They make a trickle charger so you may try charging it
You can buy the battery from Parmak or interstate has the same battery for a little less money

 

[skyhightree1]

I may have to do that but this weather we have been having and we got another storm coming in I may leave the plug in charger on till spring and replace the solar charger battery. If we dont have enough sun to charge it for days at a time It will keep draining and need to be recharged probably. Thanks I will get my batteries from there I usually go to batteries plus for my batteries.

 

[snake67]

Gel batteries are generally good but do have a life span - the company probably has the specs on it and a simple phone call would get them if you do not have them handy.

I do not know how much power the panel puts out either - but it is a small panel. My panels are on average 4 feet wide and 8 feet tall.

I suspect you drained the battery completely as it is small and there has been no power available to charge it up - and there may be a memory issue as batteries that cycle can actually get what they think is a full charge and yet only be partially charged.

Or the charger itself may simply have got some moisture in it from the rain.

Further to that if it is not protected from lightening with a lightening protector it could be damaged in a storm if the fence or the ground near the fence is hit.

And finally it may simply have been so drained that it could not catch up until you took the load off of it.

I know I have not given you any answers and may have actually confused the issue - but - with the load off of it you may finally get a re-charge.

Only time will tell.

All in all, the above reasons are why we have gone completely away from solar powered fencers.

It takes a lot of years of use to make the solar system pay for itself - unless of course you have no easily reachable electricity to plug in to.

Or send the whole thing back and tell them to fix it! LOL

Best to you

Bez

 

[skyhightree1]

lol I just like those solar boxes.. Here at home I have access to electricity .. On my places I rent I do not so I have no choice but to use the solar boxes.

 

[snake67]

lol I just like those solar boxes.. Here at home I have access to electricity .. On my places I rent I do not so I have no choice but to use the solar boxes.

Then go and buy a big panel, a deep cell battery that weighs about 80 - 120 pounds (lots of reserve power) and a decent fencer and hook them up - it works

Remember - that solar panel has to put more power into the battery than the fencer uses during the day - otherwise it dies at night

You need a decent panel - and I think you have a bargain basement panel on that system

Point it directly at the sun at 12:00 noon - that will have you directly south and provide the most sun over the daylight period

Cheers

Bez

 

[cross_7]

lol I just like those solar boxes.. Here at home I have access to electricity .. On my places I rent I do not so I have no choice but to use the solar boxes.

Here is the battery
Interstate has it for about 50.00
But I'd try charging it first
Fully charged it should operate for 21 day without charging it, so with a little sun it should be fine unless the battery is bad or as Bez said you got some water in the case
http://www.southernstates.com/catalog/p ... fence.aspx

 

[skyhightree1]

Thanks all. I don't like having issues with the chargers I will try to see if it charges then go from there good point on panels bez good info.

 

[Aaron]

I have the 12v solar charger from Souther States on a fence at my house and ever since we had rain for like the 4 days straight with really no sun it had died now we had sun for 2 days its not charged up and calves are all over the place do you think I should replace battery or should I totally unhook it and put up another charger and bring the charger in the house and charge it up with bright lamp light for a few days ? I have never had this issue before with those chargers the charger is 2 years old. Do you think no sun plus cold weather killed the battery ? :help:

You cannot use just any old battery on these type of solar fencers.

You need a battery that can be run down and charged up again - a deep cycle marine or RV battery.

Personally I do not believe that there is ANY outfit that makes a decent solar charged system.

And I have enough solar panels in my yard that the power company pays me thousands of dollars a year for the power I sell the them - so I may not be a PhD expert, but I am a bit knowledgeable as I am a commercial producer of solar power - yeah, even in Canada we can do this.

Not all solar panels and chargers are created equal either.

Hope you kept the receipt - sometimes a small bump can screw the pooch as well.

Personally I would buy a plug in - electricity is cheap - it take a lot of years of use before you pay for that solar powered system - a heck of a lot!

In the end you seldom save money using solar - it is only good if there is no way to plug in a fencer in my opinion

Bez

Cheaper? Really!?

Are you sure you live in Ontario? Maybe you live in Quebec and are just in denial, because my hydro bill for November is $100+ more than it was November 2012 and the amount of power used never changed.

 

[dun]

My neighbor uses the chargers with the built in panels, he is constantly having issues with them. I ue the Parmak Mag 12 with a deep cycle battery for the places without electricity. It's just standard procedure to every 2 weeks bring in the batterys and charge them. I do them one at a time and use an old motorcycle battery for the few hours it takes to charge the deepcycle. If you have a weed/trash load on the fence the batterys won;t last near as long.

 

[snake67]

I have the 12v solar charger from Souther States on a fence at my house and ever since we had rain for like the 4 days straight with really no sun it had died now we had sun for 2 days its not charged up and calves are all over the place do you think I should replace battery or should I totally unhook it and put up another charger and bring the charger in the house and charge it up with bright lamp light for a few days ? I have never had this issue before with those chargers the charger is 2 years old. Do you think no sun plus cold weather killed the battery ? :help:

You cannot use just any old battery on these type of solar fencers.

You need a battery that can be run down and charged up again - a deep cycle marine or RV battery.

Personally I do not believe that there is ANY outfit that makes a decent solar charged system.

And I have enough solar panels in my yard that the power company pays me thousands of dollars a year for the power I sell the them - so I may not be a PhD expert, but I am a bit knowledgeable as I am a commercial producer of solar power - yeah, even in Canada we can do this.

Not all solar panels and chargers are created equal either.

Hope you kept the receipt - sometimes a small bump can screw the pooch as well.

Personally I would buy a plug in - electricity is cheap - it take a lot of years of use before you pay for that solar powered system - a heck of a lot!

In the end you seldom save money using solar - it is only good if there is no way to plug in a fencer in my opinion

Bez

Cheaper? Really!?

Are you sure you live in Ontario? Maybe you live in Quebec and are just in denial, because my hydro bill for November is $100+ more than it was November 2012 and the amount of power used never changed.

LOL

Actually solar is still more expensive than regular electricity.

However in Ontario we are actually PAYING the US of A to take our power compliments of Wynne and her ilk.

You can blame that on the Libs and NDP - both of whom are the worst thing to happen to this country in a generation in my opinion. One runs the province and the other supports them.

The US of A gets our electricity for as little as one penny a KwH to as free as us paying them 2 pennies a KwH to take our power.

This has caused a tremendous amount of business to leave Ontario for more financially friendly climates.

We actually turn off the cleanest power we have - which is also the cheapest - Niagara Falls - and turn on solar and wind which is contracted at a much higher price.

So when people beach about their power bill ask them who they voted for - if they say Lib or NDP they need to be told to **** as they helped create the issue.

As for power - yeah - 10 years ago we paid 95 a month

Now we are close to 500 a month

Be that as it may, solar power is still more expensive to run when you take in all the costs to heat up a fence than it is to plug it in.

We are planning in a few more years to spend about another $24K and put in a battery shop - to house the batteries that will be powered by our 10 Kw per hour system - that will run the entire farm and we can cut the cord at the gate and tell the electrical producers to get stuffed.

It is not financially viable yet - but at the rate it is going it will be within the next 5-8 years.

Cheers

Bez

 

[Banjo]

I went to a Taylor Cyclops fence charger with a hookup yourself solar panel and car battery.....best in the Business IMO

 

[greybeard]

Well Bez, since you already said You are selling power to the utilities, I surmise, that it's your fault Aaron's bill is so high.
You know, like when gasoline goes up, everyone blames the :devil2: Evil :devil2: Oil Companies.

 

[Aaron]

Well Bez, since you already said You are selling power to the utilities, I surmise, that it's your fault Aaron's bill is so high.
You know, like when gasoline goes up, everyone blames the :devil2: Evil :devil2: Oil Companies.

No, it's not Bez's fault, he's just taking advantage of a completely retarded government idea. It's our terrible government in this province that people voted for 3 times in a row. There are only 3 types of people that vote for Liberals in this country: Catholics, Jews and Morons. The Catholics are the worst because they will bitch about their government and then turn around and vote them right back in again.

We're pretty conservative with the power usage, so our bill only runs $200-250 in the summer and 300-350 in the winter. Majority of operations around here are $600-800, and the bigger ones (beef operations) are well in excess of $1000 per month.

 

[skyhightree1]

My bill used to be $572- 617 a month for years when I lived in the suburbs and was a fool when it was just me and my wife in a 4200 sq ft house .. We have since moved and built another house that is now 2000 sq ft and framed with 2x6 the blow in foam that swells up and you cut it off the studs and really efficient windows and insulation under the sideing and a ton in the attic and our elec bills are 70-130 a month. That is just for the house the shop / my office is right around 350 per month.

 

[Aaron]

My bill used to be $572- 617 a month for years when I lived in the suburbs and was a fool when it was just me and my wife in a 4200 sq ft house .. We have since moved and built another house that is now 2000 sq ft and framed with 2x6 the blow in foam that swells up and you cut it off the studs and really efficient windows and insulation under the sideing and a ton in the attic and our elec bills are 70-130 a month. That is just for the house the shop / my office is right around 350 per month.

Is your electricity a flat rate per kW or is it based on time of use?