fencer question

[Grippie]

Ok, Long story short: I have a fencer that has been working fine. Now all of a sudden, my ground wire is hot. The positive wire is hot too but not like it should be. Any ideas? I've played with the grounding rods and it doesnt seem to make any difference.

thanks in advance.

 

[jkwilson]

Ok, Long story short: I have a fencer that has been working fine. Now all of a sudden, my ground wire is hot. The positive wire is hot too but not like it should be. Any ideas? I've played with the grounding rods and it doesnt seem to make any difference.

thanks in advance.

I can't imagine anything but insufficient ground. Voltage is relative, and if the ground is hot, that means it is at a different voltage than the earth. Your goal is to force it to be the same by making a good connection between them. Is it dry around the ground rods? How many rods?

 

[Grippie]

I've got three rods in dry ground. The rods are only a couple feet long. I know they are supposed to be longer but I've never had a problem keeping the fence hot and the ground "ground" before.
I'll try to find something longer and see what happens.
thanks for your response!

 

[cmjust0]

Before you go to the trouble of hammering longer rods into the dry ground, try pouring a 5gal bucket of water around the rods you've already got and see if that helps the problem.

If it doesn't, at least the ground will be softer when you drive those longer rods in. :lol:

 

[Grippie]

Before you go to the trouble of hammering longer rods into the dry ground, try pouring a 5gal bucket of water around the rods you've already got and see if that helps the problem.


Thanks for the advice. I should have mentioned that earlier. Moistiening the ground was one of the frist things that I tried.
thanks!

 

[jkwilson]

Go with 8 footers if the ground isn't too rocky. Some soil reacts with the rods and makes them useless after a time.

In many soils, you can put a ground rod in with your bare hands and a glass of water. Tap it in until it just stands on its own, then pull it out. Fill the hole with water. Reinsert the rod and work it up and down with your hands. Add more water as you go by trickling it down the rod a little at a time. In our heavy clay, it takes three times as much work to drive one with a hammer as it does to do it this way, and when you get finished, the end isn't mushroomed.

 

[Susie David]

In addition to the rods I've gounded the fence to the charger. Even in dry conditions when the cow touches the hot and any wire they reaquire respect for the fence.
Works foe us. DMc

 

[S.R.R.]

How far apart are your rods?

 

[3MR]

I think you have a bad charger and need a new one. In my opinion there is a short someplace. The ground wire should not be hot regardless of it being grounded properly or not.

 

[jnowack]

It sounds like your fence is grounded out somewhere. Try unhooking the hot line from your fencer and then check to see if you still have a charge going to the ground rod. If you do then I would have the fencer worked on. If the fence is grounded out the current will travel back through the ground rod and it will be hot.

 

[Grippie]

Ok, heres the story. I walked the perimiter of the pasture and at the furthest corner a deer hunter had decided to pile a bunch of scrap steel on both sides of the fence to make it easier for him to get from one side to another. :roll:
Needless to say, all the steel piled against it made for a very nice ground.
Thanks to everyone who replied. I know I should have walked to whole fence before I tried anything else but I had just walked it a few days earlier and everything was fine. I assumed it was either the fencer or the ground.
thanks again to the folks who replied!