Hot wire fence tester

[Brute 23]

Does any one have a good grasp of how these testers work?

This is a poly fence and its readings. What am I looking at? Good or bad? I through ti would show issues in the fence.

 

[JW IN VA]

Little,if anything,wrong with that fence according to that reading.
You have 11000 volts and very little amperage loss.


If it was showing,say, < 5k and a number of amps then an arrow should pop up showing the direction of the problem.
You must have done things right.

 

[chaded]

Looks good. High volts and low amps is what you want. If there is a fault it will point to the direction it is. You could always grab it and see if it’s working good as well.

 

[Brute 23]

Ok, that makes sense. Its only a couple hundred yards right now. Its kind of my training fence.

Thanks

This fence actually runs between two high voltage transmission lines. Like.. they ground the gates under lines.. big. I had to wear gloves to install it because it would shock you with out being hooked to the solar unit. Im not sure if thats good or bad yet.

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

This is a better way than tricking someone into peeing on the fence.

 

[RDFF]

Same as everybody else. Don't be surprised if when you get more fence hooked on, your voltage drops, and your amps go up. "Miles of fence" will cause there to be more "resistance" to flow... a HT steel wire will absolutely carry that current, for example, but it also generates a certain amount of "resistance" to that flow. And any "leakage" back to ground is the biggest drag you'll have to pull down your voltage... Like I've said previously in some other posts, even "humid air" will drag some down off your fence numbers. Vegetation touching it most definitely will, and wet vegetation absolutely will. Raining conditions will. Everything comes into play... and the only way to overcome those "natural, unavoidable losses", is with more power going into that fence... i.e.: a higher joule rating.

That fault finder will display an arrow that will show you which way to head to check where you've got some grounding happening. I'm not sure how big that "grounding" has to be before the arrow shows up (I've got many miles of fence on my charger... so it ALWAYS shows some loss, sometimes as low as like 3 amps, but sometimes 70 or more amps too... and that might even be when I don't have a short or an insulator broke someplace even... could just be wet grass, or a very humid day). My charger also displays these numbers... and it's interesting to watch that amp draw go up and down depending on the weather conditions.

 

[Brute 23]

Thanks. Im using that Patriot P30 ac/DC box on that fence and another box for a portable set up.

One of my concerns is grounding on the portable set up. Will ground rods on one end be enough to give a good pop around 3500' away? When I am setting up the portable one its perpendicular to a barbed wire fence that is all tposts. I thought about doing a grounding rod and tying in to that fence. Would all those tposts would act as ground rods, also?

 

[JW IN VA]

Another thing you might want to be aware of is the possible voltage drop associated with poly wire. With the lighter,cheaper type, voltage is supposed to drop drastically after about 200 metres. That's roughly 220 yards to us. Good grounds are very important,also.
As to installation under high voltage power lines, someone with more knowledge than me would have to answer that.

 

[4hfarms]

Not the new ones...

I have found that old t posts and old wire were steel. New ones not so much. I have in a pinch, connected my ground to an old piece of equipment been sitting a few years in the neighbors pasture. Any electric pole should have a proper ground.

 

[JW IN VA]

Kencove has a good tutorial for electric fence.

 

[farmerjan]

One of the dairies here used to have some high voltage lines running overhead. They did not put any power on their "electric fences" because they were charged enough from the overhead wire to keep them hot enough to deflect any cow that is trained to hot wire... I touched one and it gave me a zap... Don't have any idea of his ground wires.

I do know that my electric fence is running lower volts with the ground so dry. My heifers don't test it, and they have enough grass... they stayed in all winter...it is understocked.... it is an interior fence to keep them away from the house and we cut about 1-2 acres for hay because the owners wanted it to park cars when they have "company" come to their "farm"... it was the grandfather's home place, now an occasional "weekend" place.... so we ran fence the easiest way, and just cut it when we cut another place up the road...

The ground is so hard and dry that I am waiting for a little rain to soften it so I can run another strand and section off some more to rotate them off of for a bit. But I cannot get the plain metal posts in the ground, nor will the step in ones go in far enough to stand up... Not going to use hammers or small sledge hammers to put in electric fence...

 

[JW IN VA]

One of the dairies here used to have some high voltage lines running overhead. They did not put any power on their "electric fences" because they were charged enough from the overhead wire to keep them hot enough to deflect any cow that is trained to hot wire... I touched one and it gave me a zap... Don't have any idea of his ground wires.

I do know that my electric fence is running lower volts with the ground so dry. My heifers don't test it, and they have enough grass... they stayed in all winter...it is understocked.... it is an interior fence to keep them away from the house and we cut about 1-2 acres for hay because the owners wanted it to park cars when they have "company" come to their "farm"... it was the grandfather's home place, now an occasional "weekend" place.... so we ran fence the easiest way, and just cut it when we cut another place up the road...

The ground is so hard and dry that I am waiting for a little rain to soften it so I can run another strand and section off some more to rotate them off of for a bit. But I cannot get the plain metal posts in the ground, nor will the step in ones go in far enough to stand up... Not going to use hammers or small sledge hammers to put in electric fence...

I've suggested to people in the past to just run another strand under the hot wire and ground it to the steel posts if they have a problem with low voltage. Seems like your cattle are trained enough that won't be a problem.

 

[RDFF]

@Brute 23, as long as you properly tie (bond) the barbed wire T post fence to the ground rod specifically installed for the electric fence, I think it would most likely improve/add to your ground system for the fencer... that said, I would absolutely make sure I've installed enough ground rods anyway, for the size of fencer you're using. Recommendation is one 6-8' ground rod for every 5 joules of output, and probably a minimum of two, at least 10' apart, regardless. If installing more than that, maintain that minimum 10' spacing between each of them. A good grounding system is just as important, if not more, than is the quality/size of the charger. That said, other than the cost, you generally can't go wrong with more energy to deliver into that system (larger charger).

The potential negative that I've heard is that if you go TOO big on the charger, on a smaller system, some have suggested that they end up with more "bleed off" to weeds, grounded wires nearby, etc. I honestly find that somewhat difficult to believe (although I'd like to see some data on this point)... Most chargers will be attempting to be putting out around 10,000V at the fencer itself (with no fence, and therefore no drag from fence and environmental conditions) and won't throw any more energy down that line to achieve that than is necessary (which is why they often will have two ratings... a standard joule rating, and then a reserve capacity joule rating... additional energy capability that's stored up in capacitors, which is drawn upon only when the "leakage" happens (shorts from a critter touching the fence, OR weeds, wire touching a T post, humid air, etc.) in order to maintain a strong charge when the going gets tough.

And install a proper lightning arrestor on the fencer as well, to protect it during storms. They're alot cheaper than replacing or repairing a dead fencer.

 

[Brute 23]

I need a lightning arrestor. I do not have one in.

The spot i b wanted to tie in to the tposts I have one ground but was thinking I could save a few bucks by doing a ground rod and the whole tpost fence. Ground rods are $50 a pop. For temp fences, it can add up.

The reason I bought this fancy meter was to be able to measure this stuff accurately. Thank for the tips.

 

[Brute 23]

One of the dairies here used to have some high voltage lines running overhead. They did not put any power on their "electric fences" because they were charged enough from the overhead wire to keep them hot enough to deflect any cow that is trained to hot wire... I touched one and it gave me a zap... Don't have any idea of his ground wires.

I do know that my electric fence is running lower volts with the ground so dry. My heifers don't test it, and they have enough grass... they stayed in all winter...it is understocked.... it is an interior fence to keep them away from the house and we cut about 1-2 acres for hay because the owners wanted it to park cars when they have "company" come to their "farm"... it was the grandfather's home place, now an occasional "weekend" place.... so we ran fence the easiest way, and just cut it when we cut another place up the road...

The ground is so hard and dry that I am waiting for a little rain to soften it so I can run another strand and section off some more to rotate them off of for a bit. But I cannot get the plain metal posts in the ground, nor will the step in ones go in far enough to stand up... Not going to use hammers or small sledge hammers to put in electric fence...

Ita funny you mwntion that. I was going to move it for some heifers but didnt have time to.move them whole box. I debated just moving the wire and taking my chances on the pop from the power line and just being broke to the hot wire.

When I went to move them all but one went across where the line was fine. One was not having it. Even with the wire rolled up and post picked up she would not go near where the fence was for a while.

 

[Mighty Mouse]

I need a lightning arrestor. I do not have one in.

If you're just using polywire, I wouldn't bother with a lightning arrestor. The conductors in polywire are tiny and can't transfer enough energy from a lightning strike to damage your fence charger. The polywire will burn through if it gets hit by lightning. If you're using solid high tensile wire, that's a different story.

The spot i b wanted to tie in to the tposts I have one ground but was thinking I could save a few bucks by doing a ground rod and the whole tpost fence. Ground rods are $50 a pop. For temp fences, it can add up.

If your fence is fairly short, you can probably get by with minimal grounding. I use a single 36" t-handle ground rod with a 1 joule Speedrite charger that I frequently move around my farm. I'm usually energizing 1/4 to 1/2 mile of single strand polywire with this setup and will see 8000+ volts at the far end of the fence. These ground rods cost $15-20 around here. If the ground is especially hard, I drill a pilot hole with a cordless rotary hammer for easier installation and leave enough of the rod sticking up aboveground to get a high-lift jack under the handle if needed for removal.

 

[mwj]

In dry weather the livestock to ground is the problem. Alternate ground and hot wires on the fence is very effective. Dry ground is like wearing rubber boots and gloves when working on a hot fence.

 

[ClinchValley86]

Ive been meaning to get one of those gadgets or something similar. It looks like a time saver compared to my gate handles.

 

[Brute 23]

In dry weather the livestock to ground is the problem. Alternate ground and hot wires on the fence is very effective. Dry ground is like wearing rubber boots and gloves when working on a hot fence.

I put one at a place that is deep sand. We had to run a hot, ground, and hot. We couldnt get much power even a couple hundred yards away with the earth ground.

 

[Brute 23]

I was at my parents today and busted out the tester. Told my dad I was there to inspect his work. We did find two bad spots. One was in a gripple connection and another was in a spring.