Lightning and fence chargers

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kenny thomas

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Had a fence charger blew apart by lightning today, second one in 2 months. Charger is in the barn and both times it scattered pieces for 10+ ft around the barn. Need some ideas on something to put in the fence to prevent this.
 
Since I put a couple of these inline I have had good luck against lightning, don't know if they have helped or just lucky. Kenny not a lot of lightning here today, but all it takes is one.

MWLA.png


http://www.kencove.com/fence/Lightning+ ... l_MWLA.php

This design features a choke coil and a lightning arrestor combination which is the two essential components of an effective lightning diverter. The choke coil is slows the surge of electrical energy by inductive forces created in the coil. When lightning strikes, the pool of energy searching for the ground jumps the gap in the arrestor and finds the fastest route to the ground. The arrestor features an adjustable gap. To use it properly, set the gap to the smallest distance possible without the charger causing an arc in the gap by itself. To be effective the ground must be as good as the one on your charger. Install the lightning diverter as close as possible to your fence energizer.
 
jltrent":165n6hb5 said:
Since I put a couple of these inline I have had good luck against lightning, don't know if they have helped or just lucky. Kenny not a lot of lightning here today, but all it takes is one.

MWLA.png


http://www.kencove.com/fence/Lightning+ ... l_MWLA.php

This design features a choke coil and a lightning arrestor combination which is the two essential components of an effective lightning diverter. The choke coil is slows the surge of electrical energy by inductive forces created in the coil. When lightning strikes, the pool of energy searching for the ground jumps the gap in the arrestor and finds the fastest route to the ground. The arrestor features an adjustable gap. To use it properly, set the gap to the smallest distance possible without the charger causing an arc in the gap by itself. To be effective the ground must be as good as the one on your charger. Install the lightning diverter as close as possible to your fence energizer.

I doubt the "coil" has much to do with anything considering L d"i"/dt involved in a high voltage discharge of the magnitude of a lightening strike, but it looks cute. The gap is quite large and could be a lot smaller to jump at a lower voltage and having pointed ends at the minimum distance for arc-over would help, unlike just the opposite you see in the design...charge concentration is more dense with smaller diameters and arcs easier; the closer the contacts the lower the arc voltage. Think about it. A spark plug with a conventional ignition system has a gap of about .030" yet arcs at 10kv in air, and that's across very small terminals. An accompanying suitable ground rod and vertical attached conductor as long as practical would complement the installation if you wanted to go all out.

I went to battery operated chargers and solved my problem. I didn't do it, but with today's solar power, a solar powered battery charger should round out the installation. It gets your system off the electric grid and it's ground. After you blow the fuse holder apart a couple of times you get the idea that something else is needed.

I usually ran the hot wire inside 5 strand barbed wire with steel line posts on the 4" plastic standoff about shoulder high of a full grown bovine. This was a good place for bodily contact yet put it up above young calves. The other thing was that the fence put "ground" above the hot wire so contact is made with the fence, not your charger, per se.

The return for the charger (battery -) was connected to to the fence. When the bovine violated the fence it was usually touching a barbed wire too so that gave me a perfect closed circuit without worrying about whether or not the soil was wet and how far the bovine was from the charger.
 
Texasmark":8z5kb0op said:
jltrent":8z5kb0op said:
Since I put a couple of these inline I have had good luck against lightning, don't know if they have helped or just lucky. Kenny not a lot of lightning here today, but all it takes is one.

MWLA.png


http://www.kencove.com/fence/Lightning+ ... l_MWLA.php

This design features a choke coil and a lightning arrestor combination which is the two essential components of an effective lightning diverter. The choke coil is slows the surge of electrical energy by inductive forces created in the coil. When lightning strikes, the pool of energy searching for the ground jumps the gap in the arrestor and finds the fastest route to the ground. The arrestor features an adjustable gap. To use it properly, set the gap to the smallest distance possible without the charger causing an arc in the gap by itself. To be effective the ground must be as good as the one on your charger. Install the lightning diverter as close as possible to your fence energizer.

I doubt the "coil" has much to do with anything considering L d"i"/dt involved in a high voltage discharge of the magnitude of a lightening strike, but it looks cute. The gap is quite large and could be a lot smaller to jump at a lower voltage and having pointed ends at the minimum distance for arc-over would help, unlike just the opposite you see in the design...charge concentration is more dense with smaller diameters and arcs easier; the closer the contacts the lower the arc voltage. Think about it. A spark plug with a conventional ignition system has a gap of about .030" yet arcs at 10kv in air, and that's across very small terminals. An accompanying suitable ground rod and vertical attached conductor as long as practical would complement the installation if you wanted to go all out.

I went to battery operated chargers and solved my problem. I didn't do it, but with today's solar power, a solar powered battery charger should round out the installation. It gets your system off the electric grid and it's ground. After you blow the fuse holder apart a couple of times you get the idea that something else is needed.

I usually ran the hot wire inside 5 strand barbed wire with steel line posts on the 4" plastic standoff about shoulder high of a full grown bovine. This was a good place for bodily contact yet put it up above young calves. The other thing was that the fence put "ground" above the hot wire so contact is made with the fence, not your charger, per se.

The return for the charger (battery -) was connected to to the fence. When the bovine violated the fence it was usually touching a barbed wire too so that gave me a perfect closed circuit without worrying about whether or not the soil was wet and how far the bovine was from the charger.

It is a lot bigger than it looks in the picture and you can move the contacts closer together. Mine pops a lot as a bug gets stuck between the contacts at times and will pop until fried to a pulp.
 
You can't argue with something that works. Not being argumentative on that. Course maybe you haven't been whacked by a good bolt since you installed it.

Just that my common sense, and it is my directing light, doesn't see the mechanism; and contrary to the bumper stickers, stuff doesn't just happen, it's caused.
 

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