Electric Fence Failure

[bob19]

Primetime1- Thanks for your help. I called Zareba and talked to Jerry. He went through an extensive series of questions and finally determined my unit had to be sent in to be repaired or replaced. Up til now it had been very reliable.

Thanks again for your and others suggestions.

 

[stevenf]

bob your killing me "if I touch the terminal for the fence should I get a jolt" I was working on my first electric charger years ago I had it mounted on top of a cabinet in our utility room above a washer and dryer. I had been having trouble with it and was standing barefooted on top of the washer and decided to test my terminal to see if it was putting out it knocked me out the utility room window and into the yard and it was just a 20 mile one. NO I don't think you should touch the terminal if you must touch something touch the fence wire with a insulated tool to a ground such as a tpost driven into the dirt it should arc across just before touching together. Our Great Dane was watching my wife work in the garden yesterday and touched the new fence with the 50 mile charger on it and didn't stop yelping for a 1/4 mile.
You know who won the foot race and on a side note them little shovels they use for gardening hurt when they hit you in the back as your running away laughing.
Steve

 

[primetime1]

Bob-Glad I could help. Your problem sounded very similar to mine. Zabera had my unit back to me within a couple of weeks. Good luck!

 

[rambler]

I'm not real impressed with a '3 mile' rated unit. Fencers are rated at what they stop having any effect on. Not worth getting anything less than 20-50 mile units. Those 3-mile units just aren't much.

Ground is very important. Bare ground wire, or grass on the ground wire, is _not_ a problem. You want it grounded. Only 2 foot ground rods is not good. I understand, you gotta work with what conditions you have, but burrying 6 or 8 foot grounds at an angle, or even flat as deep as possible, will give _much_ more surface for the ground to connect with the earth. With a weak 3-mile unit, ground is even more important.

You always want the ground connected to a good ground when using or testing the unit; with the ground unconnected, nothing will happen.

Touching the hot lead is up to you. I wouldn't. But then, I have the higher powered fencers. One time mom & I were walking the fence, pulling weeds. With a wooden handle, mom held the barbed wire electric away so I could reach the weed.... The handle slipped, a barb stuck me in the arm through the skin.

WOW. That tingled for a while. Skin is a pretty good insulator. Peircing the skin like that - wow.

With your test light, put the ground end on any good metal ground - like a metal T post. And touch the wire with the other end of the tester.

--->Paul

 

[CharlieTR]

I would like to suggest you try and get that ground rod in deeper. It really needs to be in perminent moisture. Even though perm moisture is only less than 5 feet here in North Texas (really compact clay here) we like to use an 8 foot gound rod hammered in with t-post driver. Even by adding a lot of water to the ground rod, you might have to wait quite a long time before that water soaked deep enough before doing the tests.

 

[CharlieTR]

I would like to suggest you try and get that ground rod in deeper. It really needs to be in perminent moisture. Even though perm moisture is only less than 5 feet here in North Texas (really compact clay here) we like to use an 8 foot gound rod hammered in with t-post driver. Even by adding a lot of water to the ground rod, you might have to wait quite a long time before that water soaked deep enough before doing the tests.