That looks good , except ,there is no ground wire from the lightning diverter to ground . So diverter is not functional without ground. Also needs the spark gap adjusted.
I would attach a wire to it and attach your other ground fastened to a good ground rod straight under it .
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One would think using your woven wire fence as a ground would be sufficient ( as you are) especially for a coon climbing the woven wire , encountering that hot wire.!!
But the literature all says the electric fence is only as good as its ground.most recommending several ground rods, which they are not selling by the way.
I see no need for the lower yellow switch on your fence charger ground.
That’s a good looking set up !
I believe in the Lightning arrestor/diverter.
I lost one ~$400 fence charger to Lightning before I figured that out. After which I have had Lightning strikes that melted thick high tensile wire in two , melted it until the end look like a Molten ball.
Used the fuse type arrestors that has saved my charger several times .
Thanks for the thoughts guys. Really appreciate it!
The pics don’t show it real clear, but the “hot” wire comes out of the charger, next to the knife switch, next to the lightning choke and diverter, then finally to the intended hot wire which is on the other side of the field fence.
The “ground” wire comes out of the charger, then to a knife switch, and finally grounded on the field fence. My idea for putting a knife switch on both the hot and ground is to be able to disconnect them in a predicted lightning storm to protect the charger. As I see now, the setup may not necessarily protect the charger. So I have some more work to do.
For sure I need to add some ground rods so the lightning diverter is grounded. This would at least accomplish what you guys suggest in diverting the lightning if it strikes the hot wire. Probably the best thing for the ground wire, is to remove it from the field fence and hook it up to it’s own set of ground rods. That way if lightning strikes the field fence, it shouldn’t go back through the ground terminal of the charger.
I had two near by strikes “ out of the blue “ a few days ago.
A storm was approaching ,some 30 miles away.
Not much sign of A storm here at the time.
Yet there was two very near lightning strikes that sounded very eerie. About five minutes apart.
Enough to keep me in the house, that is protected by lightning rods.
Read this thread Can't Win, Seemingly which prompted me to post an update on our electric fence. We finally got it energized about 3 weeks ago, so it’s still relatively new and may still have some issues come up, which I don’t yet know about.
So far the fence has worked quite well. This is the first time we’ve ever raised peaches where there was no damage by coons and possums. I actually expected some would dig under the fence (which they might still) so that I would have to trap some of them. But again so far they have been repelled enough by the electric fence to not try digging under the fence.
It’s taken some effort to keep the weeds killed out. If I had to do it again, I would definitely put up a 4’ tall horse fence (with the 2"X4" squares) verses the 30" tall horse fence we put up to save money. An extra 18" in height of the horse fence would go a long way in ease of keeping weeds away from the hot wire.
The tall fence has completely excluded deer
and the electric fence seems to be completely excluding coons and possums, so far. The only issue we have with wildlife is birds, which peck the fruit and eat berries. I know of no solution for that.
We used to have hawks which scared away a lot of birds, but we have so many of those $%&! kingbirds, they chase away any hawks or eagles. I’ve also seen crows chase away hawks. We don’t have time to hunt the crows. Plus they are super smart and hard to kill.
An interesting thing discovered is that the aluminum solar panel has become energized based on the pulse of the cyclops fence charger. In other words, it appears the fence charger is backfeeding into the solar controller then to the solar panel. Weird.
I can definitely feel the frame of the solar panel is energized timed exactly with the pulse of the fence charger. It’s if the fence charger is pulsing the aluminum frame of the solar panel.
I am very familiar with electrical wiring and double checked that everything is wired to the correct polarity (at least according to the way the devices are labeled).
It’s a bit frustrating the fence charger is backfeeding so badly. I wonder if the step up capacitor and the transformer are inducing current in the incoming load wires of the controller, which would backfeed. If so, this should be a common problem with fence chargers. But I wonder how many people have checked the frame of the solar panel, while grabbing a good ground?
Another issue I came across is that a coon or possum has found it’s way past the electric fence. Who knows how many will find their way past the fence, but so far the fence has been very effective at reducing deer populations and coon and possums.
This was the first time I noticed it, and it was after a rain when my shoes were wet. Maybe I have a defective unit?
Here are some pics of the wiring I’m posting in case I’m missing something?
Here are the guts of the charger. The red wire is labeled load on the printed circuit board, which goes through a fuse and becomes a white wire, which I have wired to the positive terminal of the solar charge controller.
The black wire is labeled “battery” on the printed board. I have it wired to the negative terminal on the solar charge controller.
Here is the inside of the box with the cover of the solar controller removed. It’s a bit hard to trace the wires from the pics. But basically all red wires are on the positive terminals of the solar controller and all black wires on on the negative.
Here is a pic I posted earlier of the whole inside of the box. The cover is on the charge controller, but the wiring is exactly the same. The solar panel has two black wires. I re-coded the positive wire with red tape to indicate it was the positive lead. I double checked that wire a couple days ago, and indeed it is attached to what is labeled the positive terminal of the solar panel.
Here is a pic of the solar panel. It’s screwed into wood. No metal is touching it.
I had wondered if the lightening choke/lightening diverter was somehow conducting electricity to the solar panel because the wood was damp. But I touched the bracket of the lightening diverter/choke and couldn’t feel anything. Just to make sure, I disconnected the knife switch to the lightening diverter/choke and still the solar panel was energized every time the fence charger pulsed.
Could you be overcharging the battery is that controller working ok? Normally solar lion batteries if anyone goes that way require compression or they start bulging so you want to keep pressure on them. Many will likely use this thread to build systems so it was something worth bringing up. There is truly a lot to learn in solar im trying to absorb it all but it takes time and help. Check out some tips in this video
So I would expect that if the PV solar frame/panel is energized from the charger, the batt and CC would be as well (unless the charge is going over the ground line). (Are your PV frames grounded?) If you have one of those cheap fence led meters, you should be able to see led flicker when testing the PV frame and other points. You might be able to get an idea of the path the high voltage is taking. to get to the frame of the PVs.
Typically the PV frame is not tied to either side of the PV electrical connections, at least not in the panel itself.
I don’t know if you’re inferring it, but I don’t think he’s using a lithium battery here. I thought he’s using some type of lead acid battery (AGM?) so he could put it outside, albeit in a box. You can’t put a lithium battery outside without some kind of heat source for it, it can’t be charged below freezing temps without risking damaging it.
Stopped by the orchard tonight and checked the aluminum frame of the solar panel. Although I couldn’t sense anything with my hand, my cheap tester registered up to 1000 volts when I grounded the tester and touched the alum frame with the positive. It was pulsing in synch with the charger.
The PV frame isn’t grounded. It’s just screwed into the wood roof of the wooden box I built to house all the components.
The two wires for the PV come out of the back and go through a hole I drilled through the roof to connect to the components inside the wooden box.
I don’t have a tester, but I can clearly feel the pulse of current when I touch the frame of the PV and the ground is wet. It’s a pretty good tingle.
I didn’t know that. This one must have one of the electrical connections somehow in contact with aluminum frame, or it’s arcing across somewhere, although I don’t hear an arc.
I figured the problem is with the charger because the PV frame pulses with the charger. But what you say makes sense. The charge controller is probably also energized from the fence charger, as well. But the case of the charge controller is plastic so I can’t feel anything on the charge controller.
I assume the current is backfeeding through the fence charger, through the charge controller to the frame of the solar panel. My biggest concern is that it will eventually hurt the charge controller?
I don’t know much about PVs, so I don’t know if it will hurt it or not.
On a completely different unrelated subject I wanted to mention that the underground wire I’ve used as a lightening choke (coil of insulated wire hanging on the left of the wooden box in the picture above) is not good wire.
This is another product I bought from Kencove (very disappointed with most of their products). I can grab that insulated coil of wire and touch the ground and feel a pulse of current. So my guess is that the insulation is not good enough to keep voltage from leaking through it. This wire is supposed to be rated for underground electric fence.
If this wire were buried, it would leak energy into the ground, thereby reducing some of the energy of the electric fence.
I am not sure why you have a pulse on the PV frame ?
But it’s possible your hot wire output from charger is “ inducing “ a current into other wires in your box.?
May try moving the black 3 switch strip to the right side of charge controller , and move what I think is your power supply wire So that it goes over the top of fence charger . So , essentially keeping everything spatially separated from your hot fence wire coming out of the fence charger . You may just have a induced current ?
I hadn’t considered the possibility that. I wondered if there was an induction current inside the fence charger, but hadn’t considered the hot wire output inducing current into other wires.
One of the things you have me thinking of is the lightening choke I have hanging on the left side of the wooden box. It’s basically a pretty good coil of wire with the intended purpose of producing a magnetic field to help prevent lightening from coming back through the hot wire and frying the fence charger.
I would think it would be too far away from the solar panel frame to induce a current there, but I don’t know how close metal has to be to induce a current from a magnetic field? I know the high electric transmission lines which carry 100,000 volts will induce a current in the tomato cages below them, a distance of at least 40’.
I guess one quick way to determine if the hot wire for the electric fence is inducing a current is to simply unhook that wire from the fence charger. Turn the fence charger on and see if the PV frame is still energized. If so, then I would think it would have to be a backfeed from the fence charger itself, or some induced current inside the fence charger box?
I had wondered if part of the problem was that the metal bracket I built to hold the three toggle switches had a switch somehow energizing the bracket, and causing part of the problem (They are metal cased switches.) I wouldn’t expect it to be the whole issue because it wouldn’t account for the energized pulse of the PV frame. I unhooked the solar panel switch from the bracket to see if that made a difference. It didn’t. The solar panel was still energized every time the fence charger pulsed.
I thought about taking my amp meter and hooking it up to various wires to see what other wires are pulsing with the fence charger.
I have been thinking about that coil too .
It’s my understanding that induction coils can be made of insulated wire , and still induce a current . No mater how good the insulation is ? Or at least that’s what “ I think” I understand. Not sure really about all this ? May want to remove that coil to see if it makes a difference ?
That’s true. In fact all wires in motor windings are insulated, otherwise the wire wouldn’t pass through the loops of wires and make an electromagnet, or it would make a very weak electromagnet. The insulation on the wires is so thin, it looks like they are uninsulated. Some people call it varnish, but just a slang term for a clear thin insulation (or at one time perhaps they used actual varnish as an insulation).
The insulation needs to be thin to get sufficient wraps of wire in the windings. That’s generally one of the more common things which go wrong in a motor. If the motor overheats and gets too hot, it burns through the insulation in the windings and shorts them out.
So you are correct, insulation has basically no effect on the induction of a magnetic current.
I think all I need to do to test this is to unhook the hot wire from the fence charger, thereby making any hot fence wires inside the box or outside completely dead. The fence charger would still be running, just without any wire attached to it. Then I should be able to tell if the hot fence wire, or lightening choke, is inducing the current felt on the PV frame.
Thanks for the idea. Even if it doesn’t solve the problem, at least I’ll know then it’s coming from inside the fence charger.
… !
