I agree and learned that the hard way. Both Redbrand and Herdsman wire are American made. Kencove’s wire is made in Mexico.
After reading more comments here, I’m thinking of going with the cyclops 5 joule charger. There is a fence calculator here for Cyclops here:
https://taylorfence.net/whichCharger.php
Seth, would you have a suggestion on a brand/model controller you’d recommend? Assuming I went with a 5 joule Cyclops fence charger, and a 50 watt solar panel, with a 12v deep cycle battery. Thinking something in the 20 amp range for a solar charge controller. Something good quality. Any thoughts?
Here are the specs on the 5 joule fence charger.
https://taylorfence.net/dcChampCharger.php
Would this be necessary when using a deep cycle battery? In other words, will low input voltage harm the electric fence charger? I would think a reputable manufacturer would design their battery operated fence chargers so that they aren’t damaged by low input voltage. But who knows?
Here’s what I use. Weather sealed, simple setup, and a good reputation. Only works with lead acid.
Your fence charger draws only one amp, so this will be enough, and no relays required.
If you’re using lead acid you need load cutout, which the morningstar unit has (some don’t, make sure you get the right one). Lead acid batteries will discharge well past 50% if you let them, which will absolutely kill them, especially since most (cheap) Deep Cycle lead acid batteries are actually hybrid starter batteries. Considering how little power that fence charger uses, you can get a pretty small lead acid battery.
If you end up getting a couple weeks of bad weather, the solar charger will turn off the fence instead of letting the battery degrade. That’s the Load Cutout.
This unit did not work with lithium batteries. But I doubt you’re using that based on cost. I use a Costco 27DC battery. It’s a flooded lead acid, good price. You can go smaller, that’ll just determine how long your fence runs without good solar exposure. And cut the rated power of a lead acid battery in half for a realistic assessment of available power.
Thanks Seth. I like that controller. I just wish it had a display, but reliability is the most important thing, which that controller apparently has.
Appreciate the tip on a controller which has a load cutout. For years I thought lead acid batteries needed to completely discharge, else they would develop a “memory” and lose capacity. Someone once told me that (before the internet).
Apparently that was true for old NiCad batteries, but something was lost in the translation (as is frequently the case when information is passed by word of mouth).
Thanks again for the heads up.
1 Like
As with any off grid solar set up , over sizing the solar panels and battery capacity is important.
The worst way to treat a lead acid battery is to run it dead, / and or not bring it to full charge frequently.
You want a large enough solar panel.to bring the battery up to full charge frequently, even with minimal sun, and enough storage of amp hrs. To give you days of autonomy during cloudy weather.
You want the system to work with out drawing the battery too low.
1 Like
The display is overrated in my opinion, and that unit has some LEDs that will provide the same information you need. Many of the cheap units display incorrect voltages anyways. If you’re curious, you can add these to your system. They are cheap, easy, and can be calibrated. Just remember, do not run anything directly from the battery without using a relay that is controlled by the load circuit on the solar charge controller. You would only need to do that if you plan to exceed the load capacity of your chosen solar charge controller.
I don’t understand the reason for the relay. With the controller you suggest, wouldn’t the relay be unnecessary?
Because of your post, I’ve been looking at other Morningstar controllers. They have a next generation controller called Prostar (15 amp is the smallest controller in the next gen models). It has a nice feature of allowing the controller to be programmed so that it can turn the load on or off at different hours of the day or night. They call it Automatic Solar Lighting Control. I’m thinking that would have a lot of application for a coon/possum fence. They are nocturnal, so one could program the controller to just run at night and save a lot of amp hour drain on the battery. The next gen controllers also have the automatic cut off when the battery gets low. What do you think?
They had some firmware issues when they first released the new controller. Apparently they’ve solved those. It’s a bit pricey (about $150).
1 Like
You always want load control. You can get away without it on lithium batteries though.
But if you need to exceed the amperage rating of the solar charge controller (let’s say with a huge 50 amp light for example), you have to connect directly to the battery because the load circuit on the solar charge controller (10 amps) can’t handle it, which means there’s nothing to cut off the light when the battery gets low. So you use a relay that can handle the load between the battery and the light, and use the load circuit on the solar charge controller to open and close the relay, since opening and closing a relay takes much less power than the load it can pass for the light, in this example.
When the battery gets low, even though the light is connected to the battery, the relay will open when the solar charge controller cuts off it’s load circuit, turning off the light.
Basically this is a way to use a much lower amperage charge controller on a high amperage load. You still have to balance how quickly your panels can charge the battery with how fast the high amperage load will drain it, but you don’t have to spend more on a higher amperage solar charge controller when your panel is only putting out 4 amps (50watt/12volt).
You do not need the relay if you are only powering the fence, since it uses 1.5A and the controller I linked to handles 10.
Sorry for the confusion
Yeah…other than insulated lead-out wire and polywire, i didnt purchase wire products from Kencove. Freight would be frightful, I’m sure.
Entire farm is fenced with 12.5 ga. smooth high-tensile wire. Not a scrap of barbed wire on the place.
There’s a roll of Red Brand woven wire, purchased about 1986, lying underneath an oak tree at edge of orchard since we moved here in 1994. Probably oughta put it on craigslist…I’m never gonna put it up.
1 Like
Now that I re-read your explanations, it makes perfect sense. For some reason, I was missing the part about connecting the charger directly to the battery vs. going through the load terminals on the controller. Should have been obvious to me. I’ve wired lots of contactors/relays, backfed them with various types of automatic switches in the loop, or clocks, etc.
I have some calculations I’d like for someone to check me on. I’m new to solar panels, solar controllers and battery sizing, and trying to get a better grasp on it.
First the power usage of the charger. According to the specs, the 5 joule charger uses a 1A input fuse. That would limit the input to 12 watts. However, according to the specs, the charger uses 157.55 kwh/year (The website actually labels it kw/year, but I think that is a typo, since kw/year is kinda meaningless.)
Dividing the number down to wattage I get 157.55, times 1000 watts in a kilawatt, divided by 8760 hours per year gives about 18 watts, which is 1.5A. Yet the input fuse is 1A. How can that be?
Next on battery capacity. The website says a 100 amp hour battery will last 14 days (without a solar panel). I don’t get that either. If the input is 1A, then the the battery should last 100 hours, or a little over 4 days. If the input is 1.5A (based on the calculations above) the battery would last 67 hours ( or about 2.75 days).
https://taylorfence.net/dcChampCharger.php
Apparently, I’m missing something on these variables, since they don’t check out. What am I missing here.
Seth, you seem like you have really done your homework on these controllers. I really like the reviews on the Morningstar ones you suggest. I am very green on this subject, but would like to put up 2 electric fences with 2 strands of wire/poly on each fence side by side to keep deer and raccoons out. Right now the area would be around 2 acres, but it will expand each year up to around 10 acres as I keep planting. I haven’t bought anything yet, what would you buy to make this happen (charger, controller, solar panel, everything needed), no power close to where I’m doing this. This doesn’t have to best of everything, but a solid set up that will last a long time and plenty of juice that a deer will only try it once.
Thanks
Power ratings are notoriously unreliable. In fact, nearly useless. As an example, the 200watt/channel (100 RMS), 2-channel amplifier I’m powering with my solar shed setup, has a 10amp fuse… so 120 watts max on an amp claiming 200. It barely pulls half an amp at top volume. I doubt a tone generator at max gain would get close to 120 watts…
The fuses rarely lie. I was confused to see your fence charger has a 1A input fuse and 1.5A output fuse. But this might be an issue of capacitance. Or just sloppy engineering. Sometimes the fuse is just a function of wire size. But they don’t lie, so I’m assuming 1A input. You can also figure they did their calculations at the possible voltage of the solar panel @ 15-16v. Who knows? A multimeter with amperage measuring will also tell the truth.
At 1A, that fence charger can be hooked directly to the load terminals, no problem. As for the batteries, also lies and marketing. Many batteries are rated based on full discharge, which for a lead acid battery will kill it after a dozen or fewer discharges. As a rule, cut the AmpHour rating in half. If you can design for no more than 25% of rated capacity (keep above 75% charge) you will greatly improve the life of the battery. Or go Lithium, those are bomb proof.
And with this setup, if for some reason you are draining the battery, you can upsize to a 100w panel, no other changes needed.
1 Like
I would pick the solar charge controller (SCC) based on the panels you want to use. So if you want to use a 10A panel or less (~100 watts or less), a 10A SCC is going to work well.
However the next thing to consider is load. You need to know the maximum draw, and the power consumed over time. If you can keep the maximum draw below the Amp rating of the SCC, you can hook your load(s) directly to the load terminals. Using an SCC with Low Voltage Disconnect (LVD) will protect the battery by shutting off the devices connected to the load terminals when the battery gets low. Make sure you are using the right type of battery for the SCC, everything we’ve talked about so far has been for Lead Acid.
A way to figure out the maximum draw is to add up all the input ratings or input fuse values on your devices. if that’s less than the rating of the SCC, you’re good to go. If you exceed it, you’ll need to use relays as described above.
Battery size is based on the power usage of the system and the recharging capability of your panel. The power produced by the panel has to exceed the power used by the devices. At that point the battery size determines how long the system will run if your solar exposure becomes limited for some reason.
So for your design, step one is decided which fence chargers are strong enough for your needs and future needs. Next, figure out the maximum draw of the Fence Chargers. If you post a link to the product we can help find the right numbers.
At that point, pick a panel that will provide enough power in an average winter (if applicable) day to exceed the usage of the fence chargers. You want to add a margin to this so the panel can power the fence chargers and recharge the battery at the same time. Then pick a SCC that can handle the panel’s power rating. This is nuanced depending on usage. For something that will be running a constant load at all times, you need a bigger panel than if you are using larger loads but rarely (for example, my shed system which runs lights and a stereo system, but only for a couple hours at a time once or twice a week).
Last is the battery. Using lead acid, cut the rated capacity in half for your calculations. At a minimum you need enough to get through a night. Then size up based on how long you want the system to run without sunlight.
So to walk through the design, we need to know everything you want to power (including future upgrades) and how long you want it to run without sunlight. We’ll go from there.
2 Likes
I tested the output from my solar panel to be sure it was functioning properly, as well as the battery level, and both looked good. I’m going to retire the Silver Streak and have ordered the Cyclops Champ (12v 5 Joule). I have my fence set up with 4 wires, two positive and two negative. My corner posts are wood but my line posts are metal T-Posts. Negative lines are attached to the T-Posts with metal clips, positive lines are run with 3" insulators to set them away from the metal posts. I have 3 ground rods coming off the charger and have added ground rods to the negative lines at points the greatest distance from the charger. If I touch both the positive and negative lines I get a pretty good jolt, but if I just touch the positive line I just get a slight tingle. I don’t believe the Silver Streak has enough output to be effective. I have a total of about 1.75 miles of 12.5 gauge high tensile wire including all 4 lines. When I finish planting out the orchard I’ll be increasing that to around 3 miles of wire total. @Olpea I’ll let you know how the Cyclops works out.
4 Likes
Thank you. I still haven’t bought anything, but am leaning towards running power to where I need it.
Thanks Andy. Actually I also pulled the trigger on the Cyclops Champ. Just received it yesterday.
I haven’t yet stretched my 12.5 ga. smooth wire, nor built the box for the charger. I plan on doing that this fall when I have more time. So it will be a while before I’m able to provide any feedback.
1 Like
I think that will give you the most reliable system and charger options.
1 Like
So, I’ve received the Cyclops 5 Champ fence charger. Today I ordered a Prostar 15a charge controller.
Now I’m down to the solar panel (the deep cycle battery I plan to get locally). I’m pretty sure a 50 watt 12 volt solar panel will keep the battery charged (especially since I plan to mostly run the fence charger at night during the summer months).
But there are so many options for 50 watt solar panels. Anyone have any pointers/suggestions on picking out a good 50 watt panel? Because the panel is only a 50 watt, there doesn’t seem to be a big price difference between a “cheap” panel and a more expensive one, so I’m not trying to price shop in this case. I just want a good brand with high durability and efficiency I think. But I don’t know one brand of solar panel from the next.
Check on YouTube, you may find recommendations there. DIY Solar Power with Will Prowse is usually good.
1 Like
I received my Cyclops Champ (12v Battery Powered 5 Joule) fence charger yesterday and installed it. I noted right away it is significantly heavier than the 2 Joule Silver Streak I was using. It is exceeding the capacity of my cheap fence tester. So far I’m very pleased. I hope the deer that munched my trees got a nice surprise last night. I’m glad I made the change. Now we’ll see if my 30w solar panel can keep the battery charged (Cyclops does recommend a 30w panel for it, so I should be OK). I’m really liking the idea of a charge controller that can shut off load to the charger during the day, as Olpea mentioned. All wildlife issues I’ve had to date have been at night.
2 Likes