Electric fence issues

[Heritagefarm]

The charger is a Parmak SE4. The charger says the fence is 11.3 kilovolts. The tester disagrees: It says about 4 kV. The goats disagree as well. They can barely feel anything if I lay wire on them. (redneck fence tester)
The fence is a small 5 acres paddock, surrounded by 5 strands of high-tensile hotwire. The second and fouth strands are hot. The corners and H-braces are 4" steel pipes, and the fence is connected with steel ratchets at every strand. There is some coated wire buried about 2" deep in some places to connect the wires when separated by an H or corner.
The ground system is located about 150' from the charger. It consists of 2 copper plated 8' rods pounded into the ground 6', and one 6' galvanized post pounded in 4'. These are all located in the very near proximity of the lagoon.
Also, there is plenty of grass running along the strands of wire. However, it is very dry and sparse in most places.
Any ideas about why it is not getting very hot and why the charger says it is ouchouchouch hot?
Thanks in advance,
HF

[Catalytic]

My charger (Parmak Mark 7, Jeffers was out of the SE4 when I went to get it) usually says around 13.4, but when I used a light tester, it only lights to 5000v even on the line coming right off the charger. My goats feel it fine, but my geese laugh as they walk through it. My 19 yr old, who thinks he was put on this earth to test electric fences almost peed himself when he felt the need to grab on to the hot wire.

[topside1]

Just to compare, my SE-4 reads 18.0 or higher on 20 acres. My ground rods are 10 to 30 feet from the charger, four of them. Charger reading never below 18.0, if it does I know there is an issue somewhere on the line...Topside
My four rods are driven where water falls from the barn roof wherever it rains. We are extremely dry right now and the charger continues to read over 18...If your problem was at my house I'd disconnect the wires from the charger and read it's ouput with a tester. If the output is correct (over 8000 volts) then your problem is a grounding issue...Topside

[Heritagefarm]

Originally Posted by topside1

Just to compare, my SE-4 reads 18.0 or higher on 20 acres. My ground rods are 10 to 30 feet from the charger, four of them. Charger reading never below 18.0, if it does I know there is an issue somewhere on the line...Topside
My four rods are driven where water falls from the barn roof wherever it rains. We are extremely dry right now and the charger continues to read over 18...If your problem was at my house I'd disconnect the wires from the charger and read it's ouput. If the output is correct over 8000 volts then your problem is a grounding issue...Topside

Interesting. This charger's no-load charge is about 14.9 kV. Does that mean something is wrong with the grounding, perhaps?

[topside1]

One loose connection on the ground side of your system can cause headaches..also if you have any hotwire buried, the insulation may have broken down and is arching into the soil and thus loosing voltage....Happened to me,,,hard to find, but the fix was easy.

[topside1]

I have buried wire at all my gates...I'm off to milk my goats right now and will report what my no load reading is....The digital readout number is what I use as a troubleshooting guide, if the number lowers I have a problem somewhere. The real reading is with one of those line testers like you said you have...Mine reads over 8000 plus volts in the paddock and so should yours...

[topside1]

I'll post my digital no load reading in about 40 minutes..

[topside1]

With no fence load your digital meter on the box should read 13.5 steady. Sounds like you have a partial ground somewhere, a dead ground on your box will read around 6-8...Topside

[genebo]

A fence compass is well worth the money. I think they are a litle over $100. One of them can tell you which direction to the short and how much load the short is drawing.

I put the fence compass on the wire just before where it goes underground at the gate and it reads 2 draw on the meter. Put it on the other side and it reads 0 draw. That tells me exactly where the problem is and how big it is.

[65284]

If it is as dry there as it is in the Boone County area the first thing I would do is slowly pour a 5 gallon bucket of water around each ground rod.

If that doesn't help I would next disconnect the bottom hot wire, the most likely source of trouble, from the second, leaving the second wire hot, if the reading improves you know there is a short in the bottom wire. If it isn't the bottom wire causing the trouble then it pretty much has to be the second wire.

The first things I look for are a broken or missing insulator, letting a hot wire ground against a post, a hot wire sagging from the heat and grounding on something, or a ground wire touching a hot wire.

If you have any reading on your meter it's not what I call a hard short where nothing registers. Then you very likely have cracked insulation or a tree limb, grass, a stick or weed causing a partial short.

At times these partial shorts can be heard "snapping" when they arc, I also have had some luck finding this type of short at night, the arc can be seen.

Good luck, these things can almost drive a person nutty.

P.S. Where my wire is buried under a gate I run it through 1/2" PVC pipe add an elbow and a short upright piece on each end of the pipe and bring the upright as close to the gate posts as I can and up to the bottom hot wire, then force a big gob of silicone caulk in the end where the wire emerges. This has eliminated the failed insulation shorts I used to get in these places.

[SCRancher]

I have had insulated wire spark right through eventually burning a hole in the insulation. All of my buried insulated wire under gates is in a 1/2 inch PVC pipe instead of directly in the ground.

I also agree a fence compass is SUPER handy and since mine also acts as a remote I can turn the fence on and off with it.

[Heritagefarm]

Hello all, thanks for the replies...
Topside: I'm not sure I understand. In your first post, you said your SE4 read 18 (kilovolts?). In your last post you said your no-load charge was 13.5. Wouldn't the no-load charge be higher than the loaded charge?
I, unfortunetely, do not have the finances to afford a fence compass. I have to use myself as a compass (disconnect, test, look, etc). On no-load charge, a wire placed on the goat's nose will send him packing. It didn't bother him on the flank. Once re attached to the fence, however, other goats simply snorted when I placed it on their noses.
Probably my goal in the next few days, I'll bang another ground rod or two into the ground near the fence charger and get them wet. Or I may weed wack the whole fence line? There IS a considerable amount of grass touching it. However, there was a definite short on one fence post and the charger ran down to 0.0 kV, so that was accurate.
*yawn* I just put all of this fencing up, too, so this is driving me absolutely insane...

[topside1]

Yes, 18.2 working, 13.5 no load. I run 5 strands hot one ground wire from the box to the 4 ground rods. I pay little attention to the box reading, it the voltage in the line I care about. My tester only goes up to 8kw and the voltage in the wires exceed that. As I mentioned above the box reading is only a reference, ex. a limb on the wires, wires touching ground, arching to a t-post whatever. My father has the same charger box and his reads 15.0 underload and 16.0 no load. I called Parmak years ago and asked about the difference in box readings, mine and my dads and they said it depends on your wiring pattern, grounding pattern and where and how the charger is hung. As you know, holding a tester and taking readings is the only true way to troubleshoot actual voltage. Another thought for the future is to jumper wires at intervals in your system. One piece of wire and two alligators clips do the job. If you had lot of land wired then this idea would be helpful. Just mention it for anyone reading....Keep in touch....Topside

[topside1]

In theory your digital voltage on you box should nearly remain the same under load or no load unless you have a problem. Parmak also mentioned grounding the case of the charger to change the digital reading....back to my long worklist,,,Keep in touch.

[topside1]

Any update?

[Heritagefarm]

I will go and weed whack it tomorrow probably... If that doesn't work, I'll put some more ground robs near the charger instead of so far away.

[Heritagefarm]

Well, I went and weed wacked the whole darn thing yesterday. Ugh. That was a royal pain. Shook the crap out of my arms, and I probably didn't actually have to do it.
Well, I went to the energizer this morning and it still read low, and the tester barely read. I think it was at maybe 600 volts. Well, section by section I tested the fence and the first 3 sections were fine. The 4th one sent the charger back down to 600 volts. I unburied some cable and hooked it up... That wasn't the problem. It wasn't buried deep enough anyways.
Well, before all of this I'd used my Dremel to cut slits in insulation tubing for the post clips that had slitted aquarium tubing. (All the steel posts have 5 clips welded to them. They are great, but they were also the bane of my existence while putting the fence up. Easy cheesy if the wire was new, but not if it's used spliced stuff!) Turns out, one of the normal black tubing had a hole bored through it and it was shorting on the post clip. Fixed that; fence works now. I think it is at about 6,000 volts; charger says 13 kV or some such.

[genebo]

Good for you! I know it's hard work keeping your fence in top shape, but it's satisfying to do a good job. Then your mind can rest easy, knowing that all is well.

I spent a couple of hours on my fence today. When I got through, the charger meter read off the scale, but the Fence Compass said it was making about 4K volts. That's good for my battery powered charger.

Then as fate would have it, I brushed against the fence while putting my tools away and discovered that 4K volts can give you quite a jolt. You could have heard me from a good distance.

[Oxankle]

Whenever my fence is cold it is almost always because a wire has shorted out against a post. Grass and weeds do not bother it; shocks right thru them.

Deer, calves, varmints brush against a wire and jump, knocking off an insulator and shorting the wire. I've got disconnects all over so that I can test section by section.

A note: I had a wire that rested on a black Sears lifetime water hose. It eventually burned a hole in the hose. The rubber had so much carbon in it that it was conductive.

[Cheribelle]

I have actually found bird poop on the insulator can cause a ground on a T-post.
First thing I do is go around the whole thing listening for the arc.