Thursday, September 22, 2022

Shorts and Chargers

 The cattle are in the newly defined, 1/2 acre paddock.

Entirely by chance, the wire was resting on the parting-line from the molds. You can see the smut from where the vaporized zinc deposited.

A few oddities popped up. I had a ceramic insulator that was shorting through the body of the insulator. I assume there was a crack or void in the insulator and suspect it is related to the parting-line.

I temporarily fixed the problem by spinning the insulator 90 degrees on the bolt. Then I followed up the next time I walked the fence by replacing the insulator AND spinning the new one so the parting line was horizontal.

Fence Chargers do not last forever (Sorry Mr. C.W. Swanson...not that kind of Charger)

My fence charger is acting funny. It was skipping about every eighth impulse and it was "bouncing" on some of them. I don't know what is in the guts of the charger/energizer but if I had to guess I would vote for a relay problem.

The plan is to purchase a new charger and install it. Then put the old one on the bench and see if I can deduce if any of the components are relays and if I can purchase replacements or substitutes with similar characteristics.

Of course my problem gets a lot simpler if I find a relay with a broken connection at the terminal. Then it is a matter of soldering on or crimping on a new terminal on the wire and re-attaching to the relay.

Oddly enough, the old charger seems to be behaving now that the new section of fence is attached. The fence around the new paddock has some weeds touching the wire. Many dynamic systems "behave" when there are resisters or dampers (i.e. energy dissipators) in the system but "ring" after the energy dissipator is removed. I don't know if that is a clue.

9 comments:

  1. A coil, like a relay, will self Reactivate, ring,without a capacitor across the coil. The fields of flux,as they collapse, induce a field in the coil, and it will chatter, or ring.
    If you're seeing one do that intermittently, you might hit the capacitor connections with a soldering iron.

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    Replies
    1. If the connections are good, replace the cap - THEY can go bad, as well. If it's a diode instead, DEFINITELY replace hte diode!

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    2. Even with a capacitor it will still "ring", but at a much lower frequency (which you can select by selecting capacitance).

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  3. Joe - If you have to get a new charger, this is by far the best bang for your buck for small scale system like yours. And the analog meter monitors your short situation:

    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BWY6KW?tag=silverlakean-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1

    ReplyDelete
  4. https://www.amazon.com/Parmak-Fieldmaster-Impedance-Electric-FM3/dp/B0002YUWES/ref=sr_1_6?crid=3BTBKXNI7Y5LQ&keywords=parmak+electric+fence+charger&qid=1663871088&s=lawn-garden&sprefix=parmak+%2Clawngarden%2C125&sr=1-6&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.304cacc1-b508-45fb-a37f-a2c47c48c32f

    ReplyDelete
  5. Troubleshooting in the field and on the bench can and often do show completely different problems... sigh

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  6. For a ten year stretch of my dairy management I ran a 40 cow dairy that used some intensive pasture management. I had a low impedance Australian charger and never chased cows or heifers that were behind the electric fence. I used electric string on fiberglass easily moveable 3/8 rod posts for strip grazing with electric twine to carry the juice. It was so effective that we had to catch the yearlings out of the feed lot they spent the summer in because they were afraid to come thru the open gate! One thing, if you unplug for a lightning storm take the ground off the fencer as well as the hot wire. We had a charger totaled by a lightning bolt that hit a tree near the fencer with just the hot wire removed!

    ReplyDelete

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