# Fence charger trouble....



## SCtrailrider (May 1, 2016)

OK, This is going to sound a little strange me thinks but here is my trouble...

I have used a "Kencove" fence charger for several years, the 13joule model with the remote ...

Everything has worked great up until a few weeks ago, I have had a red light, Ground issue, I have checked the fence foot by foot, can't find anything wrong or grounded ..

I have a electrical wire buried that plugs in under the house to a plug in, and I have 5 - 8ft ground rods on the charger ground line..

I am doing some home repairs getting ready for vinyl siding, the treated plywood I'm using is wet, we are very wet here, lots of ground moisture but I'm not working in puddles or anything like that, the charger is about 50 ft from where it's plugged in..

This morning I was on my knees using a air nail gun, I was leaning against the wet plywood I nailed up yesterday, my wrist twitched a bit, I figured it was from pounding a hammer all day yesterday... well everytime I touched the wet plywood it felt like that, I soon figured out it was a pulse just like the fence charger, sure enough when I unplugged the charger the pulse stopped...

What is going on here .....


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

I think you may have potential between the grounds.....why do you have 5 ground rods? Are they driven to depth or are they the shorter ones....is the house ground wires convenient that you could run the ground there? Eliminate the possibility of potential between ground points.....that’s where I would start.


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## SCtrailrider (May 1, 2016)

I have 5 grounds because when I first put up the fence, it was very dry and I couldn't get enough ground strength.. I have 4 miles of high tension wire, it isn't a complete loop yet, as in both ends don't meet, and the bottom wire is my ground, but it also isn't a loop yet.. Every time I tested the fence by grounding it the meter said I needed more ground...

I have other grounds along the fence every few hundred feet tied into the bottom wire but that wire isn't connected to the charger system yet, guess I need to complete that project..

i will half to look into the house ground, not sure where or if their is one...


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## SCtrailrider (May 1, 2016)

And all the rods are 8ft down...


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## PaulN (Mar 4, 2014)

Even though you checked the fence foot by foot, you're talking about 4 miles. That translates to hundreds if not a few thousand insulators. Nothing is perfect, not even a new insulator. When each one leaks even a minuscule amount, take that times 1,000, and you have a fair amount of current that has to find it's way back to the charger. The way back is via ground rods. 13 joules is a big charger, and manufacturers do recommend at least 3 ground rods for that size charger. My guess is you may have a loose connection on the ground side. Perhaps between the rods, the clamp on the rod may be corroded from the wet conditions, or the connection at the charger itself may be loose or corroded.


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## SCtrailrider (May 1, 2016)

I plan to finish the ground loop asap, and tomorrow I'll ride the fence and clip anything touching it..

It just bothered me that I felt the pulse touching the house when the charger is so far away... and this just started a few weeks ago when the ground light started being red...


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## Farmerbrown2 (Sep 25, 2018)

I am not an electrician but I would check to make sure you don’t have an open ground somewhere. I just had ground wire come loose in a wire nut in my butcher shop. It was causing some strange issues with several outlets. There was enough ground to lite a trouble light but not enough to run a motor. I think the vibration from the walk in cooler caused the wire nut to come loose enough to not have proper ground. Also is the fence charger hooked up to a GFIC outlet . GFIC outlets save lives if they are tripping there is a bad ground somewhere.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

SCtrailrider said:


> I have 5 grounds because when I first put up the fence, it was very dry and I couldn't get enough ground strength.. I have 4 miles of high tension wire, it isn't a complete loop yet, as in both ends don't meet, and the bottom wire is my ground, but it also isn't a loop yet.. Every time I tested the fence by grounding it the meter said I needed more ground...
> 
> I have other grounds along the fence every few hundred feet tied into the bottom wire but that wire isn't connected to the charger system yet, guess I need to complete that project..
> 
> i will half to look into the house ground, not sure where or if their is one...


On older homes the NEC would allow for one ground rod and the house plumbing would be a ground as well.....obviously with the advent of PVC plumbing the code was changed and it is now two ground rods placed 6ft apart (I think, haven't looked at the code in quite a while) 8 feet deep is sufficient in most areas. Poor grounding and the potential caused by it are, by far, the most common problems when weird things start happening.


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## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

Same fencer, only 3 grounds rods. Had issues with poor ground especially when wet last year. Hard snapping in general vicinity of the clamps but everything always looked fine. One day decided to just disconnect everything and check it. Found after almost 20 years and cattle walking around them clamps were wore and loose but looked "connected." Because I'm cheap and did not have clamps on hand I used nails to take up the slack on the clamps. I also polished up the rods.

I would disconnect your 5, check really good and go from there.


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## SCtrailrider (May 1, 2016)

I checked the entire fence today, clipped a few small limbs here and their..

One thing I found is the bottom wire is my ground, I get amperage on that wire and can hear it snapping.. Question, does the ground wire, the lower line half to be in insulators along the entire fence ??

The portion of fence I'm getting the amps on the lower wire isn't connected to the charger ground system yet, I connected it to t-post the whole run with plans to tie everything in as a loop, just haven't found the time.. I'm confused ........


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## Farmerbrown2 (Sep 25, 2018)

Do you have any high tension power lines on your property? I still am not convinced you have a fence problem. I still wander if it's not an electric problem. Stray voltage can be hard to detect and where it travels can be even more complex.

You said that you are 50 feet from the charger so I am assuming that you are at least 50 feet from a fence. If you are getting shocked while touching your house which I'm guessing is not attached to the fence then I still question whether it's not a ground issue on the electrical side of the fencer and house.

If you have a generator plug the fence charger into that and see if that changes anything. I still think it's not a fence issue. Just my thoughts I could be completely off base.


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## Farmerbrown2 (Sep 25, 2018)

Correct me if I’m wrong but there should not be any amps. You should have high voltage low amps. Amps is what kills not voltage.


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## Wethay (Jul 17, 2015)

An extension cord temporarily for power would eliminate the buried electric. Does your fence hook directly to the charger or are you running a wire from the charger to the fence, that might be on the ground? If you use your lower fence wire as a ground it doesn't have to be in insulators. If you have juice on it then I would think that means you have a connection between it and the hot wire. Can you unhook the fence from the charger and plug in the charger without damaging it? If you could that would give you an idea if you have something weird going on with the charger/ electrical power or the fence/grounds. If I understand correctly the bottom fence wire isn't hooked up, but it does have juice. Is it against the house or near where you are working?


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

My thought is similar to Paul's. Can you disconnect sections of fence? I have disconnects at several spots along my electric fence so I can some what isolate where there is a problem.

This year I had a hard time finding a short. Finally, discovered it was an old glass insulator that had a crack in it with moisture. What a pain to find. :angry: You wouldn't think a glass insulator would do that, but...&#8230;..I learned something new AGAIN.

Larry


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Farmerbrown2 said:


> I am not an electrician but I would check to make sure you don't have an open ground somewhere. I just had ground wire come loose in a wire nut in my butcher shop. It was causing some strange issues with several outlets. There was enough ground to lite a trouble light but not enough to run a motor. I think the vibration from the walk in cooler caused the wire nut to come loose enough to not have proper ground. Also is the fence charger hooked up to a GFIC outlet . GFIC outlets save lives if they are tripping there is a bad ground somewhere.


Yeah sounds like a grounding problem to me... that causes "feedback" of voltage that's creating a potential and "backfeeding" where it's not supposed to be.

When I put up a hot wire to keep the cattle off the barb wire fence, since our posts and corners were all steel, I just tied the ground wire to all the barb wires (which of course are all tied to the steel T-posts and steel corners and H-braces) and then ran the hot wire to the electrically insulated wire. System has worked great and we have ZERO interest in the cattle eating through the fence... they get a MUCH hotter shock when it's from the hot wire, through the animal, to the barb wire when they're trying to push on the fence, rather than from the hot wire, through their FEET, into the earth, and back to the charger through the ground... of course they can still ground through their feet into the earth, and all those T-posts and steel corners and H braces sunk in deep in wet clay WILL pick up the charge and conduct it back to the charger, but dry ground is NO PROBLEM, it doesn't insulate them from getting zapped through their hide from the hot wire to the barb wire fence acting as ground... I know in testing it one day it zapped the p!ss out of me hard enough they could have heard the shouted expletive five miles away in town! We have a Parmak, can't recall the joule rating, maybe 13 joules?? Supposed to be enough to do 110 miles of fence, and we have about 1.5 mile with cross fences... It will usually keep about 8k-10k volts on the fence, in sopping wet rainy weather and lots of green grass and weeds it'll keep around 3-4k on the fence...

Later! OL J R


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