do I have a faulty Zareba® 5 Mile Battery Operated Solid State Charger

[New2Chicks97]

Usually when we have issues with our electric fence it is either shorting out due to grass/weeds or it has an issue with it being grounded correctly. We have both a solar system and an electric one. The latest issue with our solar electric fence charger was that the wasps built a BIG nest on it and that was shorting it out. Luckily it was around part of the pasture we aren’t using at the moment so i just shut it off at dusk and ran for it when they started to give chase. I hate wasps! I need about 10 cans of wasp spray then I will tackle it

 

[Howard E]

Check your voltmeter to see if the 2V you are reading is X1000, or 2,000 volts. That is how mine is.

I setup a small playpen yesterday with the Parmak charger and about 200 feet of poly tape. It read 16.8 on a freshly charged battery. Ouch. A couple birds touched it and it lit em up pretty good.....launching 5 feet in the air and not coming down until they flew 30 feet or so, which put them outside the wire.....wanting back in. They always simply hop over it to get back in, where they become very reluctant to go near it again. Always amazes me how well that works.

 

[Trish1974]

@llombardo did you ever get your top wire (on top of the run) to work correctly?

 

[aart]

Or you can cut to the chase and grab a-holt of the fence just to see if it'll shock you. But I guess that is too macho.

They did that

I can touch and hold the wire - its unpleasant but absolutely doable.

 

[llombardo]

@llombardo did you ever get your top wire (on top of the run) to work correctly?

I do believe it's working. It's not easy to test. I went to do it and I chickened out(no pun intended) I redid all the wires and the charger is working fine, before it was shorting out--so something on the top(my guess is a screw/bolt) was touching something. We tested each piece of material on the run to see what is conductive or not and that ruled everything in or out, well pretty much out.

 

[123RedBeard]

A few more thoughts ...

Like mentioned above ... is it possible that you have your voltage gauge set to a different power setting?

If your battery is only at 12.0 volts ... not 12.8 volts ... it should still work ... at much more than a "tingle"!!!

So ... next questions is what kind of foot wear were you wearing? Some have much more insulating properties than others, so "YOU" May not have really been grounded very good ... bare feet don't insulate!

If you do the above mentioned test of finger/thumb on the terminals ... and you hair stands on end, and it feels like you lost feeling in your whole hand, and your arm feels numb ... then you know the charger is working ... then I'd check the actual wire connection at the ground rod, and clamp ... it is possible that either it is not making good contact, or the surfaces have something on them that is not allowing a good electric connection ... try to use a little sand paper, or a file to make sure it is bare metal on all three surfaces ... wire/clamp/rod

 

[123RedBeard]

It is also possible that you have a faulty post insulator(s) ... that is actually shorting out ... listen for "clicks" at each insulator, which would indicate that it is shorting out, and reducing its capacity to fry you!

 

[cmom]

Depending on how many joules it is (.25 joules) means you will get around 2000 volts. You will get a shock from it like a bee sting. If a critter touches it, it will know.

 

[Zwillingsmama]

IF you're only getting TWO Volts with a hot battery , you either have a faulty fence charger OR there is a short to ground somewhere you're missing. What is the voltage without the hot wire (fence) hooked up to the charger?

We tested this today and it still shows only 2 v and yes we checked the scale that it isn’t accidentally 2000v. I will contact zariba and hopefully they will exchange it.

 

[WthrLady]

We had a Zariba that had a loose connection inside. Another came with a bad battery. Another plain wouldn't charge. We switched brands. Now I just pull off the solar bull fencer. Think grabbing a 2000V fence is a hoot? Walk into a bull fence at 10,000 with a wet t-shirt. Holy crap on a cracker !

Good luck getting your's fixed. Let us know what they find, if they tell you.