Ground Rods and connections..

[happyfrenchman]

Ilombardo..... you may not want to hear this at this point, but if it were me.... If you are able to "bond" or connect, all the wire sections of your coop, you could use them as the ground and all you would have to run is a hot wire. I see alot of metal wiring that would serve as a better ground than any ground wire. Then you just have to keep your hot wire isolated from it. You have to use your grounding rod, and connect to a screen wire panel.... then, using bonding wires....connect all your metal screens together to ground... in cases where the wire screen is perhaps isolated from the others , a short connecting or "bonding" wire can connect them together, until you have effectively grounded all the wire panels in your coop. Then, the hot wire running alongside them will give a jolt to anyhing that is on the screen and touches the hot. Your predators are going to climb the wire screen. You can bond or ground your whole coop which would make for a better and more secure job both in looks and in function.
If you decide you need a ground wire up top, you can bond it off the closest (bonded) metal wire screening and run it parallel to a hot wire for a particular spot.

 

[True Patriot]

There is no ground running around the bottom part--all hot wires
View attachment 1510571

The run is not dug into the ground and the HC doesn't necessarily meet at all points--so grounding the enclosure itself is a 50/50 shot


The additional ground comes in at the top of an animal jumps from point a to point b--not climb--jump across. If the enclosure is not grounded(which I doubt) then I need something up there for that animal to touch with the hot wire, so the circuit is complete. That is the reason for the ground wire ran around two sides along the top.

View attachment 1510575


From what I'm understanding I could run hot wires all the way up but if the said predator does not have its feet on the ground, it won't matter.

So I put a ground wire up top for there to be both to touch.

The wire I said from the enclosure ("fence") to the ground rod will ground the entire enclosure. Eliminating the need for the additional ground conductor run around the top. As long as the animal makes contact between the enclosure fence and the conductor wires it will get shocked.

 

[True Patriot]

Ilombardo..... you may not want to hear this at this point, but if it were me.... If you are able to "bond" or connect, all the wire sections of your coop, you could use them as the ground and all you would have to run is a hot wire. I see alot of metal wiring that would serve as a better ground than any ground wire. Then you just have to keep your hot wire isolated from it. You have to use your grounding rod, and connect to a screen wire panel.... then, using bonding wires....connect all your metal screens together to ground... in cases where the wire screen is perhaps isolated from the others , a short connecting or "bonding" wire can connect them together, until you have effectively grounded all the wire panels in your coop. Then, the hot wire running alongside them will give a jolt to anyhing that is on the screen and touches the hot. Your predators are going to climb the wire screen. You can bond or ground your whole coop which would make for a better and more secure job both in looks and in function.
If you decide you need a ground wire up top, you can bond it off the closest (bonded) metal wire screening and run it parallel to a hot wire for a particular spot.

Exactly what I was trying to say. Maybe explained a bit clearer.

 

[Howard E]

Ilomboardo:

Do you have an electric fence test light or other means of testing to see if your fence is hot......or not? If no, consider getting one. Invaluable to help diagnose problems, isolate where fence is bad or is shorting out. The cheap one's have flashing lights......the good ones a voltage meter. The good ones may run $50 or more. You want the fence to be charged with 5,000 volts or more. When my batteries are charged, and all is working right, my fence is cranked up to 13,000 volts. Ouchy ouch ouch.



Poor man's version is a plastic handled screwdriver. While holding the insulated plastic handle, so you don't get shocked, ground out the shaft of the screwdriver to a grounded fence post, grounded wire run, etc. Then when that is grounded, touch the tip of the screwdriver to the hot wire. If fence is hot and working right, you should see a spark and hear a snap. How big a spark and how loud a snap depends on the strength of the fencer. The spark and snap on mine are quite evident.

 

[llombardo]

I'm having no luck at all here. I did buy a better fence tester, that stopped working. Before it quit, we were at 3000 volts. I was ok with this because of it kept my 80 pound dog and a very high prey drive dog back it was working.

I called the company and they explained a 2 wire system. All I had to do was get insulated wire. Run wires like normal(insulated from ground rod to ground charger) and add an insulated wire from the wire on top to the rod. Of course the insulated wire has two wires in there when I split it. I redid the wires and as soon as I added the insulated wires the charger went off. The rain was coming so I put the original wire back on to have some voltage in there.

How do you get stronger voltage? And why am I having such a difficult time here? I'm not a stupid person but I'm very frustrated.

 

[Howard E]

For starters, disconnect ALL wires from your fence charger. None at all. Then use your tester to see what the fence charger is putting out with no load on it all all. That's your baseline. Then connect the ground (which has no load) and then start adding your hot wires back. If there is a drop off in voltage when you connect a wire that is hot, you have a short somewhere in that wire. Something somewhere is touching the hot wire to ground it out (read bleed off the voltage to reduce the shock).

If you put a mile or two of wire up, that alone creates enough resistance to lower the shock, but you dont have that much. You should get minimal to no voltage dropoff with the small amount of wire you have.

 

[123RedBeard]

I'm sorry your having such a difficult time with this ...

What kind of "insulated wire" did you use?

Most house wire is only rated at 600 volts at most!

 

[Northern.Ontario]

^ YES. Do not use regular insulated house wire! Your voltage will leak right through the insulation because it can only handle up to 600 volts. You need DOUBLE insulated fence wire. It's designed to handle at least 10,000 volts.

 

[Northern.Ontario]

I suspect your ground wire is coming in contact with the hotwire at some point around the top perimeter of your fence or the hotwire is in contact with some type of conductor which contacts the ground wire. It may be very hard to spot; perhaps a screw, bolt, nut, hardware cloth, metal fence piece, metal strap etc. This is the only explanation that supports your fence shorting out when you connect the ground wire to the rod.

 

[llombardo]

I got 18 gauge insulated wire.

We are now thinking the netting on top is conductive. I'm going to grab a piece of that and test it. That is the first thing. Then I'm bringing my tester thing in to check the fuse.

Now I have to figure out why the insulated wire from ground rod to charger shuts it down? I can keep that regular wire if needed.