Elec.Fence Controllers

Anyone have any preference for fence controllers , such as , Zareba or Gallagher.
Having trouble with reduced output , hard ground ,clay underneath , has been relatively dry for some months , the one I am using Zareba ,2 joules , was thinking of upping the charge. any suggestions.Down to read out of about 4.0 used to be around 8.0 or more , maybe losing efficiency.

Try dumping 5 gallons of water around the ground rod. Clay soil when dry wil shrink somewhat and reduce rod contact.

Is it an option for you to run an extra strand of wire and connect it to the ground terminal? Sounds like you have plenty of charger. Make sure that you have no shorts along the fence also.

Good luck,


Dave

Personally, I've never been satisfied with any zareba chargers. They just dont seem hot enough for me. I really like the Parmark chargers for an economy. For a top of the line Gallagher seems to me to be the best but for what I do with them the Parmark works well.

Sorry to jump in but, can you connest the ground wire for the fencer to the regular (non hot) wires. I have 1 8' copper ground rod in the ground but want to fence in a corn feild with 2 hot wires and am concerned I wont have enough ground feild for the extra distance. Is connecting the ground to the regular fence a no-no?

to get the benefit (if you want to call it that) of the fence being used as a ground, the animal would have to touch both. if the hotwire was mor that a few inches in front of the ground, the animal could get halfway through and panic (tearing up the fence and/or injuring the animal).

Dave

Tell us about your ground system. Most manufacturers recommend 6 foot of ground rod for every joule of output. The 4.0 & 8.0 you talk about. Is that your voltage reading? If so 3.0 will turn cattle with no problem usually. Pouring a substantial amount of water around the ground should get the voltage reading up.

Good Luck, Pete

Ken I put a purchased ground rod under the overhang drip of my barn, drove it almost all the way in. I left a small dished area around to hold about 5 gallons of water. This was a HUGE improvement in grounding from the rebar it replaced. When my clay soil is dry I pour a bucket of water on the ground and it always works even on the bulls.

I prefer Gallagher. Pricy but it's well built and gives you one hel! of a shock. An 8 joule( or somewhere in there) is around 590 last time I checked,but, again it's not your standard co-op $100 fencer

I have used both low impedence Gallagher( plug in and solar/battery) as well as a Premier1 (www.premier1supplies.com)solar/battery which is a wide impedance charger.I have had a really good performance out of the Gallagher plug in chargers but not so good performance with the solar/battery. The Premier1 wide impedence has provided excellent performance. Wide impedence means that the voltage drop off versus fence load is more gradual than the low impedance charger and thus as the ground gets drier or as grass touches the fence, etc.the voltage does not drop off as fast. They are a spendy line of chargers that compete against Gallagher price wise.

I like Gallagher. I have an M80 and an M400. Both have been very good for the money.

As I have said on here several times the best money I have ever spent in the fence end of farming is a "Gallagher Smart Fix". The only thing I think I would ever up grade too is the charger that cost about $1200 and has a hand held voltometer that works as a remote that when held to the wire will turn the charger on and off. The smart fix has saved me alot of time the last two years. Where most give you volts, this one will also give you amps and tell you which way the amps are going. When in amp mode it gives a number and an arrow. Follow the arrow to the nearest bad short, or if it is working good it will send you to a very minor short. Last time I looked they were still about $120 and if I loose mine this week I will buy another next trip to town.

Good luck, did not mean to get so long winded.

Dave

we sell and repair fencers for 7 states and prefer parmak or zareba we tried to sell gallagher but found they were way overpriced and too expensive to repair you basically paid for the name about a 4-500% markup ---the ground system is 75% of the fencer output

i use both the ground (dirt) and a ground wire plus 2 hot wires- works well for me.

i use the Zereba solars, with electric rope and 2 hot wires with a ground wire in the middle, plus earth as ground. I have two turnouts that are nothing but electric w/ step in posts w/ t-post corners and t-post every 30 ft- no problems with escapees after 2 years of saily use.

Wish I had an answer. I'm having problems.

Bought a Zareba LI100 low impedance 100 miler rated at 6 joules and 13,300 volt max output 2 years ago for $200. 2 ground rods about 10' apart by the drip edge of the barn so they are usually in mud.

I'm running a double strand of hot wire around a part of a corral and then on around part of the pasture so there is about 1 1/2 miles of wire max. This controller should be overkill.

This winter, found it wasn't working, sent it in to Zareba who put a new board in it for about $85.

Earlier this summer while working near one section of the fence, bumped it with my elbow and the shock was enough to leave my arm part numb for a few hours. Great I thought.

This summer the giant ragweed probably got away from us. Horses respect the wire but the burros got out a couple weeks ago. Cleared a couple hundred yards of weeds from the wire around the corral but not getting much of a spark still from the wire. Bought one of those Zareba digital testers and replaced the underground insulated wire going from the charger and under the gate.

Put the tester on the charger by it self and it maxes out the tester. Put the wire on, and about all I get is about 1000 to 1200 volts which drops down 200 to 400 volts. This is at the charger and the start of the wire. One of two strands is totally dead. I know further down the pasture about an 1/8 mile, ragweed is still touching the wire but I thought it should have more voltage up close by the barn but apparently not. We had rain last week so it was plenty wet.

Another oddity noticed last weekend, one of the ground rod wires is bare fence wire, when I bumped it close to the barn tin, it started sparking against the tin.

Anyone have any ideas other than cutting those 6' tall ragweeds with trunks like trees. Then the wind blows them against the wire. I'm really disapponted that one short somewhere will affect the whole fence even close to the charger.

If you have conections in the fence and not just one solid wire the whole lenth start take'n them loose. If you have a very long fence a cell phone or walkie talkie and some one there to unplug the charger is realy nice. Start isolating parts of the fence at the closest conection. I would start with taking the dead wire loose first, get the one that has some heat on it real hot then work on the one that is totaly dead.

Good luck, hope this helps some.

Dave

Gallagher will give you a good shock when you need repair parts.85.00 for a new output transformer, 23.00 will buy a new transformer for a Parmak.Best buy is the Parmak SE3 good output,reasonable price.