I have an electric fence for my horses. The charger is a Parker McCrory SE4:
**broken link removed**
I wanted to make a simple circuit tester to show the fence was on. So I took a T5 8W fluorescent bulb. Solder a wire to one terminal on each end, with one lead going to a ground rod. I made two of these, as I wanted one close and one far.
The SE4 comes with a voltmeter. It was reading 12.9KV without no bulbs attached. Standing near the charger, I attached one bulb and it went to 12.8kV and with the 2nd bulb on it read 12.7kV. Great, not much load on the circuit.
I attached one bulb about 100ft from the charger. Voltage read 12.8KV. I walked down the fence about 1000 ft and attached the 2nd bulb. Voltage dropped to 2.8kV. What gives.
I removed the 1st bulb to see what would happen, the far bulb still loaded down the charger to 2.8KV. I thought maybe something was wrong with the 2nd bulb, so I removed it, and put the 1st bulb in its place, same thing, 2.8KV.
So its not the number of bulbs, its where it is placed on the fence. The only thing I can think of is the the farther fence has more resistance, but should it make this much difference.
Any ideas of what is happening electrically. Do you think a series resistor to the bulb would help keep the voltage up.
thanks
**broken link removed**
I wanted to make a simple circuit tester to show the fence was on. So I took a T5 8W fluorescent bulb. Solder a wire to one terminal on each end, with one lead going to a ground rod. I made two of these, as I wanted one close and one far.
The SE4 comes with a voltmeter. It was reading 12.9KV without no bulbs attached. Standing near the charger, I attached one bulb and it went to 12.8kV and with the 2nd bulb on it read 12.7kV. Great, not much load on the circuit.
I attached one bulb about 100ft from the charger. Voltage read 12.8KV. I walked down the fence about 1000 ft and attached the 2nd bulb. Voltage dropped to 2.8kV. What gives.
I removed the 1st bulb to see what would happen, the far bulb still loaded down the charger to 2.8KV. I thought maybe something was wrong with the 2nd bulb, so I removed it, and put the 1st bulb in its place, same thing, 2.8KV.
So its not the number of bulbs, its where it is placed on the fence. The only thing I can think of is the the farther fence has more resistance, but should it make this much difference.
Any ideas of what is happening electrically. Do you think a series resistor to the bulb would help keep the voltage up.
thanks