This message is from: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Solar chargers can work, but, like other people have already said, they're not nearly as good as the regular plug-in kind. But if there's no 'lectric, you gotta do what you gotta do.
Buy the best charger you can afford -- if you can spring for a 12 V solar, do it. A 6 V charger often doesn't have enough juice to run a long stretch of fence, especially if you have anything -- and it won't take much -- grounding the wire out. Low impedance is good too. Keep your fence as short as possible. If you are determined to use a tape product for your electric fence, buy one that's specifically recommended for solar. The wires in most tapes have too much electrical resistance because the wires are way too thin. You won't get the snap you need with that kind of tape. After living with (and cussing out) a 6 V solar for several years, I eventually found that I had the best luck with a heavy-gage steel wire sold for electric fencing (can't remember the gage offhand). It had low resistance so the solar worked really well and, best of all, the wire is pretty cheap. If you want the wire to be more visible, you can run the electric fencing tape with the wire if you want to. Alternatively, you can tie on strips of plastic flagging tape every 10 feet or so -- the kind surveyors or construction people use. Flagging tape is easy to use and far cheaper than electric-fencing tape. I've done both, and don't really have a preference as far as horse safety goes. Digression: Now that I use a regular fencer, my favorite product, especially for temporary electric fencing, is an inexpensive, thin, twisted wire and plastic filament product. It looks like black and white string a scant 1/8" in diameter. It's less expensive than tape. It is far lighter and easier to handle than regular wire. I can quickly wind it up on an inexpensive electric-cord reel when I need to take the fence down. The reel prevents tangles and speeds the process of putting the fence back up too. The horses also see this "string" surprisingly well. Remember a horse doesn't have color vision like we do -- contrast is more important than bright color -- it should contrast well both with green grass and white snow. Actually, black & white work better for horses than the brightest blaze orange. Anyway, back to solar fencers: Make sure you can get parts for the charger locally -- or keep important spares on hand. It is not at all fun to have to make a two hour drive just to buy some little bitty $20 part the local Co-op doesn't happen to sell. Ground the charger really well -- don't think that hooking the ground wire to a metal T-post in your fence will be good enough. You can sometimes get away with that with a regular charger, but it's not a good idea even then. Use at least one 8' long copper ground rod (preferably 2 or 3) close to the charger. Locate the rod on the outside of the fence to prevent any injuries to your horses. Use a T-post pounder gadget to pound the rod in at least 5' to 5 1/2' deep. Why not pound it in deeper? Ideally, in a permanent installation, you should. But solar chargers sometimes get moved from one spot to another. If you leave a couple of feet of the ground rod sticking out of the ground, you can carefully pull the rod with a T-post puller if you later want to do so. Deeper and you'll have problems pulling the rod easily. Use a nice thick copper wire (12 gage or even thicker if you can) for the ground wire -- don't just use the thin fence wire or tape for the ground. Use a proper wire clamp to solidly connect the ground wire to the rod. You should be able to get these clamps where you buy your grounding rods. Keep the fenceline really clean -- no grass, weeds, bugs, dead birds, snow, whatever touching the hot wire. Regularly check the fenceline to make sure deer jumping the fence haven't snagged the hot wire on things that will ground it out. If the fencer is on the other side of the road from your house and located in an out of the way spot, it will be a serious temptation to not check the fencer regularly. That's not a good idea, speaking from personal experience. Put the charger in a spot that's convenient and easy to get to -- right by a gate you'll use regularly, if you can. Learn to listen to the snapping sound the fencer makes when it's running right. Solars are pretty quiet compared to regular fencers, but they do make a little sound when things are going right. The sound will change a bit or even go silent when there's something wrong -- can't count on the sound to always tell you there's trouble, but it's a good quick check. Invest in a voltage tester that has a series of LED's -- the kind that has more LED's that flash when the voltage is high and fewer when the voltage is low. The brightness of the flashing is important too. Learn what the flashing looks like when the fencer is working well, then you can check the fence with the tester occasionally and know quickly if there's a problem. Good luck! It'll work, but you do have to be more careful with a solar than with a regular charger. DeeAnna
