1

My game electric fence is split into various sections in order to create redundancy. Is there any design that I can charge a battery along the fence line from the joules generated from the line but not lose too much of the current in the fence line itself ? These batteries will either power lights or cameras or sensors to enhance my security. It doesn’t need to be a commercial product; I am willing to experiment and build a prototype.

Autistic
  • 14,235
  • 2
  • 27
  • 65
harry P
  • 11
  • 2
  • What do you mean split into various sections? You only have one energizer, right? You know that you cannot hook more than one energizer to the same fence, right? – user57037 Dec 03 '15 at 17:30

1 Answers1

1

I did one of these back in 1993 .It charged a 7AH 12V gell battery.I volt limited it at 13.8 V which was the recommended float voltage from PORTALAC .I had something that made a average charging current of from memory 100mA .This was with an off the shelf electric fence with some high voltage resistors and capacitors to crudely emulate a real fence.I used a transformer out of another electric fence backwards to charge some caps .The caps were dropped down into a battery.Yes it can be done if you want a small amount of power from a big fence .But this never went into production due to lack of demand and never got beyond a birds nest on a workbench.

Autistic
  • 14,235
  • 2
  • 27
  • 65
  • Isn't the current and voltage out-of-phase on an electric fence? Would it make much difference to a charger? Sounds like a dangerous experiment. – rdtsc Dec 03 '15 at 14:19
  • @rdtsc, around 50 times per minute, the energizer sends out a pulse on the fence. The pulse is in the range of maybe 5 to 10 kV, and total energy is from a fraction of a Joule to several Joules. Return current flows through the earth to a ground rod. What Autistic did does not sound particularly dangerous. But getting shocked by the fence, depending on how well you are grounded, is no fun. – user57037 Dec 03 '15 at 17:35
  • 1
    The backwards fence transformer provides galvanic isolation .Fences in New Zealand in 10s of joules are common as is the practice of running a return wire .The idea was that the fence could make power all the time unlike solar .In 1993 the panels were more expensive and not as good.I guess that you could use big caps instead of a battery because you only need to store the energy for about 1 second. – Autistic Dec 03 '15 at 19:15