Well I thought so, until I volunteered my pasture/hayfield as a photo opportunity. This meant I needed to get my fences up to snuff.
In this set up, I have a feeder wire carrying the pulse down the fence line to power my temporary subdivision fence. It involves a few components from before my Premier days, they would be the porcelain insulator and the rusty old-style electric fence wire.
My Premier components are a wood post activator, Tuff-Ring insulator, FiberRod with ScrewOn insulators, harp clips, and IntelliRope 4.5. They're all set-up poorly (by Premier standards), but the voltage on the fence measure 5kv (kilo-volts or 5,000 volts) all summer and the cattle stayed in (they only got out where I didn't have electric fence).
So what's wrong?
- I should be using two conductors, not one continuous length. The vertical section of my conductor puts unnecessary stress on the fine metal filaments. This shortens the usable life of that conductor.
- My wood post activator is meant as an attachment point for gate handles. The TuffRing is not meant to hold conductors that way (90° angle), it works, but once again, it's the wrong way to do things.
- Porcelain insulator, there are a lot of these in use around farms. I've decided I don't care for them, my conductors always fall off until I get the right amount of tension on them. I don't enjoy wrestling a tensioned insulator back into place.
- Rusty fence wire. Rust is corrosion. Corrosion = resistance. Resistance is an obstruction to electrical flow.
In short, I'm using the wrong insulators in correctly, my conductor is being worn out too quickly and I'm not getting as much energy onto my fenceline as I should.
What needs to be done to get the fence photo ready?
- Replace rusty wire with a proper feeder wire.
- Run two conductors instead on one-continuous conductor.
- Terminate those conductors with an insulated conductor hook. That will connect to the barbed wire, which is not, nor will be, energized.
- Connect feeder wire to conductors via PowerLink. This will provide better metal-to-metal contact on the fence.
A much better setup.
- Conductivity is improved. Galvanized and stainless steel connections carry the pulse much better than rusty wire. ,
- Connecting feeder wire to top conductor at the RopeLink, this offers the best metal to metal contact for transferring the pulse.
- Two conductors terminated with conductor hooks. This reduces stress on my conductor, as well as letting me easily open up the fence to transfer cattle to the next pasture or to drive haying equipment through.
- Switched out my porcelain insulator for a notched PI21 terminal insulator. I kept my old rusty wire to hold it in place, it works just fine for that use. I went with the notched insulator for its ease of sliding the conductor into place.
Why didn't I set my fence up this way to start?
Like most farms, you make what you have on hand work. What I had on hand worked, it wasn't perfect but it got the job done.
The end result? Other than a more eye-appealing fence (my cell-phone pics don't do it justice), my voltage went up! How much? At least 3,000 volts. The tester in the photo measures up to 8kv. My digital voltmeter (which measured the earlier mentioned 5,000 volts) goes up to 9.9kv. I'll get that one out later to see if the voltage went up further than 3kv.
I made sure to test at the end of my fenceline—the end of the fence gives you the voltage after going through any weed-contact or poor conductors.
The fence is now ready for photos. I'll go give the cattle a pep-talk for tomorrow.
