Testing a Electric Bear Fence.

From what I know from reading about electric fencing is that you should not test it with a multimeter, or you risk burning out the meter.

Touch a grounded rod to the fence to see if jumps a spark.....or just touch it yourself and see if it keeps you out.

The trouble with electric fences is that need a good ground to work good. A bear has lots of insulating hair that may keep them from getting the full charge.....unless you can get them to put their nose on it...

It is HF they come free with purchase. Just want to know what setting will show me the correct charges It is a throw away tester.

There is no setting on the HF meter that will help you test an electric fence. You can buy a dedicated fence tester if you want.

I scrounged an old spark plug and mating ignition wire. I added a wire hook to one end of the ignition wire to hook to a ground. Touch the threaded base of the spark plug to the hot wire.

Set the plug gap to whatever you want. In bright sunlight the spark itself may be hard to see, but you should still be able to hear it. Keep your fingers clear!

I just grab mine with my right hand. It lets me know if it is working fairly quickly. I also have a 3 foot piece of 12 gauge insulated wire out of some romex that I stripped about an inch off each end. Stick one end in the earth, and slowly bring the other end of the hot wire. If you see a spark jump, its producing voltage,.

> I just grab mine with my right hand.

OK, I can't resist asking ... what happens if you use your left hand? :lookout:

They told me in college not to do electrical stuff with my left hand, because the current would have a better chance of flowing through my heart and killing me. Not sure if it is 100% true or not, but why risk it! 0

Perhaps you weren't paying close attention when they went over the part about not grabbing live wires?

They sell fence testers... They're pretty cheap but not as much fun as peeing on it :lpf:

OK. OK. I usually just put my leg against it and feel it. I wanted to know the amount it was producing. So I guess the meter is not the right way. I have 2 hots and one ground wire run and then it is grounded to the ground. I then put peanut butter on the fence to get them to lick it. Once they feal the fence they avoid the area when they have learned. problem is not teaching 1. It is teaching the 8 that live in the area. Just when you think you have taught one another one that you have not comes by. I will be getting some bear tags come August. They make great sausage. :banana:

I bait my fences too, it really helps. Only thing I don't like about bear meat is it's a bit greasy. I can deal with greasy

:wiener: And they do make into good sausages :wiener:

That little red meter has a maximum setting of 1000 V DC and 750 VAC RMS. No fence charger that I have seen the specs on puts out less than a 2500 V pulse, and the good ones are 7000 V and up. Plus, that meter has a "integration time" of around 1/3 second and the pulse the fence charger produces should be around 0.0003 seconds.

To get a hard number on what it is putting out, there are several options for fence testers sold where you get your fence charger stuff. Some have a series of lights, but the high-end ones are digital meters.

The only real way to see how effective one is on a bear is to hold a bear up against the fence and see how it reacts. Unfortunately, you might not live to write down the results.

A bear just got into my hives Saturday night. I am using my welder as an electric fence charger.
I ain't touching the wires on it! If the bear touches this I will have bear already defured and cooked.

That sounds like a liability waiting to happen.

Electric welders are high current, but low voltage at the business end. It would be difficult to get shocked by a welder unless there is some serious malfunction in the line voltage side of the welder.

Consider the smilies in Dad's post. I took it to be a bit of sarcasm.

Who ME being sarcastic. NOT ME.

it's not as hard to get shockled by a welder as you might think. When welding in the rain or on wet ground, it's not uncommon to get a little tickle now and again. with a wiring set up to promote a zappy good time, i wouldn't want to play. I'm sure its less than ideal, but sounds to me like a good way of making do with what you have untikl you can get what you want.

I use a Speedrite Digital Voltmeter. As I recall it cost me about $40 - those lights on the cheap units were driving me nuts.

I got 7.3KW on a fence I setup yesterday with a solar energizer. It is nice to know the voltage - some people place great weight on Joules - I want to know the KW.

To nitpick, that would be 7 kV, not 7 kW.

Do you have a Parmak 12? I think they put out that and higher, and can be run solar. My guestimate on their solar panel wattage level is about 15 W. 7 kW would be close to the max power output of my big propane generator.

Yup, voltage is needed to zap past bear fur, and if you've got enough voltage you can probably skip that fence baiting step. Most solar fence chargers haven't got the juice to do this, and I doubt you'll find one that will deter a bear, regardless of the power source, for under $200.