Electric fence

ADDON

I have a few acres in the middle of nowhere and keep some horses there. My heart is broken recharging batteries and changing batteries to keep them where they should be.

Is there an alternative? I've heard the solar fences are useless !! Ideally, I would love to hook-up to mains supply, but as i say... it's in the middle of nowhere.

Sam Kade

If there is an esb pole on the property you can get the esb to rig it up to use an electric fence. Last time I checked it out it was €300 once off payment no meter charges and no esb bills after that, as electric fences don't use electricity.

Horace

i have an old transit van parked on an out farm i use it to store meals and also have a 12v fencer connected to the battery i run the engine for about 20 minutes a couple of times a week to keep the battery charged

Milton09

ADDON wrote: »

I have a few acres in the middle of nowhere and keep some horses there. My heart is broken recharging batteries and changing batteries to keep them where they should be.

Is there an alternative? I've heard the solar fences are useless !! Ideally, I would love to hook-up to mains supply, but as i say... it's in the middle of nowhere.

If you buy a seperate solar panel and deep cycle battery it will work the fence no problem. I have a 12w panel bought in maplin for 40 euro, keeps the battery topped up no problem.

ADDON

Excuse my ignorance Milton, but what is a "deep cycle" battery????

Muckit

Don't know the whole theory behind them, but I had one for a while.

They don't have any cells as such and can be let run flat and charged up again and again and again. I'd an exide maximma 900DC battery in a car that I had a few years ago which had a big sound system. Lads into boats or anythin that isn't being used for a while, they are a great job, or in ur case, your electric fence. They are very expensive in comparsion to your ordinary battery, but then again, no comparision in performance, DC wins every time

Hope this helps;)

Milton09

ADDON wrote: »

Excuse my ignorance Milton, but what is a "deep cycle" battery????

Deep cycle batteries (sometime called leisure batteries) are used mostly on boats, caravans and wind turbines, they can withstand more charge/discharge cycles than standard auto batteries and more importantly can be discharged to a very low state without affecting the life of the battery. (thats the theory anyway)

robototitico

To go back to your original post, I think Solar panels have come on a good bit recently, I see them alot more now.

loser2old4board

If you use a low energy fence and a heavy duty tractor battery
you should get up to three or four weeks out of a charge.
Get two batteries and swap over before any of them goes too flat.
You should get two or three years out of a battery.
A bit expensive I know to start.
I've tried using a separate solar panel from Maplin
but haven't got great results but that's because the fences I'm using
are fairly high energy because I need to run the fence a couple of miles
through some vegetation. You would get away with a lower energy fence
if it's a few acres and trained horses.