Hi all, We have been wondering if our electric poultry netting is working correctly. It runs from a 12v leisure battery, and that seems to be fine. We have purchased from ebay a six neon tester, which did not come with any instructions. Basically you stick a probe into the ground and touch the other on the fence.When doing this the device shows the bottom reading of 1000 volts, is this correct (the top neon reading is 10,000 volts). Does anybody know if I could attach the lead to the end of the energiser lead out cable to test the energiser itself. We have no idea of the power of the energiser as the sticker with the data has gone blank with age and weathering.
I've also got a little probe that you touch onto the wire & flashes a light to show you that it works, and even an indication of the voltage, but it's difficult to see in bright sunshine and not very accurate. You've obviously got a similar device to mine. The poultry netting will be reducing the effective power, both by internal resistance and by partially leaking the power to ground through contact with grass, posts etc.
You could disconnect the fencing & check the output of the energiser with only the tester attached, which would tell you the open circuit voltage of the energiser, but it doesn't mean a lot without a real fence attached. The power of the energiser is measured in joules, and is both the voltage and the ability to maintain that voltage under a loaded situation. Power is measured as volts x amps, and is measured in watts. One watt is a joule per second, but since the electric fence gives very short pulses, with relatively long off periods. it's measured in in peak joules rather than watts (ie, the average power in watts is very low but the pulse power is quite high)
An easier solution is to hold a blade of grass, and touch it to the fence. You will feel a tingle, but not a severe shock.
I've got the probe, but just use the blade of grass. This tells you that it is working OK.
Hope this makes sense,
John