modern fence chargers

thought I knew all there was to know about electric fence in my 58 yrs,,but I am still learning . , bought a new charger thinkin my 10 year old 20 miler zareba was burnt up ,now not so sure . the new 100 mile charger had plenty of zap pow at the barn ,but nuthin out at the county road ,, I have a found a one foot section o f rusty wire splice tied between two shiny new solid hi tensil wires,,charger side goes pow -POW ,, 3 foot past the rusty wire barely a tickle ???...gonna read up on manual ,,brother told me he had to make 3 extra grounds trianglated to get his new charger to work rite ,,also told me that my practice of twist knot tie will not transfer power long distance,best use splice kits or twist all pces together , he also says that every time I wrap a insulater or twist a corner insulater and make a 90 degree corner I loose power ,,, ???/ guess I am used to the old style *International and Bulldozer ,,.. or maybe, I have been lucky to keep animals in all these yrs ,, lucky for me my paddoks all interlock with one another and reenergize along the way ,, it is ionly whrn I break off into straight off zones trouble shootin that I get power loss ,,,

I have made fencers work better in really dry conditions by soaking up the ground around where your ground rod goes into the ground. Not saying that is your problem, but if it is bone dry there, you might want to soak it up.

Red is correct, need moisture in soil for grounds to work.

if your not getting anything after the rusty splice ( or connection ) the rust is causing an open circuit,you need to unplug it ( so you don't shock yourself ) and replace the rusty connection with a non rusty connection.

Had the same problem here. Replaced rusty wire with shiny wire by just twisting together. Another idea is how deep is your grounding rod? Mine is only 4 ft but is on shadowed side of shed so ground doesn't dry out too badly. As another suggested try soaking ground around rod. Are you using a steel pipe like me? try replacing it with a 8 ft copper grounding rod or at least a newer unrusty steel pipe at least 8ft deep. If can't get that deep try using a few rods a yard or two apart from each other.
Good Luck

I placed my grounds by eve troughs on shed with metal roof always wet there. if your not sure of splice wrap a 3 rd wire around both start high on one and continue on 2nd wire i had some poly wire that would unravel and that was a quick check. also dont forget the gage of wire electricity through a wire is like water through a hose the bigger is better.

Ya gotta remember that what you have is voltage and not amperage, IOW- there's not a lot of power behind the charge. So, any rust or corrosion, any poor ground or crap on the wire all works to lower the zap. A GOOD insulator won't give you problems. A chintzy insulator and some moisture and you'll have a dead fence.

The new fence chargers work far better then the old ones and can take a lot more challenges to the fence, I have a charger at one farm running a couple hundred acres and there is stuff hanging all over the fence. The fence corrosion at the junction may be a lot worse then it appears. Also, there are a lot of low quality fencers out there such as the junk TSC sells.

If you have full power at on side of a splice and not on the other side then there is something wrong with the splice.If it's rusty get rid of it for some fresh rust free wire. If it's a weak ground you aren't going to have power anywhere away from the fencer.

The most common problem I've seen with electric fencing is the grounding rod spacing.

Generally in average soil you should use at least three 6 or 8 foot rods driven almost fully into the ground - More than 6 feet apart, 12 to 16 feet would be better.

Bunching the ground rods close together takes away the advantage of having more than one.

use a GOOD bonding connector to each, and a heavy copper wire to connect them all.

Then you can rule out bad ground for any future problems or issues (unless your soil gets bone dry - certainly not the case where I am).

Older high impedance chargers needed a good ground, but not as desperately as the newer (better) low impedance units do. So it's not really a question of old vs. new - but more of High vs. Low Impedance design.

The low impedance units use a lower voltage with higher current. Basically the same shock, but it'll power through shorts, like weeds touching the wire, etc.

Also - and maybe somebody will correct me on the physics here - but as far as I know, electricity mostly flows on the outer surface of wire. It's not surprising that surface rust would impeded your line more than you might expect. It'll still get through, but there will definitely be some resistance there.

But in the case you describe, I suspect most of the loss is probably due to poor splices at that point.

If only that section of wire is rusted, I'm going to guess that "new" section was pretty old when it was spliced in, and probably already had some good corrosion going on its surface, not allowing for a real clean bond between the old and new -whether it was twisted, crimped, or whatever. I doubt it was sanded down to clean metal.

Keeping a fence HOT seams to be a never ending job. And the way my buddy does it does not help . He never wants to take the extra half hour to fix what is wrong so it gets somewhat patched and that patch does not last . Ya know when the fence isnot working wright just how it zaps when you have to unhook the two strands to get thru the lane as the one side is the main feed line and the other is on the down leg of the run . Guess i am old fashioned since i like to do a job one time and do it wright the first time . Plum hate going back over and over the same thing . just wrapping wire around each other does not make for a good connection ya need some type of clamping method . Ya need to keep the fence line clear of weeds and brush . Ya need good insulators , ya need good posts .

I dont think the newer ones have the JOLTS or weed burning power that these new ones do.. I guess you look at the "jewels" (spelling) on them now the higher the better.

Heres the way I did mine.

Three strands of electric fence wire. Top is hot, middle is ground, and bottom is hot. every time I "turn" a corner which is 5 times..(not exactly square piece).. I drive a ground bar down and hook on to ground..plus I have the three spaced out by the shed. Suppose to give good contact even when Dry ground.. So far its been great.. JOlts at the front and end..

I ment to say new ones dont have what the old ones had.. cheezzzz

Unless you are going to work at the state pen and want to build up your tolerance to getting shocked before getting tasered so you can use one.

A friend's dad actually tried it. I don't think it worked. It was funny hearing his mom telling us "he went down there to fix the fence and I heard '****, ****, ****'". Then she asked how I knew what he was doing.
Timing of his power words.