Solar Electric Fence Energizer | Built It Yourself with a Cyclops - Parmak - Patriot

[@arrowjmfarms]

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[@michiganhay7844]

Wow, thank you for all the great links.

[@pantalonesfrescos1130]

Nice box. Cool to see you working through the problems. Doing some of that myself. Love that first tune on your video… will have to check out that album.

[@arrowjmfarms]

Thanks for watching and writing! Yes, there’s quite a bit of trial and error that goes on around here LOL.

[@danielb1877]

For the Cyclops, do you have 2 ground rods installed? Maybe that is why the voltage is a bit low? Thanks for sharing this video! Looks great. I'm awaiting my Cyclops to be delivered. Tired of my Tractor Supply solar energizer and wanted something better

[@arrowjmfarms]

I do have two rods. I might not have them far enough apart. I know there is a distance that is recommended. I want to say 6 to 10 feet but I’d have look that up to be sure. I do like the cyclops chargers! Very well made and the hit hard!

[@michiganhay7844]

Did you do a video where you also used a 110 fence charger off grid with a power inverter? I can’t remember who’s channel it was I’m kind of looking to try that?

[@arrowjmfarms]

Nope wasn’t me but I think I remember seeing a video similar to that. All of mine are solar/12v units.

[@michiganhay7844]

@@arrowjmfarms I have several 12 V units but I also got a couple Gallagher line units that are pretty big sitting around. Don’t wanna spend the money on the large cyclops. I got an eight jewel unit off grid now is my biggest kind of questioning if it’s big enough.

[@arrowjmfarms]

8 joules is pretty powerful, of course it depends on how many acres and hot wires it’s running. The only concern I’d have running an inverter is there will be some power loss because of inefficiencies in the inverting process. It will work but extra battery power wouldn’t hurt.

[@michiganhay7844]

@@arrowjmfarms I talk to the guy from high desert KZbin channel and he had a six jewel hooked to an inverter but he only had a 35 W panel and was swapping batteries out every three days. He seem to know a lot about it but what we didn’t know was once your fence is under load will the inverter suck the whole amount of power the inverter is rated at. For example, if you have a 750 W inverter is that gonna suck 750 W I don’t know what’s considered under load my fence continuously has some load on it or is that all you mean when it gets a shock going to ground? I’ve got a lot of black black locust post without insulators so I don’t know if that means it’s actually under load and some electricity is going to ground obviously if you had a five or 700 W inverter and started pulling that that would drain your regular deep cycle battery real quick even if I had a 300 W panel somebody had a channel that had a pretty good size farmer ranch and I remember seeing the video and even asked the guy a question about it. He obviously said a DC charger was better to use and for the life of me I can’t find that video anymore

[@arrowjmfarms]

@@michiganhay7844 On the 750 watt inverter that's basically just a rating. It's saying it is capable of providing 750W of inverted power before it bites the dust or blows a fuse. It doesn't mean it will consume 750W continuously. And you are correct in assuming that the more fence load you have, the more power will be consumed by the entire system, thus draining the battery faster. Likewise, if you had a lower load on the fence it would not consume as much battery power. That being said, there is always a little bit of power loss when converting from 12 volts DC to 120 volts AC - and vice versa. The battery is your power source so ultimately that's where the loss will show up. As to how much loss, I can't say for sure, every inverter may be a bit different because of design and parts quality.

[@offgridmangogrower]

What size panel did you end up with to get the 5 joule working…? Was your 10 amp charger up to the task…?

[@arrowjmfarms]

This was a 50 watt panel I believe. It definitely helped. The only issue I’ve had with the solar charger is when the bottom flooded and it got submerged by water.

[@HeritageFarmsTexas]

Good job. Have you had any issues with cows pushing on the box?

[@arrowjmfarms]

I thought I would but oddly enough they don’t really mess with it. Not sure if it’s because they hear the clicking sound or what. I had originally planned to mount it on a 4x4 post but I like that it’s portable.

[@TheKajunkat]

Do you have any issues with the cows messing with it? That was one of our bigger problems, they would knock it over on the ground, or if we mounted on t-post, rub on it until they knocked it over. Those dang critters just can't leave anything alone. EDIT: sorry, I just saw your response to another viewer with the same question. thanks

[@arrowjmfarms]

I honestly haven’t any issues with it even though I half-way expected to. I do place it on the opposite side of the fence as the livestock if at all possible. That’s only been doable a few times.

[@claythomas7982]

The key is to connect the battery to the charge controller first, then the energizer and solar panel.

[@arrowjmfarms]

Are you saying to run the energizer through the charge controller output? That’s certainly an option. And I’ve done it that way before but the charge controller will cut off the output if the battery voltage gets too low, which would be good to protect the battery, will kill the energize let animals out. I started connecting direct to the battery for that reason.