Livestock Electric Fence Voltage Indicator

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sbeckwith

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Hi all - I stumbled upon this site while researching how to build an electric fence status indicator. To give you an idea of what I am attempting to do is, build a simple circuit that would be able to flash an indicator light when the fence pulse is below 750v (Red), between 750v - 1500v (Yellow) and over 1500v (Green) that can be seen at night from a distance of 1000'. I have a small farm and being able to glance out the window from the house to ensure the fence is up and running quickly would be sweet.
 
Have you tried neon? I think most fence power supplys come with an indicator, have you looked at that to see what it is?
 
Usually electric fences either work normally or are shorted. Why do you need three voltage levels? And how did you arrive at their values?

Having three different lights would tend to draw significant power from the fence, especially to be viewable at 1000' in daylight. You likely would have to have a separate battery to power the indicator.

I also would suggest a neon lamp with a high value series resistor of 1 megohm or more (adjust resistor value for desired brightness). To get higher voltages (and more brightness) you can put several lamps in series. Each lamp takes about 80V to illuminate.
 
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The three values are what I've measured when it's been in operation. Anything between 750 - 1500 is working, but is arcing or has a moisture issue somewhere - usually as a result of an insulator slipping or breakingdown. Above 1500 and everything is good. I didn't know if it was possible or not. - There is a battery operated unit off the shelf that blinks when their is a problem, but I am always tinkering and thought it would be neat to build something like I described. Thanks everyone - Steve
 
Well, to answer the original question, yes, it's certainly possible. The basic idea would be to drop the fence voltage across a high resistance down to something on the order of a volt. Then you'd use a comparator to turn on lights depending on what the exact voltage was. For three levels, you could use one quad comparator chip such as an LM339.

I do something similar on my utility trailer. I mounted three LEDs (red, green, amber) and each one lights up when a light subcircuit is activated. I can then just look in my rear view mirror and see that the circuits are lighting up. It tells me that power is there, but not whether the trailer's lights are actually working. Still, it's useful for telling me I got the trailer wires connected to the car.

The challenge is going to be getting the LEDs' signals visible in daylight. I'd recommend finding some high brightness LEDs, then putting them at the focus of a small converging lens (say, 10-15 mm in diameter) such that the exit beam is roughly parallel. I'd suggest experimenting with this first to find something that works. The rest of the project should be straightforward.

A different option would be to use e.g. a small FM transmitter that has just the required range. Then there'd be three different audio frequencies broadcast to code the state. You could pick up the signal with any FM radio.
 
For the distance issue that is an easy one. Just get three LED laser pens of different colors and use those as the indicator lights. At 1000 feet the cheap ones tend have a rather large beam diffusion.
 
Small FM Transmitter.. Novel idea, that hadn't even crossed my mind. Laser Pens fired off a circuit based on the LM339 chip - I think I'll take a walk down the path first as it should be simple to design and construct, plus be very effective.
Thanks all for your ideas!
 
How about this? Total component cost (minus housing) ~$2.
A voltage divider formed by a chain of 10 x 470k resistors (to limit the voltage across each) and a 100k pot (trimmer) taps off the fence voltage. At 1500V on the fence there is ~ 15V across C1 (which damps any voltage spikes) and the upper Schmitt threshold voltage of both gates U1a and U1b is exceeded so both their outputs are low. This enables C2 to charge via R5, R6, R7 in parallel. When the C2 voltage drops below the U1c lower Schmitt threshold U1c output goes high and discharges C2 via R8. The charge/discharge process repeats and the result is a train of pulses from U1c which turn on Q1 and hence the LED (a high brightness one). The pulse rate is about 1 per sec and the pulse width is ~ 200mS.
If the fence voltage drops below ~1500V (settable with the pot) gate U1b input is lower than the uppper Schmitt threshold so C2 charges through only R5 and R7 in parallel, reducing the pulse rate to ~ 1 per 2 secs. If the fence voltage drops below ~750V then both U1a and U1b outputs stay high so C2 charges through R7 only, giving a pulse rate of about 1 per 5 secs.
A single high brightness white LED should be visible at night at 1000ft and won't significantly drain the battery (assumed to be 12V).
 

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