Are you using an Electric fence for the safety of your property, home, and animals?. This guide will help you how to How To Test Electric Fence With Multimeter?. You can use a voltmeter for testing but many people prefer to have a multimeter. If you have a voltmeter you can follow the same procedure for testing and troubleshooting your electric fence.
What is Electric Fence?
Electric fences are barriers that will keep your home, animals, farmhouse, or other property safe. It will keep away animals or intruders from your desired area.
There are different parts of an electric fence. We will discuss them one by one.
- Fence Energizer: It will generate current pulses and energize the fence.
- Conductor: Conductor material made of plastic to conduct power.
- Posts: These are used for fitting the conductors.
- Insulators: Insulates the conductors from metal or wooden posts.
- Earthing: Complete the circuit by conducting the electricity back to the energizer.
What is Multimeter?
A Multimeter is a tool for measuring electrical quantities like resistance, voltage, and current. All these meters (ohmmeter, voltmeter, and ammeter) that measure those quantities are combined into a single meter and are known as multimeters. There are two types of multimeters:
1. Analog Multimeters
Analog multimeters work on the principle of moving coil meters. These meters use the deflection of an indicator needle to indicate the level of the measurement on an analog display.
2. Digital Multimeters
Digital multimeter is used to measure two or more electrical values like voltage (volts), current (amps) and resistance (ohms). Because of digital display its easier to read and chances of error will be less. How to use a multimeter?
How Does an Electric Fence Work?
The energizer of the electric fence convert the main power to high voltage pulse. The energizer releases the power into fence line in every second. The duration of the pulse is 150 microseconds long.
When the animals come in contact with the fence they get shock. Electrical fences are physical barrier that will keep them in respective areas. Conductive material made of plastic are used in the electric fence because they are much easier to handle and reduces the risk of injury to animals.
How to Measure the Current of an Electric Fence?
Ammeter is used to measure the current in the circuit. The unit of the electric current is ampere (A). As ammeter is used in series. In order to use it we have to break the circuit. Multimeter in Ampere setting can be used to measure the current of Electric fence.
Make sure to measure the current with multimeter use the correct setting other wise your meter will damaged. To know more about How To Test Electric Fence With Multimeter? follow these steps.
1. Select the Ampere setting
To measure the current of electric fence. Rotate the multimeter knob to Ampere which is represented by (A) and select the range(A, 10A, mA, etc.).
2. Connect the Probes
There are two probes with black and red color. Insert the red probe in port labeled with Ω, V, or + and black probe in port labeled – or COM. Make sure that you have inserted the probe in the right probe because it will lead the meter to a short circuit. Also, never use damaged or lead having a crack.
3. Open the Circuit
After done with step 1 move to step 2. Now, turn off the power of the circuit and open it from any point to measure the current.
4. How to Measure the Current of an Electric Fence?
Now connect the multimeter in the circuit and let the current passed through meter. Now, you can read the current in milli amperes, which will be shown in the multimeter’s display.
How to test lightning cable with multimeter?
How to check the Electric Fence with Multimeter?
Electric Fence contains high voltage and is very important to trouble shoot it. So, specific tools must be available to test the Fence. Voltmeter is specially designed to test the Electric Fence. But mostly people don’t want to buy specific meter for test that’s why the buy Multimeter.
From multimeter you can measure current, voltage, resistance and many more. To test the fence with multimeter insert the probe in required terminal and rotate the knob to Voltage. Connect the black probe with ground while red with conductor and take reading.
Conclusion
An electric fence is a barrier used for protection of garden or farms. It will give the shock to animal or intruders for short time. The electric fence can be tested with multimeter but voltmeter is actually made to test the fence.
We have tried to cover every aspect of How To Test Electric Fence With Multimeter? and will look for more and try to add those in next update. Do you have any question feel free to ask in the comment below.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Do you want to know more about checking the electric fence with a multimeter? Here are some frequently asked questions.
Can I check an electric fence with a multimeter?
Yes you can check an electric fence with a multimeter.
- To check the current, Turn off power source and break the circuit. Now connect the multimeter in Ampere setting. Turn on the charger and let the current pass through meter. Note down the current reading from multimeter.
- To check the voltage, Rotate the knob to voltage setting and select range. Now connect the red lead with conductor while black lead to ground and note the voltage reading from meter.
Is electric fence output AC or DC?
The electric fence out put can be AC or DC and It depends on the charger source. For example if the charger is DC batter or solar panel then output will be DC while on other hand if the charger is AC then output will be AC.
How to test electric fence with blade of grass?
To test the fence with blade of grass follow these steps
- Pluck a blade of grass and touch the wire for few second.
- If you fee the shock through the glass blade, the fence is electrified.
- Also, if you won’t feel the shock through leaf then fence is not electrified.