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Electric fence with modern devices

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Hello,

I'm trying to install an electric fence in my garden to protect my vegetables and trees against boars, deer and other wild game. To be effective I have to put 5 wires from 20cm to 1.5m from the soil and be quite generous with the energy discharge. I will probably build a separate circuit to drive the lower wire, I don't want to kill or over stress the neighbor's cat :)

Basically, a lot of peoples do it with a 12V battery, a car ignition coil and a power transistor driven by a 555 or any pulse generator. The circuits I've found on the web are really old and often use ugly NPN darlington...

basic hv gen.png


In theses designs, there is a big spike at the MOS drain caused by the coil at the opening at the MOS. They try to dump it:
- Adding D2 => works fine but also dump the hv pulse so the whole design is useless
- Adding D3 and/or D4 => in simulation, this have absolutely no effect
- Doing nothing and changing the switching device when dead

When simulating this design with no diodes but a real NMOS model, the Vdrain peak voltage is approximately 10-50V higher than the max Vds voltage specified in the datasheet.

What will be the good protection device if I want to use a NMOS device ?


Some rare designs are using a capacitor in series with the primary coil. The capacitor is initially charged to a medium voltage (100-300V) and then it is shorted across the coil. This more complex design looks to be less RF-noisy and less aggressive for the switching device. The medium-level voltage can be easily generated with a little coilcraft transformer (e.g. DA2032, ...).

capacitive mode.png


In simulation, this works fine with some particularities :
- Compared to the basic schematic, the output energy is much lower when output load decrease
- The primary coil of a car ignition coil is intended to be driven by a 12V signal, not 100V. The output voltage with no load is enormous. The coil insulation may be insufficient.
- Since the energy came from a LC resonant tank, the output waveform is a sine. But ok, a deer will probably not see the difference.

I really would like to build something strong and robust. Not afraid by complex electronics and modern packages.

Professional generators are really expensive. Affordable ones are either not powerful, not robust or I can probably build them for 1/10th of the price.

Any advice will be strongly appreciated :)
Many thanks
 
Hi guys,

I finally build a board with a STM32, a photodiode, switch, power MOS and protection zener. Works great on the table.

This is a simple, first version, "quick and dirt".

HV part :

hv sch.png


I'm using a cheap car ignition coil :

coil.png


There is something disappointing with this coil : there is no minus on the high voltage side. With a multimeter I have :
- 0.7ohm between +/- (primary side)
- 4.7kohm between HV output and primary side
- >10Mohm between any connection and the mechanical fixation (even after removing some black paint)

At the lab table, the HV probe was arcing with the mechanical fixture. There is something liquid inside the coil (am I supposed to use it in a particular position ?). At the beginning, I decided to connect the mechanical fixation to the earth. I was absolutely wrong : no HV on the fence, but HV on the electronic board... When connecting both the fixation and the BAT- to the earth, everything is working as expected.

_DSC7145-hd - Copie.jpg


My fence is was working since one month and something went wrong yesterday. The electronic board is still working. The coil is still showing the same values on the multimeter. The fence is clean. But there is no voltage and no "tic-tic-tic" anymore.

Any ideas about where to look or any information about this strange coil ?

Thank you ;)
 

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if you have no protection on your mosfet - then it is likely dead along with possibly any gate drive ckt
--- Updated ---

The ON time for the mosfet need only be a few mS - just enough for the current to get to 3-4 amps - then off until next pulse
 
Regular electric fences are nohow that complex.

I know for a fact that a car coil, a resistor, a relay and 4 NiCd
AA cells will knock you out. Unexpectedly. With no ground loop
to blame.
That sounds like the voice of experience right there! I've been knocked out by an old camera flash capacitor before, so I know it doesn't take much!
 
Really ? if the live mains ( say 230Vac ) is connected to the output wire via a fault, or faults, you would be happy to touch it ?
I have been on a farm in the UK whilst building rural wireless networks, where the farmer has forewarned us about a fence directly connected to the mains..... It wasn't used for animal enclosures, but installed due to multiple thefts and the farmer taking the matter into their own hands.... Completely illegal of course, but I wasn't going to say anything to someone who carries a shotgun in the cab of his tractor.... We gave the area a wide berth...

As someone who has been allowed to "play" with electrics and electronics since I was 6, I've had my fair share of 240V shocks. It's never caused me an issue, but I wouldn't go out of my way to do it on purpose!
 

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