Electric fence, how far away can the battery be?

[Nbuuifx]

We've got an electric fence to keep the cows on one side and the horses on the other. The fence is just the white tape type.

It uses a 12v energiser which has a car battery next to it to power it. The problem with this is that it requires two batteries as one has to be on charge ready to swap over.

Last year I added a 100W solar panel and 12v battery to one of the stables and added 4 LED lights to light the yard and the stables. This worked wonders over winter but is barely used now during the lighter months. So the battery sits fully charged.

Is there any issue with running a wire from the stable to the energiser to power the energiser from the battery in the stable? The battery is built into a shelf up high to keep it secure and out of the way of the horses, so not ideal to keep swapping it over.

If I move the energiser as close as possible I could probably reach with 10m of cable - 15m max.

Also would the type of cable matter? I've got a spare reel of 2.5mm mains cable if it would do the job.

 

[rextherobber]

I would have thought that the hassle of running out the cable safely would outweigh the hassle of just moving the battery (but I'd also never have the battery anywhere in the stable either, but admittedly I'm obsessive about potential/imagined fire risks!) Or could you just move the solar panels to the fence battery?

 

[ILuvCowparsely]

We've got an electric fence to keep the cows on one side and the horses on the other. The fence is just the white tape type.

It uses a 12v energiser which has a car battery next to it to power it. The problem with this is that it requires two batteries as one has to be on charge ready to swap over.

Last year I added a 100W solar panel and 12v battery to one of the stables and added 4 LED lights to light the yard and the stables. This worked wonders over winter but is barely used now during the lighter months. So the battery sits fully charged.

Is there any issue with running a wire from the stable to the energiser to power the energiser from the battery in the stable? The battery is built into a shelf up high to keep it secure and out of the way of the horses, so not ideal to keep swapping it over.

If I move the energiser as close as possible I could probably reach with 10m of cable - 15m max.

Also would the type of cable matter? I've got a spare reel of 2.5mm mains cable if it would do the job.

I do this with the paddock with the biggest battery which is heavy. I run an extension lead from the electric room to the battery, over night and then remove it am. No issue but if it is raining I turn the extension lead upside down so rain does not get into the unit. If not being used then once a month charge should be fine providing nothing connected to it to drain it.

 

[Nbuuifx]

Is that mains power that you are supplying to it?

Ours is all 12v, so it would just be providing 12v. I would prefer to power it directly from the battery/solar panel in the stable but I don't know if the wire length would cause an issue.

It isn't much hassle to run a cable across and it goes over a banking that isn't used so no chance of tripping etc.

Where the solar panel is now is the closest that the solar panel can safely be mounted.

We have had a couple of small 30W portable solar panels which we use on the furthest field but I'm always worried about them disappearing (haven't yet) and the other issue is that the calves have managed to break a couple. So it gets expensive to keep replacing. It does however makes it relatively maintenance free throughout summer.

My other thought was to run a pair of jump cables down from the battery in the stable and charge the spare fence battery in parallel to the stable battery and then swap it over with the fence one - a little extra hassle though.

 

[ester]

I'm wondering whether instead you can use lead out cable from the energiser (as you would a mains one) and have that next to the battery.