Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!ghg
From: ghg@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU (George Goble)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Electric Fences (why does person on end get the shock?)
Summary: electric fence voltage and current
Message-ID: <33514@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 7 Jan 90 01:13:05 GMT
References: <1211@ariel.unm.edu> <137.UUL1.3#5131@mvac23.UUCP>
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 16


25 or so years ago, when I was a kid on the farm, I measured *our*
electric fence.  It was approx 2100V @ 30MA, one sec on, one sec off.
It did not turn completely *OFF*, but dropped to a few hundred volts
at a few ma (enough to let go), the interrupter was a plug in "can"
and seemed to wear out every few months. It did burn weeds (ants,
horseflies and other things we connected it to).  Horse flies, after
burning and smoking, would "revive" and fly away after 10 mins or so!
I (not the fence) moved up to 15-KV neon sign transformers after that.
Those turned ant hills into glass.

My dad once "grazed" a the fence wire with the top of his head, and he was
instantly down in the dirt.  A friend of mine, whizzed on the fence
at point blank range, it knocked him down too.

--ghg