Hi people. I've had an old Kilovolt meter kicking around and i have decided to have a go at making a fence tester. I tried it today but only getting a small deflection of about 3kv when it should be reading about 9? I've soldered 10 resistors in series to get the 1600 ohms external resistance it needs and placed them in a plastic tube. It's very amatuerish but thought i'd have a go....

 

Probabally because the typical E.F. has a very short pulse of only a couple of ms.

 

I would think a string of resistors with a neon would make a good indictor; failing that, your body (similarly protected by high resistance) will give you a direct indication of whether there is a regular high voltage output pulse.

 

I would think a string of resistors with a neon would make a good indictor; failing that, your body (similarly protected by high resistance) will give you a direct indication of whether there is a regular high voltage output pulse.

Might pass on the second option.

 

I would think a string of resistors with a neon would make a good indictor; failing that, your body (similarly protected by high resistance) will give you a direct indication of whether there is a regular high voltage output pulse.

Here is a typical example of a resistor string with neon lamps.


Something to note is not only the resistor values but the wattage. Personally I would make R1 & R2 two watt carbon and R3 through R8 one watt resistors.

Also most electric fence circuits are as Max pointed out, Pulsed.

The analog meter movement in the first post does say Use External Resistance but I don't see the full scale current on the meter face. I guess it could be found applying a current source and noting when it achieved FS.

Ron