Solar Fence Help

I have the American Farm Works 5 mile solar charger on a wide polytape fence with 2 strands and total of about 400 feet.  I have struggled to find answers for the problem I am having which is very simple to describe.  It works at night and not in the day.  Hoping someone can give me some direction on this. Thanks!

Hi Chet, welcome to Permies! It sounds like the battery in yours isn't holding the charge. Is it new enough that you could return for an exchange or refund? Or look into a replacement battery. I have an American Farm Works 2 mile solar charger and didn't find it to work very well. It lasted less than a year before it stopped charging the fence.

It would seem to me that if it were the battery at all it would work in the daytime when solar is activated by the sun rather than the way mine is doing and only working at night.

I believe Leigh is pointing you in the right direction.

The battery appears to be fully discharged by morning, and only gains enough charge to run the fence after trickle charging during a full day of sun.

So, either it's a bad battery or the solar panel isn't producing enough power to trickle charge the battery. Any shade during the day would have a significant impact. It may also be a design problem, where the panel did not have enough output in the first place.

Is it possible to fully charge the battery by other means to test it? I think it needs to start out with maximum charge, and then the solar panel can hopefully top it up during the day.

Can you disable the fence for a couple days of sun? I have a little 6v Gallagher unit with integrated panel, which requires charging for multiple days with fence disabled before being put in service... never used it, but that is printed right on the unit. The solar is apparently juust enough to keep up, hopefully...

^^Good advice from D Nikolls! Start off with a full tank, and then see if you get the run time you're expecting.

I can try that but I did give it 3 days sun before connecting the fence.  The other amazing piece of info about this whole thing is that this is the FOURTH charger since I put up this fence.  I started out with a Electric Fence Light Silver Streak which is a charger that does not include the battery, so I bought a big heavy duty 12 volt marine battery and charged it to 100% and it did the same way.  I would wind up taking the battery out when it was only down to 65% charge and recharging to 100% just to be sure it wasn't the battery and same deal (work at night and not in day).  The kind gentlemen that sells those out of Cookeville, Tn replaced the unit TWICE.  So all 3 of those and this current one all worked at night and not in the day.  The fence guy that I paid came just today / yesterday now and was at a loss as to what to do and so am I.

When troubleshooting, I would normally check:
- ground rods
- connections
- insulators
- weeds or vegetation shorting out the fence

Have you contacted the company? Maybe they had a bad batch. Sometimes secret warranties exist.