Are Electric Fences Appropriate Technology for the 3rd World?

Most would suggest that technology is not good for remote third world locations, because technology inevitably breaks, and then finding someone to service some unusual gadget is difficult.

I'm not sure about that. Electric fencers are simple and robust. I was given a cattle fencer (line powered, 120VAC) that is easily 40 years old and it's still operational. When the old ones finally die, there's nothing inside that can realistically be repaired.

However, in remote locations, the fencer would be powered by a solar panel and battery. The battery has a lifespan, so it's the usual failure point. It's a simple replacement job, though, if you can get a replacement battery. Anyone with simple tools could do it.

Edit: Remote areas can be a surprising mix of high tech and low tech. A flip cell phone and a donkey cart are not incongruent in the third world.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:I'm not sure about that. Electric fencers are simple and robust. I was given a cattle fencer (line powered, 120VAC) that is easily 40 years old and it's still operational. When the old ones finally die, there's nothing inside that can realistically be repaired.

However, in remote locations, the fencer would be powered by a solar panel and battery. The battery has a lifespan, so it's the usual failure point. It's a simple replacement job, though, if you can get a replacement battery. Anyone with simple tools could do it.

Edit: Remote areas can be a surprising mix of high tech and low tech. A flip cell phone and a donkey cart are not incongruent in the third world.

Cell phones is comparing apples to oranges. Cell phones are everywhere. We are talking about an obscure technology (in this context), that is unlikely to have much widespread use amongst the local population. Where I live, everyone is using wooden fence posts and barbed wire to divide their properties into paddocks for cows. I personally would prefer dealing with this instead of electric fencing, but you have to be pretty sure about your fence locations before going that route. Once you hit a certain scale, I understand there are supposedly cost savings with the temporary electric fencing. Not sure how many hectares one needs before the cost savings is realized. 12v gel batteries are cheap enough. Small solar panels are now considered old technology and nowadays should be built to last 20+ years. Do you think it would be worthwhile to examine the build quality of the charger unit and reinforce the housing with silicone caulking if necessary? We do live in the rainforest here.

I dabbled with some electric fencing components down here, and the issue I see is that you're dependent on centralized port cities to deal with distributors of these products. The distributors have to pay customs and import taxes and pass along those costs to the consumer + charge a premium. Also, their catalogues were very incomplete. For example, we were supposed to roll up our polywire with a stick, because the distributor doesn't sell any reels. The posts they used were just little sections of rebar that they modified at the local welder to be able to step into the ground. The isolators were these little "cola de chancho" products that seemed to be a flexible metal coated with some non-conductive resin. They were kind of problematic because often one of the isolators would twist just enough so that the polywire was touching the rebar fence post, which obviously rendered the entire setup useless. I'm not sure if I should just get a new battery and re-use the materials we already have. The charger does seem a little weak. Especially because we are thinking about running hair sheep. Definitely won't be doing the operation without a reel though.

Do you mind sharing the brand of your charger that served you for 40 years? Does the company still exist?

Lightning kills my charger every 2-3 years on average.  Absent frequent thunderstorms,  they should last a long time. At this point, money wise, I’d probably be ahead with a standard 4” square woven wire, and just use a smaller charger to charge a knee high wire to keep animals off of it and possibly a top wire for jumpers.

Something that might help answer this question:

Appropriate technology has a very specific definition.  "small-scale, affordable by locals, decentralized, labor-intensive, energy-efficient, environmentally sustainable, and locally autonomous" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appropriate_technology

Here's a great thread to learn more about the appropedia project that is helping make appropriate tech more accessable.  https://permies.com/wiki/2888/Appropedia-wiki-permaculture-technology

Gray Henon wrote:Lightning kills my charger every 2-3 years on average.  Absent frequent thunderstorms,  they should last a long time. At this point, money wise, I’d probably be ahead with a standard 4” square woven wire, and just use a smaller charger to charge a knee high wire to keep animals off of it and possibly a too wire for jumpers.

Every 2-3 years?! Is there something about these installations that attracts lightning? Are they striking directly or is the damage from side flashes. I've heard this is possible, but never heard from someone who this happened to. I'd be really scared to live in your house if you get that much lightning where you live.

I’d say a solar charger is ideal.

Scott Obar wrote:Is there something about these installations that attracts lightning?

A long strand of wire, insulated from the ground, becomes an antenna for radio waves. Lightning creates radio waves. Lightning doesn't have to strike anywhere near the wire for it to produce a huge voltage spike.

Gray Henon wrote:Lightning kills my charger every 2-3 years on average.  Absent frequent thunderstorms,  they should last a long time. At this point, money wise, I’d probably be ahead with a standard 4” square woven wire, and just use a smaller charger to charge a knee high wire to keep animals off of it and possibly a top wire for jumpers.

There’s pretty low tech solutions to solve this.

Where you come out of your fence charger and attach to the fence you build a wrap of wire about 10 turns and zip tie it together, this is called a lightning choke and is basically a resistance point for lightning because of inductive currents not allowing the lighting to flow.

Several hundred yards down your fence, you build a lightning gap diverted, from the hot on you fence take a wire off of it to a plastic block, space a gap a 1/4 inch and have another wire that leads to a set of ground rods that have 2 more rods then your current system.

When lightning strikes the lightning choke will be too much resistance to go into the charger and will jump the 1/4 gap and go into the ground system that is better then your fence ground.

I’ve got a book from the us government that has some picture I could share.