An Elephant electric fence manufactured as long ago as 1988 can in principle always be repaired.
An Elephant electric fence has a modular construction. First and foremost, this makes it safe to use in the unfortunate event of a lightening strike. It also makes it easy to replace a component.
Essentially an Elephant electric fence consists of a main PCB, a charging capacitor, a high-voltage transformer, a pulse amplifier PCB and an output PCB.
If an Elephant electric fence “clicks” the main PCB is OK, the sound being made by the last two components on the PCB (noise suppressor and thyristor). The charging capacitor is charged once a second, after which the energy is released on to the high-voltage transformer, which increases the voltage up to approx. 10,000 volts. At the same time the transformer provides the galvanic isolation that makes sure that lightening does not go any further if it strikes the electric fence.
The PCBs on the right-hand side of an Elephant electric fence (pulse extender PCB< output PCB and digital PCB) are all easy to check for faults. As they are all on the “high-voltage side” with approx. 10,000 volts, you can almost always see whether a condenser has exploded, a resistor has cracked or burnt out, or an LED has burnt out in the middle.
There are many ways of checking whether the electric fence is in working order. Either with a measuring or digital instrument that shows the strength of the output or by holding a screwdriver to the earth terminal and holding it 1-4 mm from the output terminal. If it strikes a spark, the electric fence is working. The small electric fences produce a little spark, and the bigger they are, the bigger the spark created by the electric fence. You cannot destroy an electric fence by short-circuiting the output with the earth terminal.
