Hand-held Voltmeter for Electric Fence

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to a hand-held voltmeter measuring a peak voltage of a high voltage pulse applied to an electric fence. The voltmeter includes a body case of which one side has an opening, a sensor case protruded from the opening of the body case, a voltage divider disposed over the inside and the outside of the sensor case for dividing the high voltage pulse into a low divided voltage, a peak detector for detecting the peak voltage of the divided voltage, a display unit for displaying the peak voltage, and an MCU for controlling the input and the output of the elements constituting the voltmeter. According to the present disclosure, an electric fence voltmeter that measures the peak voltage accurately without need to make a ground connection to the earth, and has a low risk of an electric shock during a measurement is provided.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONField of the Invention[0001]The present disclosure relates to a voltmeter for measuring the peak voltage of a high voltage pulse applied to an electric fence. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to the electric fence voltmeter having high measurement coupling factor that eliminates the need for connecting the ground terminal of the voltmeter to the earth. The high coupling factor can be achieved by optimizing the distribution of various stray capacitances acting on the voltmeter.Related Art[0002]An electric fence prevents the intrusion of wild animals, or the escape of livestock cultivated in the fence. A pulse shaped high voltage generated from an energizer is applied between the earth and the fence wire which is supported by the insulators installed around fence posts. If an animal is in contact with the fence wire, a strong pain is caused by an electric shock due to the circulating current flowing through the animal.[0003]Most of the elect...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0014]The electric fence voltmeter 1 may have a sufficiently high measurement coupling factor enough to eliminate the need for connecting the ground of the voltmeter to the earth. The measurement coupling factor is defined as the ratio of the voltage detected from the voltmeter to the voltage applied to the electric fence.

[0015]More specifically, the measurement coupling factor may be increased by adequately arranging the various stray capacitances acting on the voltmeter.

[0017]According to the exemplary embodiments, the present disclosure provides a voltmeter that can measure the peak voltage of an electric fence accurately without need to make a ground connection to the earth, thereby having an advantage of becoming easy to use and allowing quick measurement.

[0018]In addition, the voltmeter has a low risk of an electric shock during the measurement.

Problems solved by technology

If an animal is in contact with the fence wire, a strong pain is caused by an electric shock due to the circulating current flowing through the animal.

Sometimes, the electric fence experiences unwanted low voltage on the fence wire due to the various reasons including the failure of the electric fence energizer itself, the fence wire in contact with trees or weeds, the broken or sagging fence wire on the ground, and the broken insulators.

Once the fence voltage is lowered, the current flowing through the animal becomes weak or may not flow at all.

However, this device has a problem with a poor measurement accuracy especially when the fence voltage is low.

In this reason, the measurement process of the conventional voltmeters is known to be too cumbersome, and takes long time to use.

In addition, since the high voltage probe of the conventional voltmeter is usually disposed close to the case, it may inadvertently cause an electric shock to a user during a measurement.

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