..if it can even do that?
I’m setting up a temporary fence for a couple of horses and I’m so confused, I find energizers with 12volts and ones with 20.000 volts. I’ve borrowed one with 9500 volts, and 1,5 joule, that I’m hoping won’t fry my thread (0,35 ohm, one copper thread and 4 stainless steel ones).
In: Engineering
Most fence chargers aren’t continuous; they don’t run a current through the line at all times, but instead pulse. That way, the line gives a repeating stinging sensation rather than a continuous burn or buzz.
They do this using capacitors – devices which accumulate and store a charge, then discharge everything at once. It’s like plugging a drain and turning on the faucet. The faucet (the power outlet) fills the sink (the capacitor) with water (charge). When you pull the plug and dump all the water, that’s the same as a capacitor discharging. A capacitor can complete its cycle a lot faster than you can fill and drain a sink, but the principle is the same.
Input voltage determines how fast the capacitor will charge. As Phage0070 already noted, you can trade amperage for voltage, and the power supply in the fence charger does just that. For the purposes of livestock, you want high voltage, and *very* low amperage. (Voltage stings, but amperage kills.) So, the power supply trades in amperage for voltage, yielding a very high voltage, very low amperage pulse every time the capacitor discharges.
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