Zareba fencers

I'm wondering if any one out there has used a solar on of these (ZAREBA fencers). I have one less than 2 years old that I use on a 20x30 bee yard to keep out the bears. It's made for a 3 mile fence. I never tested it last year but got a tester and put it on it this year and it hardly registers on it. I thought maybe the battery was old from sitting on the shelf at fleet/farm. So I got a new battery for it and no difference. I can hold on to it and hardly feel anything. I charged it like the book with it said to do. I've got 3 grounding rods like the book says. I called Zareba and they told me to send it in with $55 and they'll see if they "can" fix it. I'm sure you see my problem. Is it worth it? I hate to spend the money if in 2 years I'm at it again. I asked the fellow I was talking to if there was a complaint dept. and he said he was it as well. Can anyone suggest another brand? I need a solar one as power isn't available at the yard. The yard is in heavy trees and I've never had any limbs fall on the wires. A friend said he bought one and it wouldn't even make a good boat anchor. He tossed his. Any help out there????????????

I've got one that is powered by just a 12 volt tractor battery at a pasture with out power. The battery lasts a month or more power I fence around a 15 acre pasture. It works great and let me tell you the cattle respect it. I respect it after getting bit by it.

Glad to hear the good report on the 12V battery powered one. I just put one up yesterday with 3 strand fence around my garden and corn patch to keep the coons out. I was wondering how long a deep cycle marine battery would last between charges.

Years ago we bought one for a pasture that had horses. I could touch it and not feel anything. BUT if a horse came by and we made any kind of contact, they got hit. I would bet it is working correctly.
SDE

The tester shows that it is barely working

I've got three battery ones that I use with Interstate deep cycle batteries. I change them every 10 - 14 days or so and recharge. They seem to draw down faster if there is a bunch of grass touching the fence but provide 7000 volts all through my longest run - probably four miles worth.

I put a 4 wire fence around my corn one season to keep out the coons. Solar powered. The coons brought their radios, hooked into the wire, and had a corn party all night!

Why not use a solar powered charger on the 12 volt batteries?

I repair a lot of fence charges and for that problem its just the charger getting moisture in it and the circuit board or transformer has gotten damaged

Why buy a solar charger when I have to go every day to the pasture hauling water. I have a big StrongBox battery I leave there and when I test it and it isn't snapping very good I leave a lawn mower battery up there and take the tractor battery home and charge it for 24 hrs and bring it back. Plus little thieves probably would enjoy a solar charger.

The local place that does fencer repair tells me that when Woodstream bought Zareba they cheapened them up a lot. They don't recommend them at all anymore. They sell International chargers. As far as solar, they guy at the shop tells me they aren't worth anything. I have one that sort of works okay for horses, but it's useless on cattle. I use a 12v deep cycle marine battery on a 12v model rated for 15 mi and it will more or less keep sheep and (some) goats behind 4 sections (164' each) of net fence in a rotational grazing set up.

Search "Cyclops chargers". Those are the ones I'd like to be u$$$ing.

We still run old International fence chargers on the farm too. You can't beat the power from a Super 98 or Super 100

We have used the Zareba fencers with actually pretty good luck. 3-mile one at first place but we ended up going through 3 of the 10-mile versions at our current place. We get good, strong spark on the poly-rope (w/3 ground rods), testing periodically by grounding out on the fence post w/a claw hammer. Real scientific I know. One thing to consider: The 10 mile versions sold in the last 2-3 years had a bum capacitor or some electrical component that essentially didn't shut the charging off and it toasted the unit.

Local place repairs them and had the parts to fix it. We keep 2 horses and a mule contained with it. And we have a backup battery and an extra unit that died and we had repaired.

Customer service, if you get to someone in US, is usually good at Woodstream/Zareba. We bought ours at TSC and also bought the extended warranty. That has come in handy as we had one struck by lightning and it was replaced lickety split, no questions. But the last one that flaked out, someone at TSC (english was NOT their first language), tried to get us to send it back and they would send a replacement when they got the original. I asked, "So will you come to our place and tell the horses and mule to please stay in until we get a new one?" She decided they could send out a new one, but that would take a week. I repeated my original question and finally got her to agree that we could buy one and send them the bill and they would reimburse us. However, once we called the repair place, they told us what the problem really was and that has taken care of it. All animals are where they are supposed to be.

I use the plug in the wall type. I usually seem to get about 2 years out of them till they are junk. Thanks for the info guys I will check out the other brands in the future.

Parmak makes a good solar charger. We have several that haven't been shut off for several years through Nebraska weather.
We have several sta-fix with a big solar panel. When it's dry enough that you can work on a Parmak fence while sitting on a 4 wheeler the sta-fix will still bite you.