Frustrated, but not giving up.

I wanted to learn first, start small then grow…….
started with the kit from harbor freight……
bought a 12v 90 ah flooded dual use marine battery (rural king)
All I want to charge so far is an electric fence charger 10 mile. There are no specs avaliable on rural kings website.


It is killing my battery - 10.5v and throwing E11 and faulting my inverter (of course).

does anyone know what juice these electric fence chargers use? I used to suggest marine batteries to customers all the time, not realizing they would have to be charged daily?! There is also no specs available for my battery.

In my frustration I have now changed to a 60a PWM (advertised as mppt ??) and added another 100w panel.
I want to change my battery I think it’s the smartest thing to do?

well….. I learned first…. This is going to get much bigger then I expected ?

Most solar electric fence setups have about a 5W panel... not sure how large a fence you have, or how often it discharges due to grass etc...

my fence is maybe 2000 yards. I just got all the weeds off day before yesterday. I have a hard time believing this one fence charger is able to pull this much power

It is smart to start small. I have no experience with electric fences but I can see a long fence using a lot of electricity.
But I can also imagine a mistake killing you or your animals.

My fence charger says good for 75 acres and also says 2 watts. 2 watts is tiny. Make sure your battery is charged. Get a Kil-o-watt meter and plug it into the inverter, then the fence charger into the meter. It will tell you a lot. But with a charged battery see how long it will run. Don't depend on solar to charge your battery while under a load if you want a valid test. Test your load and battery (discharge). Test your charger and battery (charge). These are two different tests and will reduce confusion.

Dthames I bought a meter, but do not know how to wire it in, and the instructions are junk…. And every video I found was someone building with it. Not easy wiring.

I found a 200ah agm from renogy for $335, I’m wondering if it would be a better bank for me to invest in, over this 90ah which was $130.

Jazzylea03 said:

Dthames I bought a meter, but do not know how to wire it in, and the instructions are junk…. And every video I found was someone building with it. Not easy wiring.

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For your meter....
1. Buy two low cost extension cords.
2. Cut the receptacle end off of one of them. This is your power cord for the meter. Connect the white and black wires to the meter, on the connections shown in the photo....to be connected to the 115v wall outlet. After connection, plug it in and the meter should come on and show the volts, but zero amps, zero watts.
3. The second cord is so you don't have to damage your fence charger cord. On the second cord,....if it is a flat two wire, cut between the wires so they can be pulled apart for a few inches. If a jacketed 3 wire type cord, carefully remove the jacket for a few inches so you can separate the white and the black wires. Be careful not to damage the insulation of the wires as you work to get them separated. Now, take your split current transformer and clamp it around one of the wires. If you know which is which, I would use the black, but it doesn't really matter.

Now plug the second extension cord into the power outlet and connect your load/fence/whatever into the other end. The current of the load will be measured by the current transformer. Watts and total power will be calculated from the volts of the first cord and the amps from the current transformer.

You didn't mention the size of the HF kit. Was it the little 18W panel? If so, your upgrade to a 100 watt panel was a wise investment.

Even so, if the battery from Rural King was not charged it will take TIME, days - of non-shadowed sunlight to get that charged properly from your low state of charge. Personally I'd invest in an AC battery charger of at least 5A to make sure that battery is at least starting out on the right foot before putting it into solar service.

I'm just not sure if you have waited / charged long enough to give that RK battery a chance..

It was 12.6v starting out. I am very frustrated that I can't find specs on this battery, so I'm going to return it.

Rural Kings are mostly rebadges of other brands, so it can be hard to find specs under that name unless you are a battery nerd like myself and can recognize certain case stylings.

12.6v sounds pretty normal for a battery that may have been sitting on the shelf for 6 months. Hence my recommendation to use a charger first before putting it into solar service - just to ensure a decent charge when starting out.

Hope the replacement works better for you.

Jazzylea03 said:

I found a 200ah agm from renogy for $335, I’m wondering if it would be a better bank for me to invest in, over this 90ah which was $130.

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Buy two 6V golf-cart batteries from Costco. Then wire them in series for 12V. They are 99$ plus tax right now. You'll get a bit more capacity for 135$ less money.