I got a couple of old electric fence controllers for free, with no information about them. I don't know whether or not they are in working condition.

Both of them are marked 'Agway' - the one on the left looks like maybe it is a rebadged "Red Snap'r" brand controller.

Any advice on setting up a small electric fence using one of those? it's a small garden - I'm growing two dozen different varieties of tomatoes, a couple of zucchini plants, a couple of eggplant plants, some sweet peppers, and some strawberries, mostly in Earthbox containers. In past years I have had problems with critters eating the veggies before I was able to harvest them. Don't know for certain who the culprits were - there are deer, squirrels, chipmunks, possibly rats or mice or other rodents, birds, an occasional fox or bobcat, some raccoons, sometimes some escaped sheep come by, and there's even the possibility of a black bear visiting my property. This year I plan to put up a game camera to get a better idea of the 'traffic' in my yard.

I'm going to surround the garden with U-posts holding up some PVC-coated wire fencing and plastic poultry netting, with some anti-bird netting on top.

But I'd also like to add some electronic "encouragement" to my defense plans.

I'd probably prefer to use the one on the left, if only because it appears to be much newer than the one on the right. However maybe it would be smarter to bite the bullet and purchase a new controller - for example, there are apparently solar-powered ones on the market that would simplify installation, rather than worrying about using AC power, but those are more expensive than what I am reasonably prepared to fork out for this application.

Do I just get a spool of galvanized wire from Tractor Supply and wrap it around the fencing at several different heights, supported off of the U-posts by insulators? I guess that I may need a nearby ground rod as well. How would I handle a gate (so that I can get into and out of the garden) - I can turn off the electricity before approaching it, of course. What about concerns for spraying water on the garden? The earthboxes get their water supply through hoses, but I may have some plants that I will want to water directly.

Are older controllers such as the ones in the photo likely to give horrible radio interference?

What kind of insulated wire would you use to go from the controller to where the electrified wire starts?

Anything else that I need to know about these things?

You can use either aluminum wire, fabric wire which has copper throughout it,  in short any solid wire which will conduct electricity will do.

I had to separate two Bulls on the ranch, I used barbed wire to run the current.

When it comes to the connection from your controller to the wire run, any solid core thin  enough to easily go around the terminal, then make a good splice onto your primary wire, just four or five tight wraps work well enough.

A ground clamp around a two foot section of rebar pounded in the ground is good enough.

As to which to use, look at the back of the units, or inside, it’s the amount of joules which gives you the jolt.

I doubt you'll experience any radio interference.

You’re right there are 110v, 12VDC, and some solar ones out there.  I’ve only used 12Vdc, and 110’s.

As to watering you’re garden, most fence controllers get rained on, if you’re concerned slap some inter tube type rubber on the seam of the larger one an call it good.

The effectiveness and performance of the system is 100% related to the quality of the ground.  Go to the Zareba website and read their tutorials (all of these systems work the same).

When you get them set up, test them to see if they have a pulse or a continuous charge. Older and cheaper chargers run a continuous voltage.

I use a continuous charger on some aluminum strands that surround my chicken coop. The continuous voltage chargers zap animals hard and are a good predator deterrent. But beware 2 things:

First, don’t use a continuous charger with a coated electric fence. If it shorts, it can melt the coating and start a fire. Only use in on wire strands like you are contemplating.

Second, a continuous charger will kill animals that can’t get off the wire once they’re on it. I recently had a rat snake die on the wire around my coop, and it also knocked out one of my pullets that wouldn’t stop charging into it once it zapped her and then got her head hung in the coop’s fence. When I pulled her off she wasn’t breathing, although she did recover in less than 24 hours.

So be aware if you have small children or pets around.

Thanks for the info - I will check out the zareba site - I don't have children or pets here, I'm pretty well isolated...

It looks like I can get a spool of galvanized wire from Tractor Supply for about $15 - I'll give that a try. I think that they sell a bag of yellow clip-on insulators for only a few $$.

I do actually have a 100-watt solar panel that I'm setting up not too far from the garden, and so maybe I'll use that to power the fence controller (via a small inverter), rather than powering it directly from house current.

If you go the inverter route, you're going to also need a battery big enough to keep it running overnight and on overcast days - Might be cheaper to just buy a solar-powered controller instead.

Understood - but I already have a 100 Ah AGM battery that I've been considering hooking up to the solar panels, with no specific plans for what I'm going to power, other than playing around with monitoring the charge and the voltage and temperature, etc. - so this could be the first application for it...

Thanks for the generous offer  - I might just take you up on it.

(My message inbox is full at the moment so until the trash is emptied overnight I can't send a message).

Message sent, thanks...

I had planned to set up a game camera to help identify what types of critters were feasting on my tomato plants - have not yet done that (soon, really...), but by accident today I caught a glimpse from a distance of an animal that I had not yet seen before on my property - my best guess is that it is a muskrat that I glimpsed slinking around my property (it looked beaver-like, but did not have a broad tail, and maybe was not large enough to be a beaver). My property is adjacent to a small river, which probably makes a great habitat for muskrats.

I am about to declare total war on muskrats and on any and all other critters who would dare to eat my tomatoes - I'm a bit behind the eight-ball in transplanting them from the small plastic containers where the seedlings have been growing into my Earthboxes (and home-made earth-buckets) due to some health issues that I've been dealing with since March - but I'm steadily working toward getting everything set up - my Zareba electric fence voltage tester was just delivered (http://www.zarebasystems.com/zareba-8-light-voltage-tester-rsvt8) and so I'm going to find out whether my free charge controllers were worth what I paid for them (!). If it turns out that the reason why I got such a good deal is that they are not working properly, then either I'll try repairing them (electronics is a long-time hobby of mine), or else if necessary I'll buy a new fence controller.

As for the voltage tester, some of the reviews say that it's hard to see the neon-bulb indicators during the day when there's bright sunlight (or even when the tester is shaded), so it's possible that I may have to wait until the evening to check them out properly.

But between putting up real fencing and netting and electric fence wires, this year I'm determined to protect my tomatoes from all comers...

The newer unit seems to pulse about once per second, and the pulses light up every neon bulb from the lowest up to the highest (7 KV) reading. Is one high-voltage pulse per second a typical way for these units to operate?

The older one does not appear to be pulsing - it does appear to have some sort of electromechanical (?) unit built in (possibly a relay) that is supposed to cause the unit to send voltage pulses to the wire, but that does not seem to be working - the unit has 2 fuses, which I have not yet tested - so it appears to be putting out a constant voltage (instead of a pulsed voltage) which keeps only the lowest (600 v) neon bulb lit.

The device on the older unit is marked "Universal Interruptor - Allow 5 minutes to start."

I did not give it 5 minutes - I will try that the next time that I work with it.

The fuses are good.

I can't rule out a groundhog, although the tail seemed to be a bit long to be one.

But then I only got a quick glimpse, from a distance.

I have seen reports on the net about muskrats enjoying a meal from the garden, and not just sticking to aquatic plants, but then who knows.

Whatever has been munching on my tomatoes has evidently also taken a liking to the tomato foliage.

But the electric fence ought to handle either type of critter...