In article ,
Mike writes:
|
| A report in todays Mail says a cat was killed by an electric fence
| erected by a fellow in Penrith, who was upset that cats were
| invading his garden.
|
| It is claimed that the fence was powered by a twelve volt battery
| charger, I would not have thought that 12 volts would have
| sufficient to kill anything that size.

It's the volts that jolts, but the mills (mils?) that kills.

12 volts IS enough to kill, if the contact is near-perfect, so
the whole voltage goes across the heart's control organ, but it
is extremely rare for it to occur.

| Can be stepped up by transformer.
|
| A transformer is for stepping up/down AC not DC from a battery.

While that is true, most things like portable fluorescent lights
and battery-powered electric fences include a DC to AC convertor,
so that the voltage can be transformed up.

| I assume that the battery charger is across a 12 volt battery thus
| giving a 'float' charge.
|
| If this is the case, does anyone know if there is an AC element in the
| output? I would think not if it is rectified properly.

There is, as smoothing is never perfect, but it should be small
(to avoid battery damage). Another (very likely) possibility is
that the charger was defective, and the mains supply leaked to
the output.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.