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handheld LASER voltage tester for electric fence?

Is there such a device where i can detect voltage along an electric fence keeping out wild elephants WITHOUT having to get off from the truck and personally testing the fence? Is there such a device where I can simply point my handheld device using laser or anything from the safety of my truck|?
Walking through the bush and jungles are also pretty handful...
Im looking @ a distance of about 10m to 20m gap between my truck and the fence.
Any advices please email me directly - jungletrekker69@gmail.com
Or comment in this excellent forum?

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aristide202 says: Sep 16, 2012. 5:21 AM
Can you please tell us what is the fence made up of ? Give us a description. I know only how regular cattle electric fences are made. Hand held laser voltage tester .I nerver heard of such kind of device , may be you are inspired by IR hand held remote teperature testers. I don't think that a reflected laser beam can give informations about voltage of the surface because the surface should be changed in its relectivity to laser some color light by electric voltage. That would be a very nice phenomena but i don't think that common materials have such a peculiar property in a non extreme voltage. May be in some kind of situation it could be possible to detectct air jonization close to the fence but in this case thousands volts voltages are needed. In this case you actually can feel a sort of wind blowing from the conductor and this could give some optic difraction possibly detectable whith a laser device in air very next to the fence. But in this case voltage is a derived paramenter not directely measured. Such jonized wind is much more apreciable if the conductor has a prong shape, but I don't think is this case of the fence you are dealing with.
jungletrekker69 (author) says: Sep 16, 2012. 7:41 AM
Its just a normal fence like any other common electric fence - the idea is just to know of there is voltage running of about 6-9v...just enough to give any wildlife a slight jolt without harming them.
We just hope that no one teaches the elephants that electricity doe not flow on ivory!!!!
We do maintenance of the vegetation parallel to the fence so that it would be easy for us to walk towards the fence.
Using IR is also good - Im not an electronic nor an electricity related expert - Im just trying to find out the most easiet and hassle way to know if there is there is an voltage flow of electricity along the fence.
We could divide the length of the voltage flow into several smaller compartments like one compartment with 4 km, put a pole with LED lights high enough to tower above bushes.
Or a flat area where we can just point the handheld device to the shorter poles and check if there is a voltage flow flowing through.
16
Toga_Dan says: Sep 24, 2012. 8:36 AM
A quick online search shows that fences run 700- 10,000 v It may be SUPPLIED by a low voltage battery, but then the voltage is raised by a transformer. 6-9 volts won't even be felt unless one puts their tongue on it.
18
wannabemadsci says: Sep 18, 2012. 7:06 PM
There are several types of electric fence testers.  One type has one or more lights (I suspect neon bulbs) that light up to show the fence is working. You may be able to 'permanently' install several of them at increments along the fence and then check the status indicator from a distance with binoculars.  The only concern is If the tester puts too much load on the fence (multiple testers on at the same time use too much of the fence charge and make the fence inoperative).

Here is an example of one of the testers:
http://www.amazon.com/Dare-Products-Fence-Electric-Tester/dp/B000BQYBEO/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1348019864&sr=8-8&keywords=electric+fence+tester

Good Luck!
acmefixer says: Sep 15, 2012. 11:09 AM
Maybe at a distance of 10 cm, but not 10m.  The HV generating equipment should have a LED light on it that indicates whether or not the fence is operating properly.  All you have to do is look at it from that location and it should tell you how the fence is functioning along its whole length.
jungletrekker69 (author) says: Sep 15, 2012. 2:27 PM
We are trying to reduce danger from tracking or flowing the 21km fence which passes some undulating terrain. The idea is to force the wild eles and other wildlife such as tigers, black panthers, sun bears, deer etc etc to use the wildiife culvert under the 7 bridges spanning the highway.
Perhaps we should set up a system of tall poles for every few hundred yards with blinking lights\/
The only problem is that we rely on lorry batteries to power the fence every few kilometres and Im not sure if if we do have tall poles with lights will the power from the lorry batteries be sufficient enough?
acmefixer says: Sep 15, 2012. 3:53 PM
LEDs (light emitting diodes) are very low power and can be seen for tens or maybe hundreds of meters. Also, blinking them for a fraction of a second evey second or so will cut the power even more. You could put a solar panel on top of the pole to recharge the batteries.

Another idea is to use a short range RF transmitter on the generator and pick it up with a hand held receiver. This may give you enough distance to allow monitoring from hundreds or thousands of meters.

These methods don't have to be expensive to work, however if the environment is rough, then protecting the equipment from damage and weather could increase the cost. But then you probably know about that because that would also affect the fence itself.
jungletrekker69 (author) says: Sep 15, 2012. 10:45 PM
Not really worried about the weather - just worried about what the wild elephants would do to the fence if there isnt any electricity flowing through. Also worried about plant life damaging the fence.
This IS the jungle....and we're trying to keep wildlife AWAY from the road as much as possible...
I like the LED lights idea....the visibility and low power consumption too....
just need to look for McGyvers around to help us...will offer anyone a free stay with us and jloin us on anti poaching work as well as wild elephant rescue operations if any McGyvers can donate their time working to set up these LEDs :-)
164
Kiteman says: Sep 10, 2012. 11:09 AM
Lasers? No.

How far is it from truck to wire?
jungletrekker69 (author) says: Sep 10, 2012. 11:50 AM
Btw, the site location is Malaysia...
9
Hack42Moem says: Sep 10, 2012. 11:32 AM
As stated above:
"Im looking @ a distance of about 10m to 20m gap between my truck and the fence."
164
Kiteman says: Sep 10, 2012. 12:46 PM
Either I'm going blind, or he edited that... Probably the former.
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