Electric Fence Charger Died I believe from Lightening thru the Ground

[JD5210]

I had a Parmak Mark 8 fence charger die the other week. I believe lightening came thru the ground was the cause. Any ideas on how to protect it from that?

I have 2 8-foot ground poles on the charger, a lightening diverter on the fence with 3 ground poles, which are 60 feet from the chargers ground poles and a surge protector that I plug it into. My fence is high tensile.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

From your description of your system setup/design, you have done a lot of things right to mitigate damage to your Parmak fence charger.
Lightning will take the shortest path to ground, so it sounds like the strike was between your charger and the lightning arresstor/grounding system 60 feet away.
Not much you can do when lightning is a direct hit.

Edit: Is your lightning arrestor still good?

 

[BeezFun]

Mine did the same thing a couple times. Discovered the electricians bonded neutral and ground in the subpanel that the charger was plugged into. After I separated them I never had a problem again.

 

[JD5210]

Mine did the same thing a couple times. Discovered the electricians bonded neutral and ground in the subpanel that the charger was plugged into. After I separated them I never had a problem again.

 

[JD5210]

Thanks for the response. I will have to take a look. This is NOT my handwork, but what is back where the charger is at. There is a transformer on the pole. Comes down to a meter that is on the same pole as the transformer, that connects to a box on that pole, which at one time feed 3 other boxes. There was a mobile home back there at one time. Now it feeds one 60 amp box on that pole. From there goes to circuit panel in the shed.

Do not know if what is in the shed would be called a subpanel or not.

 

[JD5210]

From your description of your system setup/design, you have done a lot of things right to mitigate damage to your Parmak fence charger.
Lightning will take the shortest path to ground, so it sounds like the strike was between your charger and the lightning arresstor/grounding system 60 feet away.
Not much you can do when lightning is a direct hit.

Edit: Is your lightning arrestor still good?

 

[JD5210]

The lightning arrestor still looks good, but I will double check. I put a new box in and everything is working fine.

 

[JD5210]

I have attached a picture of the inside of the electrical box that is the shed. I am not an electrician, but since the neutral wire and the ground wire are both on the neutral bus bar. I would say they are bound together. Guess I will need to buy a ground bus bar, 2 ground poles, 2 clamps and find out what size wire goes from the ground bus bar to the ground wire. I think it is 6 AWG.

 

[Willman]

Thanks for the response. I will have to take a look. This is NOT my handwork, but what is back where the charger is at. There is a transformer on the pole. Comes down to a meter that is on the same pole as the transformer, that connects to a box on that pole, which at one time feed 3 other boxes. There was a mobile home back there at one time. Now it feeds one 60 amp box on that pole. From there goes to circuit panel in the shed.

Do not know if what is in the shed would be called a subpanel or not.

If the panel in the shed is powered from a breaker in the main panel it is indeed a subpanel
Is the 60 amp box on the pole a main breaker box?
Ground and neutral should only be common ( bonded) in the main panel
If the box on the pole is just a disconnect switch then the shed panel is not a sub panel it is the main

 

[ning]

I have attached a picture of the inside of the electrical box that is the shed. I am not an electrician, but since the neutral wire and the ground wire are both on the neutral bus bar. I would say they are bound together. Guess I will need to buy a ground bus bar, 2 ground poles, 2 clamps and find out what size wire goes from the ground bus bar to the ground wire. I think it is 6 AWG.

(Not an electrician)

You should drive a ground rod nearby that sub panel and at a minimum ground the box to it and ideally add a ground bus and move the grounds to that bus.