BRUCE BRADFORD·FRIDAY, MAY 8, 2020
Kencove EKD16 Wi-Fi Dual-Purpose Energizer
The vendor's description can be found here on Kencove's site. More links and additional information from the original manufacture and from international versions of this energizer at the bottom of the review.
NOTE: I have done intermittent updates as I have gotten more time in with the unit, but I originally wanted to get the basic information out for those that are considering adopting this new technology.
I've had this energizer for about a month now and there is lots to love about it and some to be less-than excited fully about. Overall, I think there is a good chance that it will become our standard energizer that we use for our goat rental company. We have two (or more) herds going 24/7/365 at any given time, and they are always on the move. Often daily moves and a solid energizer is core to our success.
Update: This is now absolutely our energizer of choice and we now have two of them, one for each (main) herd. We expect this to be our standard energizer and look to buy at least one more as we set up fence ahead of our goat's move to a new job and the monitoring aspect is a BIG plus that is challenging to forgo, once you are accustomed to it.
First, I should admit, I was heavily biased toward Stafix (Speedrite) energizers, the X6i (6000i, is the Speedrite version) in particular had been a game changer for us. Being able to turn the energizer off and on from anywhere along the fence makes so many things SO much easier. It is especially great for training new animals to the fence as you can basically have the fence hot at (virtually) all times and have no mixed signals going to the animals and them never coming in contact with a non-energized fence.
This makes all the difference in training!
Remote operation is a core feature of this energizer as well, but instead of a dedicated piece of hardware, you use your phone, tablet, etc... In many ways, this is much better. Of course, you can also use multiple phones and have several different family members, or employees, have the ability to turn off the fence, step in, and turn it on immediately again. This is SO much nicer than having just one remote!
OK, so the basics: This is a dual powered energizer. There is a lot of flexibility: Straight AC operation, just plugged in. Straight DC operation, connected to virtually any 12-24 volt battery. A solar panel used to charge a battery, or batteries. Or even a AC trickle charger used to charge a battery to power the unit, for areas where power goes out frequently or your concerned about other power interruption. This energizer does a fine job. 16 joules is a lot of power for our operation, but it adjusts up and down based on the load on the fence! We typically do not have more than 10 or 12 (14/48/3½ or 14/48/7) 164' nets at any time, and usually only 8 or less at one time. We completely clear our fence lines and are moving fairly frequently.
We always attempt to keep 7kw+ on the fence at any time... even when we use a 3 joule energizer. That said, it is a bit harder with this energizer to keep 7,000+ volts on the fence, even though it is a much more powerful energizer. Part of it seems that the energizer adjusts the output based on the (perceived) load. Another part seems to be related to the grounding. Still experimenting, but this energizer appears to be a bit more reliant on a deep ground rod in moist soil than we are accustomed to. (this is common for higher output energizers, but for us, it is usually adjusted as low as it can go) The voltage that the energizer reports is not exactly the same as what our meters read on the fence line, but it is not consistently different, but it is almost always lower. The energizer adjusts the output to what it thinks is just over 8kw on the fence, but we often measure in the low 7kw range when it is showing around 8kw. Still learning the idiosyncrasies here as well.
UPDATE: We now have 7,000+ volts on the fence all the time. Grounding does seem to make a bigger difference with this larger energizer. It also does not appear to like loops as much as the Stafix/Speedrite units. So, we historically have had two paddocks adjacent to each other (following each other) with a shared fence between the two. The EKD16 seems to prefer not having full loops of connected fence.
So, why did we choose to try this energizer when we have had such amazing success with the various Stafix Unigizers over many years: The WiFi control and monitoring is what got our attention! The app lets you monitor several things, the main two being the voltage on the fence and the voltage of your power source.
As mentioned above, turning the fence off and on with a phone is great. Also great is remote reporting of the fence voltage and the battery voltage. The app also gives you notifications when voltage drops below a specific, preset threshold. Originally we thought that the voltage drop would mostly be used by us to indicate if anything got caught in the fence. We get a LOT of turtles in the spring that push into the lower parts of the netting and do not seem to be able to back up and get out. With birthing new kids in the fence, it seemed that this alert of the voltage drop would let us know if a kid got into the fence. And the big thing... deer taking the fence out by running into it or partially jumping over it. So far, this is really not the case.
The alert is helpful, but quickly the energizer adjusts the output to compensate for increased load on the fence. To date, we have not been able to successfully interpret the fence voltage alerts relating them to anything specific. We can tell when the fence has some type of an issue, but not specifically what issue. Perhaps this was overly optimistic, but it does seem possible with the right information and experience to have a very, very good idea of what's going on. We are hoping this may change with experience and possibly (We are working with the manufacturer for software updates. If people are interested, we can post a copy of the letter sent to manufacturer, or you can email for a copy.) logging features.
The battery side of this energizer is, so far, less than encouraging. It uses a LOT more power than any of our other energizers. We are still measuring and experimenting, but perhaps as much as 10 times more battery reserve is required. Most of the time the software reports that the energizer is producing 9 joules to keep the fence hot. (This actually seems to be the minimum it adjusts down to.) This is about 50% more than our largest energizer that we have had... and it shows, we are flying though batteries! We have always utilized used car batteries that were no longer good for their intended purpose, but have operated our energizers for at least (we swap them out to trickle charge them, way before they get to "dead") days. We went though one battery in just under 3 hours. More to follow on this.
Partial battery follow up: With good condition batteries we are doing much better, but still this energizer uses lots more power. It is manageable and, I think, worth it, but much more power consumption. We got two full days with (deliberately) heavy loads using a decent shape 35 amp hour (pretty small) AMG battery and about 12 sections of 164’ fence. Solar may be in our future. The energizer reporting the voltage of the battery at least partially makes up for this.
Further Battery Update:
We changed away from using discarded, dead vehicle batteries for this energizer. With AC, the power is no issue. Our meter shows consumption as minuscule compared to most things, but still high compared to Stafix/Speedrite units. With dual 35AH AMG batteries that were in acceptable (not new, but not bad) condition and a large solar panel and charge controller we never have any power issues... even with days of rain and no sun.
Other thoughts:
One of the things that you do not necessarily think about when you first give access to other people to operate the fence is that the reporting feature of the software (app) tells you the fence is off and at first it is rather alarming to get an alert that the fence is off and not immediately thinking it could be someone else. It also tells you if the fence has been turned off when it has just physically been turned off with the controller itself, and that is even more disconcerting when you weren't even thinking anyone even knew where it was tucked away and everyone with the app is in the same place, away from the energizer.
UPDATE: It is quite hard to accept the limitations of other energizers after using this for an extended period of time. We have become spoiled in many ways.
The voltage alert drives certain personalities absolutely crazy! Thankfully, modern smartphones let you fine tune how your alerts operate. I would like if the voltage threshold could be adjusted in smaller and different increments. Dropping to 7.9 does not seem that common, dropping to 7.8 seems very, very rare. (also, if interested, you can request the letter that we sent to the original manufacturer with software improvement ideas.)
I have used the Android app and the iPhone app. At least for me, the Android app is far, FAR more responsive and dependable! The iPhone that I experimented with was much newer than any of the Android phones that I have tried, but it is SO unresponsive to changes in both turning the fence on and off and reporting any changes. And that is even with the Android phones being used on cheap carriers (Tello and Mint) and the iPhone on a premium Verizon plan. If I only had an iPhone, or at least the iPhone I experimented with, I would not keep this energizer for the WiFi functionality. But that said, I think this is a game changer enough that I would probably switch phones for the control and security that it provides.
It will be a little disconcerting when something goes wrong (could be phone battery died, lost internet connection or several other things) and the app does not/cannot turn the fence off when you are in it and need to get out. Once the battery died for the X6i remote when I was in it! I happened to have a t-post that I shorted the net out with and then went over it very quickly between pulses. With the EKD16 compensating for shorts with so much reserve horsepower, I don’t know if I would try that method.
UPDATE: My phone battery did die when I was in with the goats. My back-up battery was in the vehicle. I wimped out and placed a large branch on the fence and jumped over. Some jobs we placed the energizer in the fence, but the problem would simply be reversed.
OTHER WEBSITES for the same energizer, some sites give lots more info than Kencove’s.
Pakton - Australia - Original Manufacturer
https://www.pakton.com.au/sec_products_IP.php
Pakton’s IP Energizer site
www.ipenergizer.com
JVA - Australia
https://store.jva-fence.com.au/products/mb16-with-4g-kit-mains?_pos=1&_sid=504effe46&_ss=r
JVA - International
https://www.jva-fence.com/agric/ipenergizer/index.php
