Reviews for Zareba® 10 Mile Solar Low Impedance Fence Charger

I bought this charger to protect my 256 sq ft flower and vegitable garden from rabbits, groundhogs, raccoons, and deer in suburban Maryland, without having to put up a huge cage structure. I put a Ring camera out to capture the results. Although the deer could easily jump over the 30" line, their curiosity lead them to sniff the wire first. The zap they get is enough to scare them away, and they stay away. The rabbits and raccoons both seem to sense the charge on the wire and avoid going through, even though they could easily sqeeze under or between the wires... they just don't. They choose to go around instead.

When they work they work good. But, the problems is they quit working quite frequently. (usually right after the warranty period) The problem usually boils down to a small component on the circuit boards that cost less than $2.00 to replace. However, Zareba will not provide customers with any means of circuit schematic to identify these components. Instead they promote replacing the entire unit which can cost $100's of dollars. I hope that this kind of attitude will either lead to customer loss or hopefully changes that will prevent the company from going out of business.

Easy to install and operate.

On my second one in less than three months. First one had good voltage for the first few days between 8-9kv, checking through out the fence. I noticed it wasn't putting anything out soon after. Checked the fence for problems found nothing, disconnected from fence checked and found no voltage, and returned. Installed a new one and it has very light voltage, won't register on the tester, but I can feel a slight plus if I hold my hand on it. I should have listened to the reviews I read about this product and bought a different brand. This fencer is trash.

I use this charger to keep my goats inside about 450’ of electric netting. I have three 6’ grounding rods. My tester consistently reads at about 9000v and the goats stay in! Wonderful product. It’s been working for about a year and it just survived a terribly cold northern NH winter where it got to -25 degrees. There was a period this winter where the fence stopped working, but that was a grounding issue with all the snow - not the charger’s fault. So far so good! Looking to upsize for my new, larger pasture and will likely stick with Zareba.

All these chargers Zebra/American Farm Works are junk, they only last about a year and then you have to replace them! I have 4 or 5 in my Barn from the last 5 years. Get another brand!!!

I use the poly webbing 1.5 inch wide. I have had to combine to make fence strong enough. I ahve also learned that the ground is very important. I bought the grounding kit which vastly improved the system. But Im not overly impressed after spending 1000 on the chargers -grounding and polywebbing. Also poly webbing does not like the wind. I have switched to poly rope. And after 2 years all the batteries need to be changed (amazon 20 bucks each)

I have used Zareba solar fence chargers and electro net fencing to rotated sheep pastures daily. I have enjoyed good performance of the chargers and only replace the batteries after many years of flawless service. I use cord models when possible for their extended range.

Would not recommend. Lasted just a little over 1 year (warranty period) and stopped working.

So to prepare the unit for use: 1) Is it...….. "To prepare your charger for use, switch the on/off button to the “on” position and allow it to receive 48 hours of sunlight. From there, your charger is ready for use." (as stated in the info page of the model ESP10M-Z) or, 2) Is it ….."Turn the unit off for three days in the sun" (as stated by Zaraba Systems response's in the Reviews Section. Would like to measure the 6 volt battery but after removing the screw not sure with way the panel pulls out to access the battery and don't want to break it. After three days in off position I switched it to on, the red light is blinking (with no fence connections made yet) and using a brand new DEFT-AFW digital fence tester all I get are three red dots but no voltage reading. Took the meter to a different model fencer and meter read 4.5KV then in two seconds stopped working. This is a different issue. Not sure problem is the meter of the controller. The open circuit resistance between fence and ground wires measures 2 megaohms but has not been connected to the controller yet.