Smart Dog Innotek electric dog fence

[tavsimms]

Hey all!

My mom recently got a free Smart Dog Innotek electric fence receiver from someone and she dropped by and gave it to me to fiddle with. I am a very big newb with electronics, I am in love with it and learning a lot everyday from these great forums and from the blog/youtube channel!! I LOVE EM! But alas I don't know exactly what is wrong with it.

symptoms

when connected to the fence wire to test the receiver the indicator LED turns red "boundary wire broken or disconnected".  they other fence receiver is a green and shows fence connection just fine so I took a length of about 10-15ft of fence wire and connected it into both ports. Still red light.  And since she was not overly worried if this thing lived or died I took it apart   I looked around on the net for a circuit diagram but am not that great at locating info yet. 

I looked over the board. and again I am not an expert, I am not even really a beginner yet haha. But everything looked ok at first (no burns, or hardware misshapen or singed). On a second glance I noticed a small glass tube with two metal wires going in either end and touching inside the tube. Well I don't know what the part is but its chipped and exposed. I don't know if this can cause the problem or not but I am curious what it is. 

Top view of board (Thumb link)


Glass thing (Thumb link)


Any advice and tips would be appreciated. 

It may not be the culprit, id love for it to be so I could fix it. But its ok if its not now im just curious

Thanks all and again thank you all for this great blog/forum

[Stonent]

I'd like to see a picture of the "glass thing" from another side. Is there a label near the leads that says F, or F1, or Fuse? Or maybe SW, SW1 or Switch?

I can't tell if it's some kind of fuse or magnetic reed switch from this angle.

[dfmischler]

That looks like the transmitter.  The receiver is the collar that the dog wears.  Show us the rest of the unit, including the power supply and boundary wire connections.  Do you have an ohm meter?  If so, put the unit back together enough that you can figure out where the boundary wire connections go on the board.

[tavsimms]

 No writing on it that I see near that item


Yes a transmitter that is the word I was looking for sorry

I don't have the boundary wires ATM, but can get some. I don't have a fence my mom does at her place so I swung by there to connect the wires.  I don't actually have to put it back together to turn it on the case it just basic protection/cosmetics. The boundary wires connect on the green/orange connect in the bottom left of the first picture I posted of the top view. I have a decent multimeter.

[dfmischler]

So the edge connector is not used at all in a field installation?  Use your ohm meter to identify the components that drive the boundary wire (i.e. where do the traces from the connectors lead).

[tavsimms]

The white one in the upper left? that is the battery backup connector. You can put 8AA batteries in it if the power goes out. I have it connected I just didn't take another picture to connect it because the case doesn't need to be put back together to do so.

[dfmischler]

No, the edge connector is the row of metallic fingers on the bottom edge of the PC board.  There are 18 of them visible on the side of the board you showed us.  Maybe it's used for a factory test jig, or perhaps in another type of unit with similar functions.

[tavsimms]

ahhh I am sorry!! I am still a newb.

No. it was not connected to anything, there was a small slot cut into the second layer of the enclosure where you could see it but nothing was connected to it.

[Clear as mud]

I think the glass thing is a thermal cutout that opens when the IC runs too hot.  I haven't seen one exactly like that before, but in the very first picture you posted of it, it looks like it has some sort of bi-metallic strip that would bend, to break contact if it got too hot.  It is mounted to the heat sink, so that makes a little bit of sense.  Maybe they figured that it would get too hot in very hot weather, but they didn't think their customers would mind if it failed to work in that sort of weather, so this is how they dealt with the problem.  Or, is there any other reason for a temperature switch in the thing?

[kolbep]

The glass thing is a reed switch. It is usually used on devices like that to turn them on and off, just by touching a magnetic tag to the box nearbthat section. That way you do not have a normal switch that can get bumped off, or have it sticking out of the case.

Electric fence energisers use it so thatcrooks cannot just flick the switch off.

[tautech]

Have you contacted Innotek for advice?
http://innotek.co.nz/ContainmentSystems.aspx

On this page they list their minimum boundary wire for sale as 100 m long.
I wonder if it is shorter that it may overload the transmitter?

Best you send them an email for advice and at least the user manual.

[dfmischler]

I think this is the user manual (pdf).

[tavsimms]

Have you contacted Innotek for advice?
http://innotek.co.nz/ContainmentSystems.aspx

On this page they list their minimum boundary wire for sale as 100 m long.
I wonder if it is shorter that it may overload the transmitter?

Best you send them an email for advice and at least the user manual.

My parents have a large area of their property fenced in. I have contacted Innotek to see if they have more detailed schematics of the board. Or specs on the broken reed switch so I can try a replacement.

Thanks all for the help

[tautech]

Or specs on the broken reed switch so I can try a replacement.

Does it measure open?
Try a magnet close to it and see if it closes.