winch wiring

Stumpy

good luck

I like this set up because I dont have to carry a battery on the trailer, I can use any of the three trucks on the farm to run the trailer with no modification to the trucks and I get real good power to the winch.

I normally just open the hood and lay the cable over the bed and over the right side mirror and it is no problem reaching, even if the truck is turned away a little.

Just a thought, it works for me.....

• Shep's World

With that said, you might look at your winch specs and battery specs and see if cutting your load current in half gives you any lift (other than lowering the wiring heat loss).

I assume you are directly connecting the winch to the tractor.

If you deadman your winch cable to the trailer and put a pulley between it and the winch, tieing the pulley to the tractor, your ampere draw on your winch will be twice as long in duration, but half the pull (half the load is between the tractor and deadman and half on the winch. The winch just has to run twice as long as it has to pull in twice the length of cable, but using at least half, maybe less amperage to do it.

You'll loose a tad in efficiency in the pulley,
but the ampere draw being less (may be a lot less due to winch efficiency at lower current/load), takes stress off all the parts supplying power to the winch and if nothing else since heat is current squared times wiring resistance, you will be quartering your heat loss in your battery, wiring and terminals.

Mark

I'm with Mark as using snatch block(s) will be a real asset to your winch.

With a single pulley snatch block you cut your line load by 1/2 but double the travel time.

Example: If the load on your winch is 10000lbs and 10ft/min line speed, then your line load is 10000lbs.

By adding one single line snatch block line load is now close to 5000lbs and 5ft/min.

By adding a double line snatch block your line load would be 2500lbs and travel speed at 2.5ft/min

At the same time you lower the amp draw of the winch and thats where your having a problem. Your drawing too many amps from a single battery. If you draw too many amps too fast from a battery it will severaly cut down the battery life.

Golf cart battery's are the best bang for the buck. The Trojan T-105 6v is rated at 220 amp/hr and about $63eh.

If you buy from a golf course or a battery dealer they have a 6 battery special for about $325. It takes six batterys for some carts. I haven't checked the price for the newer 48v carts.

You would need two in series to get 12vdc then two more in parralle to up the amp draw too 660amp/hrs. All six battery's would give you 880amp/hrs in a 12vdc configuration.

Below is a great website that explains rigging.

T_Bone

• Bill Vista Recovery Bible

His 12K lb Ramsey is a gear reduction winch that is rated a 4 fpm. Using a double block would make that 1 fpm... the guy would spend 1/2 hour just winching the thing.

The secret is what I pointed ut to him, one or two good deep cycle automotive/truck batteries with the proper cables and good connections.

BTW, your example about line load is correct but meaningless. Allowable winch load is determined by the number of turns on the cable spool; his 12k lb winch at 1 turn is really only a 7.5k lb winch at 4 turns... loading a trailer is usually done with a short line hence 3 or 4 turns hence a derated line load.

The winch load to which you are referring is the diameter of the spool (full vs empty). Obviously if the diameter is larger (full spool), the spool will move the cable faster, but the torque will be less. Don't get something for nothing.(The old Foot/lb game)

Additionally, using a pulley to amplify torque reduces the pulling requirement on your cable and allows you to use a smaller diameter cable which is easier for the winch to wind.

Just finished converting my hay truck.

The guy said time was not a problem.

Mark

Using a snatch block HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CABLE SIZE, you must use the cable that comes with the winch. If you're pulling a 7,500 lb load, it makes no difference how many snatch blocks you use, the primary cable "sees" the full weight; therefore, smaller diameter cable is out of the question. Consult your winch manufacturer for more info.

I think you better rethink that. As a old crane operator I think I could say that quote is wrong wrong dead wrong and any one that has even seen a crane could tell you that. You could move 1000 tons with a 3/8 cable if you had enough blocks.
Using snatch blocks also reduces wear on your drum motor and brake because the pull line does NOT have the full pull on it.

5 yd bucket at 5k lbs (guess)
5 yds sand @ 4k/yd 20k lbs

Total 25k lbs.

TSC 3/8 wire rope rated around 2k lbs (just bought some). Area = .108". 3/4 dragline cable is .441" area or 4:1. 2k x 4 is only 8k load rating for cable; load is 25k. But 8 trips is 25/8 = 3.1k. Nice safety factor. Looks like the designers did their job.

Hmmmm.

Besides, when I added the block, my arm knew that the winch cable didn't see the whole load cause I could now lift it quite easily whereas before I couldn't and nothing else changed except cable diam and that had nothing to do with what my arm felt.

These things were majestic and must have been 40 yrs old. They'd sit on the side of a sand pit and the operator was so good he made a seamless pattern in the sand, came up with the bucket and dropped it into a dump truck/pup combo and dropped nar a bit on the ground. Now for those uneducated, the pup is about the same size as the bucket that is swinging below the crane and the bucket is swinging towards it; never stops, seamless tapistry...Real artist. Course inside the engine room was clank, clatter, squeak. hummm.

I'd bet you were that good.

Mark

But to do a given task, winch workload is directly reduced by dividing the load by the number of pulleys.

The original post had to do with workload.

If you buy a winch that is precabled, I'll agree you get the cable that they supplied; unless you take it off and use your own. My latest winch came empty spooled so I chose my cable size based upon the load to be moved.

As far as cable size, it most definitely is affected by number of pulleys. That is why they are used; to share the load. Distance is increased by the number of pulleys (multiple) but again you don't get something for nothing.

So if you have your truck equipped so that you can feed your 12k winch great. This guy apparently didn't and we offered options as to how he might get it to work. Different people have different resources and different situations.

For example, I chose to use a manual winch on my haytruck because I wanted the exercise and didn't want to go the extra bucks for an electric unit. I originally rigged it without a snatch block and could hardly lift it. One snatch block and it was much easier and I got to reduce my cable from 3/8 to 5/16 which rolled on the winch much better.

FYI, The last come-a-long I bought to hoist (drag)my kids cars onto my trailer to get them back home came with a snatch block which was attached to the vehicle, deadman back at the come-a-long. It was a 4 ton capacity and had a 5/16 dia cable just like my previous 2 ton unit without snatch block.

Mark

The other thing it changes is the spool size needed to reach a full pull. This may not be a concern depending on the amount of line you have.

You need 2 X the cable to use a snatch block. 3 X for a 3 part line.

However you could do as a friend did on an electric boom truck. Place a couple big truck batteries on the trailer and run a charge line (#6) to the battery on the truck. Just be sure to disconnect the charge line prior to using the wench. He used a marine battery swicth to switch between Charge & Boom Operation.

If you are running out of juice on the trailer battery, use two new deep cycle "spiral-cell" batteries in parallel.

Your idea to run off the alternator won't work. Check with Ramsey but I believe that winch uses at least 400 amps. No alternator can cover that demand.

Be certain your cables are at least as big as Ramsey recommends and that you have soldered connections at both ends.

I'd try the two best new deep-cycle spiral cell batteries I could find. Optima used to have a lock on that market but they either got bought or now license the technology to other manufacturers.

I'm using the cables supplied by Ramsey with the winch. I'll check into the bigger batteries, I just figured there had to be a better way...