winch rope

[sporty1]

Hi Guys is it possible to replace powerwinch 712 wire cable with the spectra type rope? My Mazda Tribute is wired with a cigarette type plug in the boot, will this be suitable for the powerwinch or will I need to run a thicker cable directly to the battery with the motor still running?

[camboy]

Hi Sporty1,
I would certainly advise a heavy cable with a circuit breaker wired directly to your car battery with an appropriate anderson plug at the rear of the vehicle.
The cigarette lighter option would almost certainly end in grief.
Regards,
Camboy

[Ally Jack]

Sporty,

Go with the direct cable from the battery and use anderson plugs for connection, not sure of your boat size but the winch will pull some power and the ciggie lighter just won't handle it. If you are really worried you can wire in a circuit breaker to protect everything if things go wrong
As for the braid rope, I have it on my powerwinch and it works fine

Ally Jack

[sporty1]

Camboy what size Circuit breaker?

[wrxhoon]

Use a heavy cable from battery to the rear for positive ( use a fuse or breaker 30-40 amp) and bolt another to the body for neg . Fit your power winch plug to them and leave it there , just plug to winch when you want to use it .
Thats what i have used before for my 912 powerwinch, I don't use it now, I just drive on .

[sporty1]

wrxhoon, why bolt to the body of the car? and any suggstions where I should do this?

[camboy]

Sporty1,

I am fairly certain that mine is a 65 amp circuit breaker.

Regards,

Camboy

[Gilli]

Mate, check the size of the motor and how many amps it actually draws. Its easy for someone to say yeh yeh throw a 30 or so amp fuse/cb on it but what if your motor draws more than that, or possibly less. And in the case of a fault, if your motor draws say 20 amp but you put a 30 amp breaker in the line, whats gonna go first?the 10 dollar breaker or the couple of hundred dollar winch.

Try and get the closest rated fuse or cb to your application, if its a 20 amp winch then try and get say a 20 amp or within +5% of that. Dont over rate the necessary protection as you will regret it if you get a short to ground or overload. Can cause more dramas than needed.

regards,
Chris

[thylacene]

In selecting the correct circuit breaker, the calculation is quite simple

Amps = Watts divided by Volts

If the winch is rated at 120W then you need a 10 Amp circuit breaker

Simple calculation for every 60W you need 5 Amps

Don't get a higher amperage circuit breaker than you need, but you will require 5 Amps per every 60W of load at 12 volts if you are going to use the winch to capacity without the breaker throwing out.

Cheers

Thy

[oldboot]

these seemingly small boat winches can draw buckets of current........don't forget they may draw considerably more than they are plated for when they are heavily loaded.
You want to allow for the behaviour of the winch and not run your breaker selection too close to the wind.
Check to see what the manufacturer recomends

There is nothing sadder than the sound of a electric winch a bit short on the schnaps.

a mate of mine has a electric winch to pull his 16 footer on and it is a sad thing.:(.....the cable that runs all the way to the front of the car and connects with jumper lead clips... simply isn't up to the job.... not only does it sound realy pittifull.......it realy struggles to get the boat on.

you need to run......battery cable..(maybe not heavy battery cable but still battery cable ) .......good heavy stuff all the way to the battery.....if you are going to go for a chasis ground....you better do a good job of that too......like knuts and bolts to the chasis, scraped clean of paint.

remember you only have 12 volts.....if a couple of them go astray on the way there your winch wont have much pull.


some of them come with the whole harness & breaker supplied.......

cheers