Power upgrades for heavy winching?

[macleanflood]

Were those all 3 of those brand new Warn motors?

Mind sharing what was wrong? Was looking at them last night.

Your experiences seem to be matching Blaine’s advice for the most part. I will be looking into a Group 65 AGM and some new cables (maybe stock replacement for those).

Interesting. Does a diamond knot prevent the winch from sucking in your hand into the fairlead?

Brand new Warn motors installed by Warn warranty support. One of them didn't last through the first pull.

Nothing per se wrong with the cables...just didn't like the routing and I have my own hydraulic crimper. They route a ground wire next to the factory harness and I wonder about induction. I also didn't like the fuse block they sent...just a generic block and no specific instructions or brackets to make installation sanitary. And in my opinion some or the power cables should be in either split loom with heat shrinked ends or thermal sleeves. Basically a lot of money for something I felt nobody thought it through or innovated enough to make it worth purchasing vs making my own.

Nope. A diamond knot doesn't prevent stupid. Nothing stops stupid.

-Mac

 

[PNW_LJ]

Nice score with the 9.5xp!
Depending on the winches in question,a larger winch can actually draw less amps than a smaller one at the same pull. Look up amp draw for a given pull of some different sizes and you might be surprised.

Looks like you’re right. It’s a difference of up to ~30 amps.

 

[mrblaine]

Here's another idea that I implemented. In ADDITION to the #2 cables running directly to the battery (both + and -), I also grounded the winch's negative to the frame -=AND=- installed a short #2 ground jumper to connect the frame to the engine block. Additional #2 cables tie the block, tub, and battery negative together.

This gives you a lower negative side impedance, while preserving the reliability of the direct to battery cable. High current grounds are somewhat problematic to keep reliable in a vehicle environment (hence the cable also), but the frame ground will give you a lower impedance than ANY cable you could come up with. But be sure the frame is connected to the battery negative through a heavy jumper - Blaine discovered that the only connection between the two from the factory are the brake lines!

This is basic Ohm's law. When you're talking about 400+ amps, every bit can help. It only takes .00025 ohms to create a .1 volt drop at that current.

You're gonna have to explain how bringing the frame into the battery equation is better or any improvement over hooking the winch directly to the battery with both cable as designed. The frame isn't grounded intentionally, it isn't used as a ground circuit on purpose. The alternator is grounded fairly directly to the battery as is the power output. What difference does the frame make when it isn't being used as any part of the power production or appliance circuits?

 

[Zorba]

You're gonna have to explain how bringing the frame into the battery equation is better or any improvement over hooking the winch directly to the battery with both cable as designed. The frame isn't grounded intentionally, it isn't used as a ground circuit on purpose. The alternator is grounded fairly directly to the battery as is the power output. What difference does the frame make when it isn't being used as any part of the power production or appliance circuits?

Because I intentionally MADE it part of the circuit. Lower impedance. Basic ohm's law. The winch is STILL connected directly to the battery with both cables as recommended, plus - emphasis PLUS - the frame ground. This means the negative lead is now in parallel with the frame - lower impedance. The direct negative lead isn't done that way because its the lowest impedance, its done that way for reliability - and its still in place if one of the frame connections fails (again: high current grounds in this type of environment can be problematic). There is no cable that could be run in practicality that is as low of an impedance as the frame route, assuming one has good ground connections that haven't corroded. In fact, properly installed, more than half the current is going to go through the frame rather than the cable for that very reason.

Looking up the resistance of #2 wire shows it to be 184 micro-ohms per foot at 149 Degrees F. E=IxR - at 400 amps that's 73.6 millivolts per foot, assuming a 6 foot length that becomes 441.6 millivolts AKA .4 volts drop. And that's just 1 leg - both legs will be in excess of .8 volts. Adding the frame to the equation minimizes half of that. Yes, you still have - doing the math here - just shy of 37 mv drop at the 6 inch jumper around the motor mount, plus - say - two feet from the block to the battery giving 147.2 mv for a total of 184mv. Which is less than half of the wire alone. But wait - you actually do have that wire, so doing all the parallel resistance calcs - 47 micro-ohms in the frame ground circuit - assuming 0 for the frame itself because it basically is - in parallel with 1.1 milli-ohms, is 324 micro-ohms which gives a .1297v - or 129.7 milli volt drop at 400 amps which is better than either one alone.

I glossed over the math a bit, converting the voltage drops back to resistance (at 400 amps) in order to make the parallel calcs - anyone please feel free to check my numbers I could have very easily fat fingered something on the calculator, or slipped a decimal. 130 millivolts beats 441 - that makes the total round circuit drop including the + lead goes from .8832 volts to .571volts which is .3122 volts improvement, or about 2.6% - almost a third of a volt. It could be further improved by using larger wires for the leads, and/or for the motor mount jumper/block-to-battery wiring. A third of a volt isn't a lot - but when you're running that kind of amperage, that motor needs every microvolt you can give it! And its very cheap and easy to do - so why not?

Ground jumper - you can't see the star washers I used:

 

[mrblaine]

Because I intentionally MADE it part of the circuit. Lower impedance. Basic ohm's law. The winch is STILL connected directly to the battery with both cables as recommended, plus - emphasis PLUS - the frame ground. This means the negative lead is now in parallel with the frame - lower impedance. The direct negative lead isn't done that way because its the lowest impedance, its done that way for reliability - and its still in place if one of the frame connections fails (again: high current grounds in this type of environment can be problematic). There is no cable that could be run in practicality that is as low of an impedance as the frame route, assuming one has good ground connections that haven't corroded. In fact, properly installed, more than half the current is going to go through the frame rather than the cable for that very reason.

Looking up the resistance of #2 wire shows it to be 184 micro-ohms per foot at 149 Degrees F. E=IxR - at 400 amps that's 73.6 millivolts per foot, assuming a 6 foot length that becomes 441.6 millivolts AKA .4 volts drop. And that's just 1 leg - both legs will be in excess of .8 volts. Adding the frame to the equation minimizes half of that. Yes, you still have - doing the math here - just shy of 37 mv drop at the 6 inch jumper around the motor mount, plus - say - two feet from the block to the battery giving 147.2 mv for a total of 184mv. Which is less than half of the wire alone. But wait - you actually do have that wire, so doing all the parallel resistance calcs - 47 micro-ohms in the frame ground circuit - assuming 0 for the frame itself because it basically is - in parallel with 1.1 milli-ohms, is 324 micro-ohms which gives a .1297v - or 129.7 milli volt drop at 400 amps which is better than either one alone.

I glossed over the math a bit, converting the voltage drops back to resistance (at 400 amps) in order to make the parallel calcs - anyone please feel free to check my numbers I could have very easily fat fingered something on the calculator, or slipped a decimal. 130 millivolts beats 441 - that makes the total round circuit drop including the + lead goes from .8832 volts to .571volts which is .3122 volts improvement, or about 2.6% - almost a third of a volt. It could be further improved by using larger wires for the leads, and/or for the motor mount jumper/block-to-battery wiring. A third of a volt isn't a lot - but when you're running that kind of amperage, that motor needs every microvolt you can give it! And its very cheap and easy to do - so why not?

Ground jumper - you can't see the star washers I used:
View attachment 533452

I know what you did, I just can't figure out how steel is a better conductor than common high purity copper cable.

 

[Zorba]

I know what you did, I just can't figure out how steel is a better conductor than common high purity copper cable.

It isn't. Not per given cross section. BUT - there's a shit ton more steel than there is copper. If one wanted to be even more anal, a tie near the winch to BOTH the frame AND the tub would lower the impedance further. How much is beyond the scope of both this discussion and my ability to calculate!

 

[Zorba]

I went and looked that up. Iron has roughly 6X the resistance of copper, steel is even worse at 12x. But there's a lot more of it! I no longer have access to a milli-ohm meter - that would be an interesting exercise.

 

[mrblaine]

I went and looked that up. Iron has roughly 6X the resistance of copper, steel is even worse at 12x. But there's a lot more of it! I no longer have access to a milli-ohm meter - that would be an interesting exercise.

Got it, so mainly it serves very little useful purpose other that you can do it, it makes you feel better and you've built it around the worst case scenario of full amp draw which is rare to encounter. I'm not picking on it that much because I'm more than guilty of doing silly shit just because I can.

 

[macleanflood]

My M12000 on my truck is grounded to the frame and battery. I'd like to say I did it on purpose...but long time ago when I knew less than I know now I just had a positive cable running from the battery. I added a battery ground cable and just never bothered to remove the frame ground.

-Mac

 

[Zorba]

Got it, so mainly it serves very little useful purpose other that you can do it, it makes you feel better and you've built it around the worst case scenario of full amp draw which is rare to encounter. I'm not picking on it that much because I'm more than guilty of doing silly shit just because I can.

View attachment 533466

Yea, I'm anal that way. Because I did 12 VDC electrical systems (non-automotive) for a living for about 15 years. It was there, it was cheap and easy, so I did it. Saving a third of a volt would be a BFD in my former field of endeavour - I ALWAYS designed for worst case. That nut holding weldment of yours is a thing of beauty.

My M12000 on my truck is grounded to the frame and battery. I'd like to say I did it on purpose...but long time ago when I knew less than I know now I just had a positive cable running from the battery. I added a battery ground cable and just never bothered to remove the frame ground.

-Mac

Happy accident. Leave it there, but I'd suggest checking your ground connections since they've been there for awhile.

 

[PNW_LJ]

Because I intentionally MADE it part of the circuit. Lower impedance. Basic ohm's law. The winch is STILL connected directly to the battery with both cables as recommended, plus - emphasis PLUS - the frame ground. This means the negative lead is now in parallel with the frame - lower impedance. The direct negative lead isn't done that way because its the lowest impedance, its done that way for reliability - and its still in place if one of the frame connections fails (again: high current grounds in this type of environment can be problematic). There is no cable that could be run in practicality that is as low of an impedance as the frame route, assuming one has good ground connections that haven't corroded. In fact, properly installed, more than half the current is going to go through the frame rather than the cable for that very reason.

Looking up the resistance of #2 wire shows it to be 184 micro-ohms per foot at 149 Degrees F. E=IxR - at 400 amps that's 73.6 millivolts per foot, assuming a 6 foot length that becomes 441.6 millivolts AKA .4 volts drop. And that's just 1 leg - both legs will be in excess of .8 volts. Adding the frame to the equation minimizes half of that. Yes, you still have - doing the math here - just shy of 37 mv drop at the 6 inch jumper around the motor mount, plus - say - two feet from the block to the battery giving 147.2 mv for a total of 184mv. Which is less than half of the wire alone. But wait - you actually do have that wire, so doing all the parallel resistance calcs - 47 micro-ohms in the frame ground circuit - assuming 0 for the frame itself because it basically is - in parallel with 1.1 milli-ohms, is 324 micro-ohms which gives a .1297v - or 129.7 milli volt drop at 400 amps which is better than either one alone.

I glossed over the math a bit, converting the voltage drops back to resistance (at 400 amps) in order to make the parallel calcs - anyone please feel free to check my numbers I could have very easily fat fingered something on the calculator, or slipped a decimal. 130 millivolts beats 441 - that makes the total round circuit drop including the + lead goes from .8832 volts to .571volts which is .3122 volts improvement, or about 2.6% - almost a third of a volt. It could be further improved by using larger wires for the leads, and/or for the motor mount jumper/block-to-battery wiring. A third of a volt isn't a lot - but when you're running that kind of amperage, that motor needs every microvolt you can give it! And its very cheap and easy to do - so why not?

Ground jumper - you can't see the star washers I used:
View attachment 533452

Ok this is a dumb question, but is the winch not grounded to the frame via the winch plate?

 

[mrblaine]

Ok this is a dumb question, but is the winch not grounded to the frame via the winch plate?

Probably depends on the winch. I don't recall exactly which ones but lots of them have some small wires that have to be grounded in order for the solenoids to function. If the winch was grounded to the frame and they could depend on the frame being ground, then they could just run the wires over to the motor ground or ground them internally at the solenoid pack.

 

[PNW_LJ]

Probably depends on the winch. I don't recall exactly which ones but lots of them have some small wires that have to be grounded in order for the solenoids to function. If the winch was grounded to the frame and they could depend on the frame being ground, then they could just run the wires over to the motor ground or ground them internally at the solenoid pack.

I am coincidentally working on wiring up this 9.5XP right now, and it is like you describe. A small wire for the contactor ground, in addition to the big ground cable going to the battery.

 

[Zorba]

Ok this is a dumb question, but is the winch not grounded to the frame via the winch plate?

What Blaine said - mine is certainly isolated because of the plate's powder coat. I'm 99% sure that is the case of the M8000, that the motor housing itself is negative as I self induced a problem when I repainted the motor housing and found out the hard way that the brushes find their ground via the unpainted ends that make contact with the end cap where the brushes are. @Blackjack would know more.

If that's the case, a ground could be created via using star washers as needed. Just be aware that high current grounds are not the easiest thing to make, and are even harder to keep in an environment like this. Water and corrosion are your enemy. I used multiple star washers and then sealed everything with "Goop" - and I'll still keep an eye on it. This is why the negative return cable is a must - its far more reliable.

 

[Blackjack]

Ok this is a dumb question, but is the winch not grounded to the frame via the winch plate?

Short answer is yes but...

Probably depends on the winch. I don't recall exactly which ones but lots of them have some small wires that have to be grounded in order for the solenoids to function. If the winch was grounded to the frame and they could depend on the frame being ground, then they could just run the wires over to the motor ground or ground them internally at the solenoid pack.

Blaine is correct it depends on the winch.

Most modern control packs have to have a separate ground since either the solenoids or contactor are internally grounded where older winch solenoids were externally grounded. Where it is mounted as long as it makes an adequate connection is not a huge deal.

Besides the controls, the motor case itself is what needs to be grounded and while you do achieve ground through the winch frame it is far from adequate and then would also rely on whatever ground path to the battery the vehicle has which is rarely adequate. This is why winches come with their own dedicated ground to go directly to the battery. Besides not relying on the vehicles existing ground paths which are far from adequate to run the existing electrics, you also minimize the number of additional connections in the ground path which no matter how good they are add both resistance to the circuit as well as additional maintenance over time.

 

[Zorba]

Besides not relying on the vehicles existing ground paths which are far from adequate to run the existing electrics, you also minimize the number of additional connections in the ground path which no matter how good they are add both resistance to the circuit as well as additional maintenance over time.

I'm not sure what you're saying. Yes, the existing ground is certainly far from adequate for this purpose unless it is upgraded as previously stated. Adding connections to the ground plane itself doesn't affect its impedance, although ANY connection anywhere adds resistance. Your quite right about the very likely need of "additional maintenance over time" - which is why the direct wire should also be used in parallel.

 

[srimes]

Does anyone run dual batteries? 2 batteries in parallel would do a lot to keep the voltage up.

Even better would be upping the voltage. @macleanflood, here's what you need:
https://www.warn.com/m12-24v-heavyweight-winch-265072

 

[macleanflood]

Need? Sure! $2500 is a lot of coin.

And honestly at that size wouldn't a hydraulic winch have a better duty cycle and possibly be faster...PTO pump depending of course.

And at some point...it really doesn't matter how big of a winch you have...at 4400 lbs there's only so much you can pull before you're pulling the Jeep and not your load.

I'm a little reluctant to strap my Jeep to a tree to get it to hold still... afraid to bend or twist my frame.

Found another vehicle abandoned in the woods yesterday. Going to have to do a little road construction. The hill it got dumped off on has heavy brush growth and it'll be easier to drag it 500' down an old skid road to another spur road. No wheels and the entire front end was disassembled.

-Mac

 

[PNW_LJ]

Need? Sure! $2500 is a lot of coin.

And honestly at that size wouldn't a hydraulic winch have a better duty cycle and possibly be faster...PTO pump depending of course.

And at some point...it really doesn't matter how big of a winch you have...at 4400 lbs there's only so much you can pull before you're pulling the Jeep and not your load.

Had a situation once where a FJ80 had gotten really stuck in a mud bog. A truck attemps to winch him from the beach (with I believe a 12k), and is only pulled towards the stuck vehicle.

We try from the other side of the bog, and anchor the recovery vehicle to a tree. Same story.

Upon hilifting the FJ out of the mud, we discovered both axles had ended up squarely in between 2 tree stumps!

I don’t know how it is possible to end up like that, but thank God we stopped winching. Had we continued, or had a big brain moment and added a couple more lines to it, we would’ve torn the damn frame in half.

I'm a little reluctant to strap my Jeep to a tree to get it to hold still... afraid to bend or twist my frame.

View attachment 533726

Found another vehicle abandoned in the woods yesterday. Going to have to do a little road construction. The hill it got dumped off on has heavy brush growth and it'll be easier to drag it 500' down an old skid road to another spur road. No wheels and the entire front end was disassembled.


View attachment 533727

-Mac

Some people are pigs. Then there are good people like you that clean up after the pigs.

What do you do with it after getting it out of the forest?

 

[macleanflood]

What do you do with it after getting it out of the forest?

Staton Metal Recycling in Goshen. Usually get a couple hundred bucks for the vehicle. Covers gas and broken gear. Sometimes!

The one we pulled up off Goodman Creek Road last week...cab was unbolted and pushed off... frame was 7/8 of the way cut through...cab up in one pull over a stump filled slope... finished cutting the frame and got the front half up...then the back half and bed...total pain the ass getting it up...at the top we realized they'd unbolted the rear axle but couldn't get it out...it came all the way up the slope hanging on the parking brake cables!

-Mac