Winch wiring question (12V)

[Gary_in_Indiana]

I bought a new winch for my tilt bed trailer and have a couple wiring questions. I have the basics down with no problems as it's a pretty simple system. The winch has a female plug to receive power. I intend to wire power leads with the male plugs from both my trailer battery and from my vehicle battery so, if I want to use the winch on my receiver hitch without the trailer, I can.

Here's the question I have. Can I connect the power lead from my truck battery to my trailer battery to charge it just while the truck is towing the trailer down the road? I'm thinking it would be no different than adding a second battery under the hood and wiring between the two except for the length of the cables between the two batteries. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

I was thinking I could attach another short lead off the trailer battery with a female connector on it to accomodate the male connector coming off the power lead from the vehicle battery.

 

[GaryM]

Should work O.K.

You end up with two batteries in parallel. Just be sure to mark all the connectors.

 

[JimMc]

You might check with your local boat dealer or marina. Several folks around here charge their trolling batteries from their trailer wiring harness. I believe they set up a circuit which monitors the batteries' condition and the charging system to keep the tow vehicle charged before charging the trailer aux battery and trolling batteries.

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

Thanks, Gary. That's why I want to use the male and female connectors as I described. It should make it impossible to mess up. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[chim]

<font color=blue>The winch has a female plug to receive power. </font color=blue>

Not sure I can picture what you have. Sounds odd to have a female on the winch, with the male coming from the battery, unless the male end has some sort of protection over the plug to prevent unintentional welding when it bumps against a grounded surface on the vehicle or trailer..............chim

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

Jim,

Thanks for the advice. I never knew about the trolling motor battery charge deal. It sounds like exactly what I need. That's pretty much the kind of battery I have on my trailer, too (deep cycle/starting marine battery). I've got a marina just up the road from my office so I'll stop in and see them tomorrow. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

Chim,

Both ends are fully shrouded with no exposed metal whatsoever so grounding out and welding isn't an issue. The plugs are the same type as used on the front end of towing/recovery vehicles to attach battery jumper cables.

A short lead is connected to the tow/recovery vehicle battery with the plug outside the grill. The driver can then just plug in his cables without raising the hood. Usually the cables aren't detached until the truck is parked without the driver.

 

[chim]

Gary, although it would seem the factory should have that base covered, I hadda ask.

Right now my winch isn't mounted on anything - it's sitting in the garage on a creeper. Not very useful, bit it is really portable. Last two applications were in the beds of full-sized Chevy P/U trucks. I ran 4/0 welding cable fron the battery to the bed of the truck, and made connections using regular welding twist-together (400A?) connectors on both + and-. I was going to just run the cable directly to the winch, since it was a permanent mount, but thought the plugs would serve as a last-ditch method for shutting things down in case the doodoo impacted the prop.

I used the winch mostly to drag things where I wanted them, pull some cable and rescue others. It did come in handy to get myself out a few times.

More than a couple people asked me why I had the winch in the bed instead of hanging on the front. Actually I had setups like that on a K5 Blazer, a Ramcharger and a Bronco. Anyhow, my response was borrowed from an article I read on winches aback in the '70's - "If I need the winch to get myself out, it's because I already went too far forward. I need it to go back."......................chim

 

[wroughtn_harv]

<font color=blue>"If I need the winch to get myself out, it's because I already went too far forward. I need it to go back."......................</font color=blue>


Ahhhhhhhh, so I wasn't the only one to read old old old Granville King/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[MikePA]

<font color=blue>I ran 4/0 welding cable...</font color=blue>
Just this past weekend on <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.twoguysgarage.com/site/thisweeksection.php?SegID=267>Two Guys Garage</A> they were dealing with a car's electrical system. They specifically mentioned to not use welding cable as a substitute for battery cable. Welding cables are made up of many fine wires, whereas battery cables consist of fewer, thicker wires.

While many well-intentioned street rod builders and performance enthusiasts assume that welding cable is a superior choice for battery connections, the opposite is true. Welding cable (shown here on the right) is sometimes selected because it's fairly flexible and easy to "flow" through an engine compartment. However, welding cable features multiple fine wire strands and inadequate cable insulation for automotive use. A quality battery cable (shown here at left) features heavier-gauge wire strands that are much more efficient at current flow and offer less resistance. The insulation found on most welding cable is not designed to withstand the high heat areas found in an engine bay, and can lead to shielding failure and potentially disastrous electrical shorts and arcing. This less-than-ideal insulation can also cause problems with regard to hot-starting. Welding cable may be a tempting alternative, but don't do it. Only use cable that is specifically designed for automotive use. Typically, battery cables should be at least 4-gauge diameter.