Well, I finally got a winch. 35m. But I must say the manual leaves a lot to be desired. I’m not sure how to work the brake when winching. If I pull on the brake cord, it sticks open allowing me to freespool. As soon as I engage the winch drum, the brake closes. It’s made that way. But just wonder what the brake is doing while I’m pulling.
Yes, the manual stinks. Mine reads as though it was originally written in Croation, the translated to Chinese by a non-native speaker, then translated into English by someone fluent in Swahili. I had hoped they would have improved it when they updated the model from the 35E to the 35M, but apparently not.
The brake mechanism on your 35M is a little different than on my older 35E. (Yours is an improvement: more reliable on the engage and release without as much need to tweak/fiddle and keep lubricated as mine is).
As you noticed: you can latch the brake off by pulling on the rope to release the brake, allowing you to freespool the cable out. A little "blip" on the winching rope undoes that latch and sets the brake. When winching, if you pull the winching rope far enough, it holds the brake off, but only for as long as you are pulling on the winching rope. It does not latch the brake open. This is so that as soon as you let go of the rope, the brake will be activated, holding the load in place.
Imagine winching a log up a hill. You see a problem, so let go of the winch rope to stop. If the brake did not automatically set upon winch release, the log would be rumpling back down the hill until you grabbed the brake line and set the brake. If that prblem you saw was a kid or your dog sniffing around the action, that delay could be a big problem. So the brake acts automatically. If you need slack, you can make that happen at your leisure.
When I first got my winch (14 years ago, if I recall correctly) something was misadjusted - or perhaps I screwed it up trying to adjust something. Until I figured it out, my brake was not releasing when winching, so I had to pull both ropes in order to winch. I was a pain in the butt to handle that way.