Winch Installation - Wiring

[Yubariver]

I'm about to attempt an instalation of a Warn M12000 into my front Aluminess Bumper. I've seen the photos on this forum from Railbat's SuperWinch installation, however his battery configuration seems to be different from mine. I'd really like to have a look at one done by Sportsmobile so that I don't screw it up. I have a 2006 EB50 6.0L TD, SMB 4x4, with the starting and house batteries both mounted along the RH side Rail. Does anybody have this sort of configuration with the winch where I could see some piuctures of the wiring, or, perhaps if you are in the Belmont (Mid-SF Peninsula) California area....could I come and have a look?
Was the negative lead attached directly to the battery terminal, or just mounted to metal ground somewhere close to the battery? I'm also curious about what gauge wiring they used. Did they just provide a plug that allows the unhooking of the winch from the power, or do they use some sort of a switch; I was thinking of using one of those high-amperage sailboat battery shutoff switches found at West Marine and am wondering of the relative merits of the plug instead. Thanks, Duff

[jage]

On the MileMarker 12K on my Jeep I use a relay and switch in the cab to interrupt the ground on the controller... there was a small gauge ground wire that needed to be attached separately on the winch, so it was kind of an obvious solution for that particular model. As far as wiring I went directly to the battery terminal with both positive an negative.

For the van I would go to the jump stud on the frame and to the frame with the negative, although probably back by the batteries (not that it should matter). Of course I haven't done it myself, and my advice may be dubious at best.

I would also like to know a source for heavy gauge soft wire that is easy to route for a winch. I've heard of using welding lead wire, which for farm use are often extremely long, but I'm not sure where to get that either.

[Yubariver]

Thanks Jage, Home Depot carries 4-GA wire fairly cheaply that has about 20 strands in it; its bendable but just barely. I used it in my Stereo Amp installation and although it did the job, I wish that it had been more flexible at points. Various High-End car-stereo stores carry multi-strand 4-GA, but its very expensive ($6-8/ft). I noticed that WestMarine carries heavy-gauge soft wire, but its also quite expensive:
#8 $3.00/ft
#6 $4.09/ft
#4 $5.69/ft
#2 $6.59/ft
#1/0 $11.99/ft
#2/0 $15.99/ft

I figure that I will need about 15' x 2 for the winch installation, so if I need to use something like #1/0, yikes! that's $360 just for the wire...even #2, which the Warn website says their cables are, would be $210. That's why I'm interested in hearing what SMB uses for their installation.

I noticed that on Amazon.com a Heavy Duty 20' 2GA set of multi-stranded Jumper cables sells for about $60...that works-out to about $1.50/ft.....I wonder if that would suffice? Is the rubber/plastic coating on those cables durable enough for the sort of exposure they would get under the SMB?

[mjeffrey]

I can't remember the price, but I got excellent wire from McMaster-Carr.

[Ford_6L_E350]

Yuba,

You can buy the Amazon cables and get some convoluted plastic tubing to cover it with. Just stay away from the hot exhaust and you will be fine. And that cable has more and finer wires and will carry more current with less voltage loss than the bigger wires in building wire.

And if you thought the #4 stuff was hard to bend, you don't want to deal with the 1/0 stuff. Last month I ran some 3/0. I could bend the longer pieces, but within a foot of the end I needed tools.

Mike

[Scalf77]

West Marine McMaster Carr
Regular High Flex
#8 $3.00/ft $1.57/ft
#6 $4.09/ft $1.60/ft $1.82/ft
#4 $5.69/ft $2.02/ft $2.53/ft
#2 $6.59/ft $3.43/ft $3.52/ft
#1/0 $11.99/ft $5.11/ft $4.88/ft
#2/0 $15.99/ft $5.72/ft $6.16/ft

The McMaster prices are for 1-24 ft discounted above that. #1/0 looks backwards in the catalog on regular vs High Flex.

[Bones_GSXR]

I use a highly flexable wire from a Alaskan company called Polar Wire. I have all my cables made there and have 1/0 run front to back with quick release ends for jumper cables (also made by them) and I can tell you that these cables/wires are not some relabled mass produced wire. It is made to thier specs and even in large gauge stays flexable even down to -42f. that is as low as I have tested mine to. They custom make anything I need with any ends I want and I have never had a failure. All of the Oil Companies on the Slope use them and they will also ship. I also have them remake all my factory battery and start cables to get better power to the starter for faster cranking. They even have multi-wire bundles for wiring things like trailers made with the same custom flexable wire. The even have smaller gauge stuff that I use when I do custom work (like my Dual Sport and Sport Motorcycles) and I am not affiliated with them in any way I just know good stuff when I find it.

[Yubariver]

I took Scalf77/Mjeffrey’s advice and purchased my 2/0 wire from McMaster.com. Total cost for 36’ of 2/0 Awg High-Flex black battery-cable with shipping and Tax was $191, and I’m not very happy about that, but at least I know that I used a heavy-enough wire. I screwed up by not reading the details on their web-site closely enough, where they said that max length is 25 feet. I needed 2 x 18’ foot pieces; however what I got was a 25’ piece and an 11’ piece. I had to buy a Heavy-Duty butt-connector and solder the two shorter pierces together…which irrespective of the time involved, pisses-me off that I had to break-up the continuous piece of wire. If I had to do it again, it would cost about $40 more, but I would buy two separate 18’ pieces, one red and one black.
I called Peter at SMB and found-out that they connect the positive wires near the positive charging-post (the one with the red plastic cap on it) found just behind the rearmost side-rail battery and the negative to the rail where the short one from the battery terminal connects. He said that SMB uses 2/0 gauge, however they hard-wire the winch in there without a switch or plug of any kind. Frankly, I looked around quite a bit, and it was difficult to find any plugs that could handle anything greater than about 200A. I suppose that you could modify some of the forklift-style battery plugs, but they would bulky and crazy-expensive. Incidentally, SMB charges $1,924 for the complete install…which is not bad…..when I add-up the cost of the winch, wire, connectors, lugs, marine-grade shrink-tubing, stainless bolts for the switch, Grade 8 bolts, wire armor, HD tape, etc, I probably only saved a couple of hundred dollars at most. The install took 4-5 hours total hours and required a lot of stooping, and knuckle-busting routing of wires through sharp-metal crevices while on my back. The 2/0 gauge wire is quite thick and even though it is flexible, it was difficult to squeeze two cables, plus the protective sleeves through various choke-points. However, I did the math, and even with 2/0 gauge, across 18 feet of length, that’s still a 1.2V drop at 440 Amps (max current according to WARN), so I wouldn’t want anything much thinner than that (2-gauge yields a 2.5V drop).
The negative connection was easy, however once I took the positive charging-post apart; I found that there wasn’t enough bolt-length left to add another lug’s thickness to post. I ended-up filing/sawing/cutting-back about 1/8” thickness from the main-body of the post, thus lengthening the bolt, so that I could fit another lug on. Railbat’s pictures show that SMB tied into the positive cable…..I think my way would be slightly better but not by much, and barely worth the probably 1-hour that it took me to disconnect the post, cut-back, re-install, etc.
I ended up using a battery switch found at West marine for about $80….quite expensive but it was the heaviest-duty model they had and about twice the cost of the medium-duty ones. It handles 600A continuous, 900A intermittent, 2000A inrush, and 1200A cranking. I know this is overkill, but at least I don’t have to worry about the switch burning-out on me. The medium-duty model at West Marine was rated for 300A continuous…so that was just on the edge. I mounted it up inside the Aluminess bumper towards the back on the Driver’s side.
Dave at Aluminess spent some time on the phone explaining how to rotate the motor and clutch-housing prior to installation. Rotating the motor was easy (although be careful to not pull the cover too far outwards lest you have to fiddle with getting the brushes back in their slots), however I messed-up when rotating the clutch-housing by pulling it out just a bit too much and allowing a small gear to fall out of place. After some greasy fiddling, I got it all back in place properly (I think, I hope). Word to the wise: Talk to Dave first, be very careful to just barely lift the housing off the detents before rotating; mark the third hole with tape so that you know exactly where you are rotating it to, and get someone to help you hold the winch upright while you do so. Dave tells me that SMB doesn’t bother to rotate the housing and thus the gear-shifter remains crammed in the front of the bumper where it is hard to reach.
To finish it out I am using 125’ of the 3/8” Amsteel-Blue synthetic cable and the Delrin fairlead rollers. The synthetic results in about a 24# weight-savings over the 3/8” dia. steel cable (Steel: 30.4# as per bathroom scale, Synthetic: 6.9#) that came with the winch, and the Delrin deletes a few additional pounds. Taking the wire off before installation made the winch a lot lighter and things a lot easier during installation. Dave cautions that the wire/cable needs to be wound-on under a slight load (i.e. he connects the cable to a tree and puts the SMB emergency-brake on slightly before reeling-in) so as to avoid the cable burying itself under loosely wrapped layers. Thanks all.

[jage]

The farm store has 2/0 welding lead for $2.49/ft... super soft and easy to route- any reason not to use that?

[Yubariver]

I can't remember exactly where, perhaps even the McMaster Carr website, but 2/0 Battery Cable is referred to as "also known as Welding Cable". In my previous life as a welding engineer, I know Welding Cable to be tough-stuff, and it carries an obscene amount of current. If you can get it for that price, that's a great deal, and I imagine it would be more then effective as winch lead-wire.