Friday, Nov 03, 2006 at 08:24
reheno,
I have also put the in cabin control switch in the cabin.
As a safety I also ran the active wire through another switch so that switch has to be on before the winch can work. That way if the control switch is bumped or someone starts to play with the switch nothing will happen until the safety is turned on.
As far as stopping the vandals from using the winch from the control box at the front of the vehicle there are 3 ways to stop the winch from being used.
1. Isolating switch on the main positive cable.
This requires a big switch that can take up to 400amps. Anytime that the cable is cut and joined again you run the risk of voltage drop and if the connections vibrate arcing might accrue.
2. Place the control under the bonnet.
If there is enough room under the bonnet this is a good place for the control box. I had trouble with the solenoids not working because of corrosion.
Water would build up around the connections and they would stop working. After placing the control box under the bonnet, with the heat of the motor the control box would stay dry and the solenoids would work fine.
3. If the winch you have is a late model Warn, then there is a very thin black cable that has to be earthed. This is the earth cable for the solids. If it is not connected the solids don't work. Extend this cable so that it goes inside the cabin. Run it through a switch and then earth the cable. The switch must be on before the winch can work. It is only earthing the solenoids so that they can work so there is very little amps flowing through the cable. This cable would only be .5 of a mm.
The method of having a switch on the dash that control the winch has been already covered, and I think that it is great to be able to control the winch from the drivers
seat with out the remote hand control running across the bonnet and in through the driver window. You will still need the hand control at the front of the vehicle to feed the cable back onto the drum. It is a lot easer to control the winch when you can see how the cable is going back onto the drum.
BTW, I have a hydraulic winch. The motor has to be running to use the winch. Draws next to nothing from the battery, it only requires the control solenoid to be activated, 2.5 amps I think. With this type of winch you must have access to the vehicle before the winch can work. I have also put a control switch on the dash, with a safety switch, so that the winch can be operated form both inside and outside the vehicle.
Wayne
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