Electrical prob's with Warn 10,000 winch
Submitted: Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 20:40
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Member - Tim - Stratford (VIC)
Evening all,
Has anyone had experience with electrical problems with a Warn 10,000 (or any other Warn for that matter). I have used the winch quite a few times but been careful not to overheat it etc. Just snigging firewood and the ocassional other traveller/mates.
Before our Corryong trip my winch failed to wind in. There was a lot of solenoid 'clicking' but the motor wouldn't fuction. I took it to an ARB dealer who were about to remove the whole winch/box etc. When the mechanic raced my truck to his auto-elec mate. He came back 5 minutes later with the diagnosis that a solenoid was stuffed. We had already checked these with a
test light and they appeared fine.
It is my understanding (read: educated guess) that enough power was getting through to activate the
test light but not a good enough connection to allow sufficient amps through - hence no power to motor.
Anyway, we changed the solenoid and off we went on the trip - winch worked fine.
On our trip I winched many trees off road - mate didn't take sufficient chainsaw fuel :-<
Once
home I decided to
test the winch and clean cable etc - Now have the same clicking solenoids although the motor still powers in intermittantly - seems it is on its way out again.
Does anyone have a better idea if the solenoids have/are dying or is there an underlying problem???
I have got a couple of spare relays from ebay (not Warn) to get me out of trouble in the bush - but think I should replace the solenoids with original equipment when available. Does anyone know of solenoid pack problems???
Winch was purchased new in Dec '04 - out of warranty.
Thanks in advance,
Tim - Stratford.
Reply By: Red One - Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 20:54
Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 20:54
Might be a bad connection from the winch to the battery. Clean the all and see how it goes.
Is your winch on your primary or secondary battery?
Cheers
AnswerID:
219752
Follow Up By: Member - Tim - Stratford (VIC) - Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 20:59
Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 20:59
Red One,
I've checked the battery connections and they seem ok. The winch is on a T/C 100s so it is wired to one of the start batteries.
FollowupID:
480320
Reply By: Wayne (NSW) - Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 21:02
Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 21:02
Tim,
There are solenoids and solenoids.
The one you want for the winch must be heavy duty continuous duty 100amp solenoids.
The solenoids may look the same but how long they last is the difference.
Wayne
AnswerID:
219755
Reply By: Robin - Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 21:16
Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 21:16
Hi Tim
Don't particularly know that winch , but I agree its usually contact or connection problems.
How many soleniods do you have 4 or 5 ? (4 is enough)
The catch with these issue's is that there are many contacts to blame and its hard to narrow the fault location down.
A problem that can occur is that a bad contact on a battery feed cable can be enough to allow a soleniod to operate but insufficent for the winch , so the solendiod operates, it switches the winch, and the heavy winch current in turn then cuts out the soleniod and around you go in circle.
A way to isolate this problem is to seperately wire the soleniod pack back to the battery. A connection problem in the winch is now easier to isolate by use of a voltmeter.
Robin Miller
AnswerID:
219758
Reply By: Voxson - Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 21:29
Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 21:29
As absolutely stupid as this sounds....
It may be the earth wire which goes from the solenoid box to earth...
It is a little wire but if not earthed correctly it can cause a lot of fault finding...
AnswerID:
219761
Follow Up By: Truckster (Vic) - Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 21:35
Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 21:35
x eleventy.. Had the same issue when fittin the 9000 the other day to
mine. ended up running back to battery
FollowupID:
480327
Follow Up By: Voxson - Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 22:06
Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 22:06
Exactly Truckster.....
I also once had a solenoid which had a broken contact inside the encapsulaton under one of the small terminals (not the large ones),,,,,
now from memory that couldnt pass power very
well because it was barely making contact because the terminal could spin around .....
The symptoms were winch would seem to work ok no load for a moment then fade out once the current draw went through the roof,,, definately didnt work under load at all...
Hey Truckster,,, another
Cape York trip again coming up soon.... You could give that new beast swimming lessons... Come along dude...
FollowupID:
480330
Follow Up By: Truckster (Vic) - Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 22:11
Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 22:11
... Another
Cape York trip again coming up soon... You could give that new beast swimming lessons... Come along dude...
Love to... $$$$ :(
FollowupID:
480332
Follow Up By: Voxson - Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 23:32
Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 23:32
We could do a truckster telethon on exploroz....
whaddaya rekon mate...
raise some splash...
FollowupID:
480354
Reply By: RobAck - Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 21:50
Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 21:50
Tim you don't say how old the winch is. One of the key issues with electric or hydraulic
winches is that they are defintatly not waterproof. As such and in normal use mosture tends to get into to the complete system. When that happens thinks like corrosion can create stray earth's so regardless of what things actually look like under the covers sometimes all is not
well.
We strip down and service our
winches every six months which is actually a bit of a pain but I would rather know they work than get somewhere either training or in dire need and find it has failed.
So it you haven't pulled it down and it is over a year old then that may lead you to the answer but I certainly cannot guarantee it. But it may be somewhere else to continue your diagnosis
Regards
RobA
AnswerID:
219763
Reply By: Mike Harding - Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 21:53
Sunday, Feb 04, 2007 at 21:53
Sorry Tim - can't offer any direct help other than to say that 12V
winches need a _REALLY_ low resistance circuit. What does a winch draw under load? 150 amps?
As V = I * R if you have 0R1 resistance in the winch circuit then you'll drop 15 volts which is a bit of an issue with a 12V battery!
Keep a manual winch for backup :)
Mike Harding
AnswerID:
219764
Follow Up By: geocacher (djcache) - Thursday, Feb 08, 2007 at 00:25
Thursday, Feb 08, 2007 at 00:25
Actually at close to stall they'll draw closer to 400A.
The guys at SG Leslie & Co in Heidelberg have identified a big problem with the Warn's and copies probably too, is that the brush ring is only clamped onto the motor body by pressure from the end cap.
Their solution is to drill and tap the motor housing on opposing sides and screw it on nice and tight. No more problem.
There are instructions on servicing it based on what Leslies told me on my web site.
Also if you find your self in that situation in the bush and you need to get out of the schit, if it is solenoids not the brush ring, you can reverse the fields and the wind out solenoids become the wind in, and vice versa.
Dave
FollowupID:
481107
Reply By: Member - Tim - Stratford (VIC) - Monday, Feb 05, 2007 at 08:20
Monday, Feb 05, 2007 at 08:20
Thanks all for the ideas - will remove all contacts/connections and emrey them before putting them back on - see how I go.
Tim - Stratford.
AnswerID:
219813