Winch Wiring

I have bitten the bullet and have bought a Superwinch EPi9.5 for the front of our Jimny and will be having a local company make me up a front and rear bumper along with cage - albeit this will be in some time due to money.

I did want to only run one battery on the car but I am now considering two for obvious reaso

I have picked the brains of knowledgable people within my club and they have told me that I would need to do away with any fusible links on the ignition system as the winch would try to draw from them briefly and the draw will blow the fusible links.

I have found some high amp fuses next to the battery, one of which is marked up on the cover as IGN.

Whether running one or 2 batteries, what is the experience of y'all in relation to these fusible links?

Kirkynut

Cannot comment with regard to using a winch, but I have experience of dual battery setups and large current.

Personally, I would use a split battery system with isolating switch. then use a split charger to charge the winch battery.

I am erring towards only using one battery as it woul be far simpler and the kind of recovery work I will do is minimal and I never intend to be alone when doing it.

I will only ever be out greenlaning with another vehicle, or would not be out in a situation where I'd need more than a quick and gentle tug to get off a rut, or would be at an Off Road Site with many other people available to give me a jump start should I flatten my battery completely!

It just leaves that question of the fusible link. Martin, you seem to have a good grasp of electronics both Jimny related and generally, what's your thoughts?

Kirkynut

The standard Jimny battery is pretty useless so even if you are going for a single battery operation I would look at replacing it with something bigger.

I guess the "fusible link" statement comes from the old SJ days when there was a link actually in the loom on some vehicles. If you connected a high current device into the wrong place the link would burn out and you would have no electrics. However the Jimny seems to run it all through proper fuses, as you say there is an 80Amp master fuse.

For a winch you need to connect the main winch feeds (both positive and negative) directly to the battery, this avoids any fused circuits for the main winch power. The only time that current will be drawn "backwards" through the 80amp fuse is if the battery is entirely flat and is then taking the full current from the Alternator, in this instance if you are drawing 80Amps from the Alternator then you want the fuse to blow anyway otherwise you are going to damage the alternator.

I would simply run the winch leads directly to the battery, through one of those high current isolating switches so that you can isolate the power to the winch when it is not in use (this is mandatory on some events/pay&play sites anyway). If you dont have an isolator fitted then you have the full energy of the battery available on the front of your car, just where accidental damage is likely to occur!)

Don't go for a cheap isolator. These are widely advertised and are really for caravan/boat use. In these environments they are kept inside in the warm and dry and never carry anything close to their rated current. In a 4x4 they are wet/muddy and when winching carry currents close to their rated capacity, which means they always fail just at the wrong moment. Go for an isolater rated at the highest possible current (as much in excess of your winch rating as possible!) and either go for a sealed one to keep the dirt out or a "maintainable" one which comes apart for cleaning (this is what I have)

There are some articles on winch wiring on my site, although I went for a dual battery set-up so that I can still winch when the engine has died. If you are using the single Jimny battery to winch and your engine is dead you are going to discharge the main battery in seconds when winching.

In the articles you can see the winch isolator wiring etc. although I also went for a split charge relay. I also ignored my own advice and didn't run the winch earth lead back to the battery as I couldn't afford the long cable run (good quality high amperage low loss cable is expensive!). I used the body earth which is not ideal as it relies on there being a good low loss path between the devices and what with "seam sealer" and galvanising on modern cars there is no guarantee of a low loss path.

Here is the overall wiring diagram for a dual battery setup, just ignore the "Split Charge relay" and "Front Battery" in the diagram and rename the "rear battery" as "main battery" and you have got a single battey setup.



Here is the winch isolator switch (mounted under the bonnet, I know this seems strange at first as you have to open the bonnet to commence winching, but the recommendation is that you should have the bonnet open is possible to protect the driver against flying cables/shackles if it all goes wrong and you can operate the winch with the bonnet closed if desired)



In the picture above you can see the solenoid pack from the old winch, I now have a different (better!) winch with a different solenoid pack although I have still got it under the bonnet away from the external dirt and grime.

Above all don't scrimp or take shortcuts with the wiring as the winch will fail at the vital moment. I reckon that, on average, out of 5 or 6 winch equipped marshalls at our club only 2 or 3 winches are working on any particular event. The others seem to resort to wiggling wires under the bonnet. The only failures I have had have been in the low voltage wiring back to the dashboard for the remote winch controls which meant I had to plug in the main winch switch which was not a great issue.

Martn

Thank you Martin, I knew I could rely on the Oracle!

I have researched into the wiring, solenoids, battery and isolators etc and have a plan, which I shall mention in a minute, but last weekend's conversation with experienced off roaders at my club and the mention of fusible links was the bit that got me thinking and worried.

I planned to go staright to the battery witht the positive and negative but with an isolator along the positive between the winch and the battery.

The Isolator I was planning on using was this:



Heavy duty battery isolator.
Phenolic moulding with steel fixing plate
and removable key. 10mm studs.
250A @ 24V, 2500A for 5 secs.
Ref 60550. £26.50

It seems to be more than man enough and I doubt I would draw more than 250A for too long. I am aware of many using lesser Isolators on bigger vehicles where their winch will draw more. This will be mounted on the dash somewhere inside, probably with a warning light so I don;t forget to turn it off as soon as I've finished with the winch each time.

I was looking at using 60mm square cable rated at 415A which again is over the top.

The battery I am planning is a Numax. Our friends have been using one as their only bettery for some time with a winch and it is performing well. We would almost certainly always be with them, so one of us will have enough stored battery power to start the other's car. I am not sure which model of Numax it is but will get the same as their's which is the right one for the application.

I plan to use the standard solenoid for the time being and change to an Albright as and when / if it fails. I am led to believe that the Superwinch solenoids are Ok anyway.

So you see, I have an fair idea but was foxed by this fusible link stuff, but if you don;t see it being an issue, I'll give it a go as it is but perhaps obtain some spare fuses should the worse happen, and I'll have to re-think before using the winch again.

Many thanks again.

Kirkynut

Now that there are a fair few people with winches on the forum - has anyone been winching off one, or 2 batteries linked together, of which one is the main battery running the ignition without a split charge system to seperate them without any problems?

I know there are many with a split charge system and Martin's observation about the manual stating not to put any load on the alternator bulb circuit complicates things and I don't know I need to seperate them with the little I plan to do.

My main normal battery has died leaving me to consider just the one battery even more now, or replace it under it's waranty and add a big Nomax in the boot but without a split charge.

Kirkynut

I run one battery and I am just about to change to an optima red top. This will mean modding the fuse bracket to make some extra clearance.

I also have mates who run twin batteries pos to pos neg to neg, with no split systems or extra gubbins and have ran such with out issue for years. One of these guys runs a warn 8274 and does challenge events running the winch for hours each day over a weekend.

I have only the standard jimny battery, ive found this capable on a previous jimny and I'll stick with it as if the engines dead the winch wont run for long anyway even on two batteries.
On my previous car i pulled 6 cars out in succession from a 50 foot slippery slope, battery boiled a bit after 4 cars but was ok :laugh: I'm never alone laning, and even if i was if i take it slow and rest the battery a little it'll get me out of most places, I'm not doing winch challenges!

Gary

i own a Warn M800 winch and only run it from one standard battery ... but hey I have only ever used it with engine ruinning.

I'm with Gary, when i go out, I'm not alone and others have winches too.

I used to run with Two batteries on my old SJ413, the wiring and everything that comes with it, was a pain to fit!!

I suppose it really matters what/when you'll be using the Winch - if its in competitions, then get TWO GOOD Batteries, if its Green Laning and Pay 'n' Play, then stick with one Battery, maybe uprate it, but of course there's not much in the engine compartment to fit a larger battery!!

Good Luck!

Thanks for the responses chaps!

Those that run just one battery - have you changed any of the wiring / fuses on the car's standard wiring or just wired your winch straight to the battery with an isolator on the positive side?

As I mentioned when I first created this post, I had concerns about the original high amp fuses being caused to blow.

I take it none of you have experienced any probs with these?

Cheers

Kirkynut

Isolate the negitive line mate

I would normally isolate the neg side but have been led to believe that the positive side is the side to isolate on winch wiring - I suppose as long as the circuit is broken it's isolated.

Have you had any probs with the ignitin fuses?

Kirkynut