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Winch Questions
Ken, I have used a variety of winches before. I tend to like Warn winches, but there are other good ones (ramsey). Look around a lot before you buy one. There is some terminology to learn.
Single line pull is the rated pull of the winch. It can be specified in the actual pull force or in a more arbitrary "rolling load" specification. The rolling load spec is only an estimate and is always larger than the actual pull force.
The counter point to single line pull involved the use of a snatch block. The block is a pulley that allows for doubling the cable to get twice the pulling force for the same winch. You attach the block to the tree or other anchor and run the cable from your vehicle to the block and back to your vehicle again.
The other area of difference concerns the guides for the cable as it exits the winch. These can be oblong bushings (Haus fairlead) or can have multiple rollers to guide the cable (roller fairlead). The roller version is better, more expensive, and requires some maintenance.
Remotes can be on the end of a cable or wireless. I prefer the cable variety. If I have to punch the button twice for my garage door, it is no big deal. If I am winching a vehicle it has to work, NOW!
Another potential problem with winches is the amount of electricity that they consume. I think that it might be pretty easy to use more than a CUT battery and charging system can provide.
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Mark and Ken,
If a 3ph or loader can generate 1000-2000 pounds of lift, wouldn't it be significantly weaker than a winch?
For times that I have been in a vehicle without a winch and headed into the rougher areas, we have taken a hand operated "come-along" to use with our pull straps. As you described, it would not be for everyday use, but when you need it, you can get these hand operated winches that will pull 4000 pounds or more. I have never had to use a "backup" winch like this, but I have had one in reserve on at least a dozen trips.
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Winch advertisements are misleading and I don't like them. Some will specify the dead lift capacity and others discuss the rolling load. The rolling load is always higher, but has so many assumptions associated with it that I think it is almost useless. If a winch manufacturer says a winch will handle a 6000 pound rolling load, is that in mud, on flat ground, over big rocks...? So, answering your question, I don't think that there is a clear mathematical relationship between rolling load and dead lift capability. There may be some industry standard for specifying "rolling load" but I don't think that it is widely known.
The other part of the marketing hype is duty cycle. You can overdrive a motor and it will overheat. So, if your winch can only develop its rated pull for one minute and then it has to rest for ten, it is going to take a while to complete the winching operation. For duty cycle and endurance there is no substitute for the mass of the winch and bigger is always better.
I am pretty sure that you can get winches that can pull at 2000-3000 pounds. You can double that pull capacity with a snatch-block pulley, but it also halves your winching speed. I have not looked at vehicle winches for a few years, so I don't know what is commercially available.
Mark, there is no doubt about it that you can generate pull the way you are describing with the loader or 3PH. The way you describe it, I guess that you would attach a pulley to the tractor frame and pull with the loader against that. The question is always going to be "How much pull and over what distance and direction will you need to winch to get out of the problem?"
It would seem to me that you could generate a lot more force by digging the bucket in and rolling it to push you a foot or so at a time, but that only helps when moving straight forward. Another thought would be to hook a chain or strap to the bucket and roll bucket to tighten the tow line. You might be able to get a couple of feet of movement using this approach, but you could not pull at too much of an angle. The "tackle" that you mentioned would allow you to pull at a pretty significant angle to the tractor frame.
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I did some digging into the data. This is for a top of the line winch. One major winch manufacturer clearly says that they can actually pull 9500 pounds on the first layer of the winch drum. (all cable extended off of the winch) That drops to around 6000 pounds when the winch has four layers of cable on it already. I am not saying that I believe the 9500 spec, I am only reporting it, but other things seem accurate in the specs like the reduced capacity with a full cable drum.
Here is some interesting data.
Pull; Speed; Current
0 ; 62; 47
2000; 16; 160
4000; 12; 230
6000; 9; 305
8000; 7.6; 370
9500; 6.7; 425
The speed is in feet per minute. Look at the current that is required for 9500 pounds of pull. You had better have a backup battery as well as the engine running. I would think that most truck batteries are going to be depleted in a couple of minutes at that drain rate. These ratings are for the first layer of the winch spool, so with a full spool, the 6000 pound load would also draw 425 amps. I did not see any indication that they were using any kind of pulley tackle for these tests.
If these ratings are true, then this winch should lift most trucks off of the ground. But, the huge forces are necessary when a wheel is down in a hole and the winch is pulling at an angle. It may have to drag the vehicle as well as pull at a very unfavorable position to pop the wheel(s) out of a hole. Fortunately for most people, it is not necessary to apply the high levels of force for very long.
Sorry, but I don't seem to be able to keep the spacing in my table. The first number on each line is pull in pounds, the second is speed in fpm, and the third is the current in amps.
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Mark, I ran through the numbers on Warn's top of the line winch, and it should be able to pull 9500 pounds with a single line cable on an empty cable drum. The overall conversion efficiency for converting electrical energy into winching work is about 50% which is normal. I guess that I am a little surprised by this, but that means that I have learned something new.
I mentioned that heat buildup would be a problem. The Warn winch I looked at uses over 5000 watts of electrical power, so it will heat up fast at full power. It should tell you something that they have included a temperature monitoring display on the remote for this winch as the new hot feature.
I figure that if you were pulling a CUT, this winch would use about 2500W. You would probably heat up the winch and deplete the battery in about ten minutes, but that would move you nearly 100 ft in the process.
Murf, I have seen winches lift vehicle front ends as you describe, but it depends on a lot of things. The most important thing is to hitch to a tree or other immovable object quite a distance away from the winch and to hitch at a point lower than the winch cable height on the vehicle. In that case, it will stay neutral to slight downforce on the wheels.
This Warn winch that I just looked over should be able to pull most light trucks straight up the side of a building. That would be a hell of a wheely machine.
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Thanks for the clarification.
I had thought that Mark was talking about a tackle block attached to the frame of the tractor, so that the work would happen between the loader and the frame mounted tackle block.
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