where are you powering the winch?

[hjdca]

Yes, pull the air box, and leave the battery in. This will allow you to route the cables where you want them.

With the warn solinoid hooked up to your aux switch, the short power cable to your solinoid increases safety

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[ShadowsPapa]

Yes, pull the air box, and leave the battery in. This will allow you to route the cables where you want them.

With the warn solinoid hooked up to your aux switch, the short power cable to your solinoid increases safety

And in my case, I leveraged the hot side of the solenoid to use as a junction and ran my snow plow power cable to that terminal as well instead of also having to run it to the battery positive. Keeps it cleaner and disconnecting that short cable from the + battery terminal kills the plow power and the winch solenoid power as well. One cable, cools two things.

 

[Vtur]

Here's another high quality option. It's cheaper on Ebay. Get one that has (Mexico or Santa Barbara, Ca)on the label. 500A continuous rating. Can be mounted in any position.

https://www.te.com/usa-en/product-1618002-1.html

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Here's another high quality option. It's cheaper on Ebay. Get one that has (Mexico or Santa Barbara, Ca)on the label. 500A continuous rating. Can be mounted in any position.

https://www.te.com/usa-en/product-1618002-1.html

Just make sure if eBay is the source that it's not a fake, there's a lot of that going on out there. Especially with electronics.

The real article will more than handle winches we'd use, even the coil rating is decent with a max of 3.8 surge (in-rush), and a hold-in amperage in the fractional amps.

 

[FKN Slayer]

Depending on your particular winch, it can draw 300-400 amps or more at full load. I simply removed the + lead and insulated it, secured it near the battery. If I need the winch, it can be installed to the + battery terminal quickly.

Is there a reason you would not leave the positive connected and insulate the negative and connect when needed? Most electrical instructions tell you to attach positive wire, then the ground wire. Just curious? It is essentially the same thing either way.

 

[Mr._Bill]

Is there a reason you would not leave the positive connected and insulate the negative and connect when needed? Most electrical instructions tell you to attach positive wire, then the ground wire. Just curious? It is essentially the same thing either way.

It depends on the winch and how the control box is wired. Many have a path to ground through the frame. The positive feed has to be broken to ensure there is no power to the winch. It is best to put the break (relay, manual switch) as close to the battery as possible. This helps to prevent a short and fire if there is an accident.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Is there a reason you would not leave the positive connected and insulate the negative and connect when needed? Most electrical instructions tell you to attach positive wire, then the ground wire. Just curious? It is essentially the same thing either way.

Totally different - apples and oranges.
They are telling you to connect negative last normally in jump start situations and they also advise connect negative AWAY from the battery to an engine ground, etc.
No, it's not the same thing either way.

If you connect the hot wire and have it out front and someone nails you by blowing a stop sign - that positive lead is hot and can get pinched and it's like connecting a wire directly from positive to negative battery terminals. The chassis - body, frame, etc. of the whole vehicle is the battery's negative post. In other words, your whole truck is one big negative battery post.
Doesn't matter what you do with that negative cable, the whole truck is already negative.
Now let that hot lead from the positive terminal get pinched- instant direct connection from positive to negative and sparks fly, things ignite and you call the fire department and your insurance company.

In the case of winches, we are trying to prevent having a big fat welding cable out front to get pinched or even wear through or scrape along the body or chassis, or getting pinched when some moron higher than a kite with whacky tobacky hits the front of your truck, causing that connected and "hot" positive lead to make contact with a metal part on your truck.
There's another smaller part to this, too - that winch is ALREADY grounded through the winch mounting plate, and frame.

If you are extremely brave - or don't care about your truck, take the positive lead that's connected to the battery and run the free end over your bumper or frame........... but be wearing gloves and safety glasses.

Maybe you have noticed - but nobody, no one, not here or anywhere, has ever talked about connecting the positive and leaving the negative disconnected...........

 

[ShadowsPapa]

The positive feed has to be broken to ensure there is no power to the winch.

I'm not so concerned about power to the winch - I'm more concerned about hundreds of amps out front when the roads are full of people that shouldn't even be allowed to drive.

But yes - the winch is typically grounded through the frame of the winch itself - to the winch mounting plate, to the frame, through the chassis ground cable to the battery.
The ground cable on more than one winch goes right to the winch body. The motor is often grounded through the winch motor frame.

Either way - you don't want power from the positive to be up front -
either to ensure the winch can't operate
and/or
to protect the truck from someone backing into it while in a parking lot, or like has happened to forum members - being smacked in the front end by someone who can't find their brake pedal because the alcohol has their legs limp.

 

[FKN Slayer]

Totally different - apples and oranges.
They are telling you to connect negative last normally in jump start situations and they also advise connect negative AWAY from the battery to an engine ground, etc.
No, it's not the same thing either way.

If you connect the hot wire and have it out front and someone nails you by blowing a stop sign - that positive lead is hot and can get pinched and it's like connecting a wire directly from positive to negative battery terminals. The chassis - body, frame, etc. of the whole vehicle is the battery's negative post. In other words, your whole truck is one big negative battery post.
Doesn't matter what you do with that negative cable, the whole truck is already negative.
Now let that hot lead from the positive terminal get pinched- instant direct connection from positive to negative and sparks fly, things ignite and you call the fire department and your insurance company.

In the case of winches, we are trying to prevent having a big fat welding cable out front to get pinched or even wear through or scrape along the body or chassis, or getting pinched when some moron higher than a kite with whacky tobacky hits the front of your truck, causing that connected and "hot" positive lead to make contact with a metal part on your truck.
There's another smaller part to this, too - that winch is ALREADY grounded through the winch mounting plate, and frame.

If you are extremely brave - or don't care about your truck, take the positive lead that's connected to the battery and run the free end over your bumper or frame........... but be wearing gloves and safety glasses.

Maybe you have noticed - but nobody, no one, not here or anywhere, has ever talked about connecting the positive and leaving the negative disconnected...........

OK, that makes sense. I didn't consider that the mounted winch was essentially grounded. I was thinking along the lines of jumping or even on a switch, if you pull the ground wire, the switch won't work. That's why I questioned it. If the positive is disconnected, there is no way the circuit can be completed. Thanks for the explanation. I was completely ignorant to that.

 

[Alk44]

For those more versed in wiring winches, I have a question. I’ve installed a Warn 8274 and am relocating the contactor under the hood to maximize airflow into the grill. With the contactor under the hood I’m not planning to use a separate solenoid to cut off power to the winch. However, I’m considering using the two factory installed 15 amp auxiliary switches to spool the winch in and out. I know they make separate kits for this, but I’m not using the switches for anything else and the switches can be set to momentary and linked to the ignition so it seems to me they should work. Is there any other problem you would anticipate using the aux switches in this way? I do plan to also hook up the traditional hardwired socket and winch controller under the hood so I can operate it from outside as well.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

For those more versed in wiring winches, I have a question. I’ve installed a Warn 8274 and am relocating the contactor under the hood to maximize airflow into the grill. With the contactor under the hood I’m not planning to use a separate solenoid to cut off power to the winch. However, I’m considering using the two factory installed 15 amp auxiliary switches to spool the winch in and out. I know they make separate kits for this, but I’m not using the switches for anything else and the switches can be set to momentary and linked to the ignition so it seems to me they should work. Is there any other problem you would anticipate using the aux switches in this way? I do plan to also hook up the traditional hardwired socket and winch controller under the hood so I can operate it from outside as well.

Spool in and out? You won't be "spooling out" unless you or someone or something is out there pulling the rope out or you'll have a mess, IMO.
Spool in? The rope just laying there and you'd use a switch to wind it back up?
No, you'd use the winch's hand-held control.

Don't even think of wiring those little aux switches to handle winch functions.
You will be using the winch's control and with no heavy cables going to the winch (other than from the contactor), you won't need those aux switches at all.

 

[4S50]

Alk44, you really need momentary switches to control the winch solenoids/contactor and the aux switches will not handle anywhere near the amperage needed to run the winch. If you need a wiring diagram for the contactor let me know. I did something similar a few years ago with an old 8274 on a CJ5 and I upgraded to a contactor and put it under the hood.

 

[Alk44]

Spool in and out? You won't be "spooling out" unless you or someone or something is out there pulling the rope out or you'll have a mess, IMO.
Spool in? The rope just laying there and you'd use a switch to wind it back up?
No, you'd use the winch's hand-held control.

Don't even think of wiring those little aux switches to handle winch functions.
You will be using the winch's control and with no heavy cables going to the winch (other than from the contactor), you won't need those aux switches at all.

I agree, being able to operate the winch from outside the cab is essential under many circumstances to include just managing the line. However, the reason I would wire the winch for in cabin control is for when I may want to be able to steer and control the truck while operating the winch on a recovery. When I was growing up, we always just used the wired controller. Since then I’ve worked with some vehicles that had in cab control and it is actually useful to have both. It’s especially true for me, because I often don’t have help or at least good help in a recovery situation. It’s much less of a problem if you have a lot of good experienced help around and can have someone steer and someone else winch, and in an ideal situation have good spotters. I’m not often in that situation. In cab control is situation dependent, but once most folks experience it they want it.

Spooling out under winch power is less common, especially when you can just free spool when hooking up. However, if the winch is under load and you are still stuck, the line is under tension and you can’t free spool. Sometimes in a recovery it is also useful to spool out to reposition a vehicle while keeping the line hooked up and taut. The need for spooling out from the cab is much less common than spooling in, but if I’m operating the winch from the cab already it would be nice to do both.

I’m much less experienced with automotive wiring and not sure what second order effects might emerge from my plan to use the aux switches. I know a lot of folks use them for an interrupt, but I have never heard of anyone using them for actual winch control and I’m wondering why not. A lot of people buy kits to put in cab control in their vehicles and I wonder why more people don’t just use the aux switches. I’m always hesitant to do something no one else is doing, because they likely have a good reason.

 

[Alk44]

Alk44, you really need momentary switches to control the winch solenoids/contactor and the aux switches will not handle anywhere near the amperage needed to run the winch. If you need a wiring diagram for the contactor let me know. I did something similar a few years ago with an old 8274 on a CJ5 and I upgraded to a contactor and put it under the hood.

I’m using the aux switches to operate the contactor so they just need the amperage to operate the solenoid in the contactor. The winch power is coming from the battery.

The aux switches allow you to choose whether they are momentary or continuous and whether they are active with the ignition on or always active. I’ll planning to set mine to momentary and with the ignition running only for winch control.

I appreciate the wiring offer. There’s actually a couple of really good posts with pictures higher in this thread I’m using already. I’ll pm you if I have more questions.

 

[RudeJeepin]

I’m using the aux switches to operate the contactor so they just need the amperage to operate the solenoid in the contactor. The winch power is coming from the battery.

The aux switches allow you to choose whether they are momentary or continuous and whether they are active with the ignition on or always active. I’ll planning to set mine to momentary and with the ignition running only for winch control.

I appreciate the wiring offer. There’s actually a couple of really good posts with pictures higher in this thread I’m using already. I’ll pm you if I have more questions.

Your plan should work fine.
My CJ5 had the control box mounted under the hood. I wired up 3 way momentary switch inside. Plus I could plug the regular remote into the control box and run the winch that way.
The only problem is, what if someone were to push one of the aux switches. You'd probably want another switch to kill power to the winch, so it can't be activated accidentally.

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