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Winch gremlin? Battery cables are off, but winch wires still sparking

SFBayArea

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Hi guys,

I decided to relocate winch control Socket from the solenoid box onto the front bumper (the hoop on my bumper was in the way of connecting controller via cable). As usual, I have disconnected negative post from the battery and moved it away. As I cut into wires to make them longer to move socket to the bumper, I see sparks coming from the wires touching each other (total of four wires). I thought what the heck, how is it possible if negative post disconnected? Well, just to be safe, I have disconnected positive post and moved it away from the battery as well. As I start working on the socket wires, shorten them, etc, once I put all four wires together, sparks from the wires again. How is this possible?
I proceeded carefully to finish the job, making sure no wires touching each other anymore. However, once I connected all wires together, what do you know, the wired spooling not working. It is working perfectly if I use remote control, but not the wired remote..

Any ideas? Why was I still getting sparks from the wires even though both negative and positive posts were disconnected from the battery?
Could I burn some switch from those sparks and that is why wired connection does not spooling winch?
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Jeepmonster

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Hi guys,

I decided to relocate winch control Socket from the solenoid box onto the front bumper (the hoop on my bumper was in the way of connecting controller via cable). As usual, I have disconnected negative post from the battery and moved it away. As I cut into wires to make them longer to move socket to the bumper, I see sparks coming from the wires touching each other (total of four wires). I thought what the heck, how is it possible if negative post disconnected? Well, just to be safe, I have disconnected positive post and moved it away from the battery as well. As I start working on the socket wires, shorten them, etc, once I put all four wires together, sparks from the wires again. How is this possible?
I proceeded carefully to finish the job, making sure no wires touching each other anymore. However, once I connected all wires together, what do you know, the wired spooling not working. It is working perfectly if I use remote control, but not the wired remote..

Any ideas? Why was I still getting sparks from the wires even though both negative and positive posts were disconnected from the battery?
Could I burn some switch from those sparks and that is why wired connection does not spooling winch?
I had a similar situation when I was installing the Aux switch kit. I disconnected both battery terminals, but every time I opened the door, the display on the radio would come on, as well as other lights and indicators. I read somewhere that the electrical system isn't completely de-energized if that second battery (for stop/start system) is still connected. I never got around to tracing the wires to see how it is tied into the main battery or main fuse box. When you disconnected from the battery posts, were the wires still hooked up to their terminals - meaning the winch cables were still connected to the tree of connections that attach to the battery posts? Yours might be a different situation that what I experienced, but there were a couple occasions where I disconnected both terminals on my battery, but I still had power.
 

Armyman247

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It’s your second battery every Jeep 3.6 engine has a second smaller “motorcycle” style battery.. so just disconnecting the posts from main battery doesn’t disconnect power from vehicle
 

Mr._Bill

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The negative wire for the second battery connects to the negative terminal connector for the main battery, which is connected to the frame. This keeps the vehicle powered, even when both connectors are disconnected from the main battery. The second battery cable needs disconnected, either the positive at the fuse box or the negative from the main battery connector.
 

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SFBayArea

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Thank you guys. I completely forgot about the second battery, in my JK that was not an issue :).
Now that I know about the second battery, any ideas why winch would operate from the wireless remote control, but would not operate from the wired remote? Any switches that I might burn when those sparks flied?
 

khockey02

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Thank you guys. I completely forgot about the second battery, in my JK that was not an issue :).
Now that I know about the second battery, any ideas why winch would operate from the wireless remote control, but would not operate from the wired remote? Any switches that I might burn when those sparks flied?
Should be pretty easy to probe the remote with an ohm meter and see what’s going on.
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