Electric winches on expo trucks.

[Isuzu 4x4 Bus]

there are 5 x 120 watt solar panels, but not enough to keep up in winter.. and I last count I think we held all the rugby sheilds.... but all campers are a compromise, we have jumped on a lot of other campers and always get camper envy... but the bank manager has ruled that the account is now past empty so this will have to do us for a few years to come..

 

[Isuzu 4x4 Bus]

have a look at www.prujean.com look under bus pics, still need to put more pics up but that gives you a general idea..

 

[Isuzu 4x4 Bus]

hope this works

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3003/3752497345_5dd48688c8_m.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2583/3752492241_6cdeca3dcb_m.jpg

this will give you a bit of an idea on what we have ended up with, would have been great to have a huge budget...

 

[oz101]

Has anyone used a 12v hydraulic power pack to run a winch, as this is the way I would like to go, my winch manufacture said you need 50L-75L/min @ 166 bar to run a 12,000lb winch and the biggest 12v power pack I can find only puts out 20L/min @ 200 bar does this mean that the power pack would run the winch but at a slower speed.
I would really appropriate your thoughts on this as I am not very good with hydraulics.
Cheers.

 

[michaelgroves]

Has anyone used a 12v hydraulic power pack to run a winch, as this is the way I would like to go, my winch manufacture said you need 50L-75L/min @ 166 bar to run a 12,000lb winch and the biggest 12v power pack I can find only puts out 20L/min @ 200 bar does this mean that the power pack would run the winch but at a slower speed.
I would really appropriate your thoughts on this as I am not very good with hydraulics.
Cheers.

This seems to me to be the worst of all worlds. Almost all the weaknesses of an electric winch, with the cost and weight and complexity of a electrics and hydraulics, and the added inefficiency of converting electrical power into hydraulic power.

As a backup powerpack, maybe. Or if you were suggesting a petrol-powered hydraulic pump, then yes, that has a number of advantages.

 

[whatcharterboat]

This seems to me to be the worst of all worlds. Almost all the weaknesses of an electric winch, with the cost and weight and complexity of a electrics and hydraulics, and the added inefficiency of converting electrical power into hydraulic power.

As a backup powerpack, maybe. Or if you were suggesting a petrol-powered hydraulic pump, then yes, that has a number of advantages.

Hi Michael, How are you? Didn't we have a big chat about thin film solar a while back?

OK. I've installed 6 electric / hydraulic winches over the years. There was a complete package available here a few years back but through serious bad luck the guy had to take them off the market. Too long a story to put up here but I can assure you it wasn't because of the winch's performance. They seemed great and he was trying to stitch up a US military contract at the time. Actually I have one at work on a truck ATM. They were 10,000lb and very light. The one power pack could drive a front and rear winch and they came with an optional 2 more valve packs so that you could run optional hydraulics. We set up 2 different trucks with trailbike racks and wheel lifters, all powered by the same power pack that ran the 2 winches and all controlled either by dash mounted switches or a pocket sized cordless remote.

The benefit you get with electric / hydraulic over straight electric is that when an electric reaches stall the current runs away. I've seen a series wound DC motor draw 4 times the rated current as the load was applied. When you couple a big electric to a large house bank this can happen easily. However with an electric/hydraulic the stall (or really high loads) can be controlled by a bypass valve effectively saving the batteries from the excessive strain.

Basically the current can be set to a set maximum. If you won lotto I suppose you could have a PTO pump AND an electric power pack but ....................... I haven't heard anything negative from any of the owners with these winches. One truck was nearly 8 ton.

 

[whatcharterboat]

Has anyone used a 12v hydraulic power pack to run a winch, as this is the way I would like to go, my winch manufacture said you need 50L-75L/min @ 166 bar to run a 12,000lb winch and the biggest 12v power pack I can find only puts out 20L/min @ 200 bar does this mean that the power pack would run the winch but at a slower speed.
I would really appropriate your thoughts on this as I am not very good with hydraulics.

Hi Adam, If you are coming over tomorrow, lets have a good look at the winch setup on that old truck and see if we can get some numbers off the pump. Except for the winches themselves, it's all generic / off-the-shelf type stuff. I remember they were really feather weight with Plasma Rope fitted instead of steel cable.

Also the other benefit I didn't mention to Michael was that the power pack can be mounted really high above the water level and it doesn't matter if the winch is submerged indefinitely. It will be 1000% water proof and probably never in it's lifetime need to be rebuilt. I doubt you could say that about an electric.

 

[michaelgroves]

Hiya John - yes, good memory!

Fair comment on both of those advantages over an electric. Myself, I'd still opt for an engine drive pump, especially on a bigger truck. When you're stuck, you need a certain amount of energy to get you out, whether that's spent generating a huge amount of power over a short time, or less power over a longer time.

To get a 10-tonne pull with an electric winch, you'd be drawing well over 400A, with an effective line speed of typically 0.5metres/minute (through a snatch-block). So a 10m pull is going to require 20 minutes, pulling at over 400amps! (I took the specs of a Warn M12000 as being typical). That's close to 6MJ of energy, assuming that after the first minute or two, the heat losses don't start to go off the scale. You can use a smaller winch through more snatch blocks, which will lower the amperage requirements, but proportionally raise the duration of the current draw. (This offers many advantages, however: less heat, simplified cabling, lighter, cheaper, less battery damage, etc.).

Doing it hydraulically, through a 12V powerpack, is going to need similar energy - in fact more because of the losses converting to hydraulic power.

Since any time you're properly stuck, you will need the engine running either way, it seems to me it's worth the trouble of fitting a belt/PTO driven pump, even if just a PS pump, and running the hydraulics that way.

 

[whatcharterboat]

Since any time you're properly stuck, you will need the engine running either way, it seems to me it's worth the trouble of fitting a belt/PTO driven pump, even if just a PS pump, and running the hydraulics that way.

That's what I reckon too. Or if your engine's not running , someone else's better be.

You can use a smaller winch through more snatch blocks, which will lower the amperage requirements, but proportionally raise the duration of the current draw. (This offers many advantages, however: less heat, simplified cabling, lighter, cheaper, less battery damage, etc.).

Also this is a good assumption too Michael. Especially if your charging system is kicking in close to what's going out. With a smaller electrical load this becomes a real possibility. As I said before we only used 10 000lb electric/hydraulic winches on those earlier trucks and they seemed to work well.

 

[Mickldo]

That's what I reckon too. Or if your engine's not running , someone else's better be.



Also this is a good assumption too Michael. Especially if your charging system is kicking in close to what's going out. With a smaller electrical load this becomes a real possibility. As I said before we only used 10 000lb electric/hydraulic winches on those earlier trucks and they seemed to work well.

Yeah, the hydraulic winches we fit at work are 8,000lb, 10,000lb and 12,000lb. These winches are fitted to 300 series up to 600 series trucks and get used all the time.

 

[chasespeed]

For winches, I would say AMOUNT of continuous use, and type of use are more important.

We used Hydraulic winches on our trucks, everything from Humvees, to 5 tons.. Never seen an MTVR with a winch though...

Anyway, These were(are) MILSPEC rated.

They had to make a unlimited Duty Cycle(100% at full load), water proof, and be able to operate for 28 CONTINUOUS minutes....

Well, while I have had electric winches before, on lighter vehicles, on something like my truck, no way...

I have one of these winches from a Humvee, on the front of my rig... and, as stated, have used it for a assisting with logging, felling trees(really makes that job a lot easier), Just, all around, a great winch.. and, having a diesel, I am not really worried about the engine not running... If I had to do a LONG HARD pull with the motor off, I probably wouldnt have enough juice to start the truck again...

My 2 cents....

 

[whatcharterboat]

Chasespeed>> Thanks for the valid and obviously well informed comments. Experience like yours isn't cheap so don't sell yourself short. Worth way more than 2 cents.

Hey Johnny, how are ya?

Well Davo.....Hahha.

I'll keep you posted but we'll have the truck for quite a few more weeks. When it's done I'll post a heap of pics. It's an FG84 doing a 4 year RTW trip. We've just got too much on at the moment to build the whole thing so the camper body and systems will be done by someone else ( a local caravan builder). The guy is on a very tight schedule. Wants to do 60 days testing round Australia and then ships to Africa from Perth in December. So we don't have too much time.

If we can, were doing the floor frame and body mounts, 5 link coil suspension, fuel tanks (about 400litres), water tanks (about 300litres), battery cradles, winch mounts front and rear, bike rack, cage over the cab, suspension seats, air tank/compressor, spare wheel lifters/rack, spotlights, bull bar and what ever else we can squeeze into the time frame.. Have trucks every where at the moment.

We've got 4 other major jobs on the go as well so I may not be around as much as normal over the next couple of months.

Johnny out.

 

[whatcharterboat]

Just a little update on that winch removable winch bracket I had to make at work. Some pics just before it was sent down to the powdercoaters. Still working on the rear bar but the winch bracket fits in OK. So does the front. Slides in great. Did I say it was heavy?

 

[whatcharterboat]

And here it is tacked together still on the truck.

And while we're at it.

And the bar work ready for powdercoat too. That's a HF bracket on the right with the holy gusset. You can tell we just got a new tubebender. Hahaha.

 

[whatcharterboat]

Hey Mick. This looks better, hey? (These are the same brand as Mickldo is always talking about)

They are made here locally (well Brisvegas anyway). Military spec worm drive winch. Only pull about 320Amps and as tough as nails. External breather and you can turn around and mount them any way up you want. Bend the lever anyway too. Not easy to fit cause most aftermarkert bars you buy are setup for Warn or Warn clones and as you can see they are nothing like it. The hydraulic version and prop shaft version are exactly the same but without the electric motor. This one's been modded for Synthetic rope so all the sharp edges where the rope secures have been smoothed off. We've also fitted our own winch single changeover relay, cordless remote, dash mounted control and a keyed "lockout" battery isolator.