Winch efficiency: line speed, amperage, and heat factor

[verdesardog]

All that info is GREAT! But I feel you guys are overthinking the issue. Just get a winch and use it to the best of it's capabilities. I drove tow trucks for several years. PTO would be my first choice but since there aren't many of those available for consumer vehicles I put a Mile Marker hydraulic winch on my truck. I will never have another electric winch (I've had two warns one of which broke!) on any vehicle I own!

 

[I Leak Oil]

Yup, you already said that.

This is more of a geek thread than anything. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[verdesardog]

Yup, you already said that.

This is more of a geek thread than anything. Nothing wrong with that.

ohoh sign of old age? repeating myself???? LOL

 

[RoyJ]

Now that right there is a great argument for the metric system!

All joking aside, a very interesting analysis. Thanks for taking the time to do this, it certainly changes my thoughts about winches.

Being Canadian, I totally agree! Had to convert a lot of numbers to imperial, even though I did the background crunching in metric. Didn't want to lose anyone with meters/s, newtons force, and kilowatts of power...

 

[RoyJ]

All that info is GREAT! But I feel you guys are overthinking the issue. Just get a winch and use it to the best of it's capabilities. I drove tow trucks for several years. PTO would be my first choice but since there aren't many of those available for consumer vehicles I put a Mile Marker hydraulic winch on my truck. I will never have another electric winch (I've had two warns one of which broke!) on any vehicle I own!

Yup, you already said that.

This is more of a geek thread than anything. Nothing wrong with that.

And that's the great thing about this (or any other) hobby - it lets people get creative and explorer things just for the sake of doing so. No time pressure, no deadlines, no paycheck :ylsmoke:

Whenever I do a geek thread in any hobby, I find 3 groups: those that out-geek me, who takes the info and does experiments or build prototypes; those that find the info interesting, gain new understanding of how and why things work (this is myself); and those that feel it's an entire waste of effort and just want to get things done.

Nothing wrong with ANY of the groups - I find myself in all 3. But as an engineer, I do believe in the power of knowledge, and it is knowledge that has spawned into many great creations in society.

 

[RoyJ]

I curious to know where drum diameter comes into play. The last 4 winches have different drum diameters.
DV 12 lite: 2.5”
DV 12: 3.5”
DV 15: 3.5”
Warn Series 15: 4”

Most Warn consumer winches have 2.65” for synthetic rope and 2.5” for wire rope. The M8274-50 has a 3.5” diameter drum.
To me the drum diameter would come into play with the overall line speed and current draw.

Definitely. The effective gearing is really a result of the actual gearing and the drum diameter. Bigger drum will make for taller effective gearing.

VERY good point that you guys caught, and I missed!

That should explain why the DV12 light uses a taller gear ratio than the regular DV12. It also shows just how good the Series 15 motor really is - it's spinning a larger diameter drum, and still gave the DV15 a serious butt kicking.

 

[RoyJ]

I do agree that when the winch is near the rated capacity, a double line pull can be more efficient.

I still question if it is worth it, and ultimately more efficient in the end....

.....................

In the end, this is a good thread. I appreciate pushing people to expand how they think about vehicle recovery.
I just have a different opinion.

All good points again.

And this is why in my study, I make a note to point out winches that DON'T benefit at all from doubling up. These winches would be ideal for people that don't want all the hassle of a science experiment...

The general trend seems to be the higher HP a motor has, the more the power curve gets shifted to the higher line pull. With these winches, you really want to stay with single line, unless you absolutely must conserve power (dead alternator, need battery reserve to get off trail to nearest town).

Again, this study focuses on developing a trend / pattern, not the 10 commandments of winching.

 

[RoyJ]

Right, if I was that serious about winching I would be looking at a PTO and/or hydraulic system. I think someone could do some really neat things with an automatic transmission and a PTO drive off the transfer case...

I may have mentioned this already, but on i8mud, there is a European fella who has an 80 series with PTO off the transfer case. He's running a high performance winch at high pressure and high flow rate, fed by an enormous 80L (21 gallon) behind his rear seat, with the pump where the factory spare was.

Sounds ridiculous, and probably is, unless you're the dedicated rescue truck of a large convoy. But if you want any real performance out of a hydraulic winch, that's probably necessary.

A stock P/S pump won't do much better than an electric, and even an upgraded one won't be much over say, an 8274 with the 6hp industrial motor.

 

[RoyJ]

RoyJ,

May I request you run the numbers on a smaller and lighter permanent magnet winch, such as the Warn ProVantage 4500? This winch seems to have a lot of pulling power for its weight, with a downside of a less than stellar duty cycle. I have considered this winch on a movable mount mainly for general purpose use with the idea of being able to perform an occasional self recovery using a snatch block. I really don't want the weight penalty of a "normal" winch since I feel I won't need the capability it offers.

Interesting idea! Was thinking of something similar myself.

Here we go, Pro Van 4500, 1.9 hp, 154:1 gear ratio.

Calculations:



Line speed and amperage wrt line pull:



Power output and efficiency:




Conclusion:

1) This is why I love doing these studies - one glance at the power and efficiency curves, and you know exact how the manufacturer geared the winch, where (in terms of line pull) it perform well, and where it sucks. You can then conclude which applications are the best for it.

2) This winch is way over-geared, efficiency peaks at 1000 lbs, and power drops off sharply past 3000 lbs. By Warn's big winch standards, this should have been a 3000 lbs winch.

3) If you decide to take this winch up to its 4500 lbs rated load, you're burning close to big winch power (318 amps), while producing less power than a kitchen blender! (295 watts)

4) This winch would definitely need some snatch block(s) to work on a truck. Yes Metcalf, I know the drawbacks

Let's see if there's a better UTV winch in Warn's lineup for pulling out a full size vehicle. Maybe something with better gearing - the built-in snatch block...

 

[RoyJ]

Warn Vantage 4000. 1.4 hp, 180:1 gearing.

Calculations:



Line speed and amperage wrt line pull:



Power output and efficiency:




Conclusions:

1) Much better than the 4500 model. Despite less rated power, the two winches are identical in real tests (495 vs 506 peak watts).

2) The BIG difference is where they develop this power, then Pro Van 4500 does it at the 2000 - 3000 lbs range, and the Vantage 4000 does it at the 2500 - 4000 lbs range.

3) Because of this, the Vantage 4000 is much better suited to pull out a full size vehicle, especially with the help of a snatch block.

4) When used at near their peak line pull, neither little winches are as efficient as a full size winch @ less than max line pull. But at 18 lbs, the trade-off may be well worth it for an occasional use. Sure beats a come-along


I hope people begin to see the value in this - pattern finding to see where a winch performs the best. Without doing the calculations, anyone would've though a 1.9hp 4500 lbs winch would kick a 1.4hp 4000 lbs winch's butt, but we've just proven the exact opposite.

 

[I Leak Oil]

ohoh sign of old age? repeating myself???? LOL

I hear ya. I find myself forgetting the simplest of things these days. I'm becoming my father!

 

[Metcalf]

I may have mentioned this already, but on i8mud, there is a European fella who has an 80 series with PTO off the transfer case. He's running a high performance winch at high pressure and high flow rate, fed by an enormous 80L (21 gallon) behind his rear seat, with the pump where the factory spare was.

Sounds ridiculous, and probably is, unless you're the dedicated rescue truck of a large convoy. But if you want any real performance out of a hydraulic winch, that's probably necessary.

A stock P/S pump won't do much better than an electric, and even an upgraded one won't be much over say, an 8274 with the 6hp industrial motor.

I'm wondering about a winch driven directly off the pto output. No hydraulics.....except the functions the automatic transmission could provide. I'll try and put down some thoughts later, but think about it.....

 

[comptiger5000]

I may have mentioned this already, but on i8mud, there is a European fella who has an 80 series with PTO off the transfer case. He's running a high performance winch at high pressure and high flow rate, fed by an enormous 80L (21 gallon) behind his rear seat, with the pump where the factory spare was.

Sounds ridiculous, and probably is, unless you're the dedicated rescue truck of a large convoy. But if you want any real performance out of a hydraulic winch, that's probably necessary.

A stock P/S pump won't do much better than an electric, and even an upgraded one won't be much over say, an 8274 with the 6hp industrial motor.

Yeah, a PS pump driven hydro winch won't outperform an electric (and will probably be slower). But provided you run a nice, big cooler in the fluid return line, the advantage comes in being able to keep winching until you're out of gas without worrying about sucking down the batteries or running into duty cycle limits for the winch motor.

 

[Metcalf]

Yeah, a PS pump driven hydro winch won't outperform an electric (and will probably be slower). But provided you run a nice, big cooler in the fluid return line, the advantage comes in being able to keep winching until you're out of gas without worrying about sucking down the batteries or running into duty cycle limits for the winch motor.

True, but we are getting out on the fringe again. What is the likelihood that anyone would be in that situation.....

If I need to winch more than a pull or two, I am likely going to spend some time scouting ahead to see what things looks like.
There is always the option to turn yourself around and go back the way you came.

I don't know how you would run the numbers, but my gut says that during multiple long pulls, it is going to take you enough time to re-rig the winch anchor after every pull, that the battery would charge and the winch motor would cool down.

On the ultimate adventure trip this year, we 'had' to winch everyone up this really long muddy hill. It was steep and slick enough that the vehicles would not 'stay' on the hill unassisted. It took me re-rigging 4 times with something like 300-400 feet of winching to get to the top. I did this as fast as we could rig the different winch points. I didn't overheat the winch or flat the battery. We had a few people out of the group of 20+ that had issues, but everyone made it to the top. I can only remember 2-3 vehicles that where having battery voltage problems.

 

[I Leak Oil]

I really feel the issue of battery drain and heat are WAY overblown for the vast majority of users.