Thread: Warn XD9000 rebuild with Albright solenoid & dash control

Originally Posted by genghis

I put a little silicone lubricant around the join to seal it up, being careful not to contaminate the inner surfaces where the earth connection is made.

Although it's a bit late now, don't do this. Keep silicone away from moving contact surfaces (switch contacts, armatures, etc...).

Silicone lubricant like any lubricant has a vapour pressure. And as low as it is, silicone will slowly migrate to the interior. When silicone arrives on a surface that will spark, in the arc silicone will become silicone carbide and will progressively abrade the surfaces.

Silicone lubricant is fantastic for a dielectric grease in applications like connectors where no arcing is ever expected. It keeps seals supple and excludes oxygen. Not so nice when it can migrate anywhere an arc is a potential.

Having said that, really enjoying the write-up!

Originally Posted by BradC

Although it's a bit late now, don't do this. Keep silicone away from moving contact surfaces (switch contacts, armatures, etc...).

Silicone lubricant like any lubricant has a vapour pressure. And as low as it is, silicone will slowly migrate to the interior. When silicone arrives on a surface that will spark, in the arc silicone will become silicone carbide and will progressively abrade the surfaces.

Silicone lubricant is fantastic for a dielectric grease in applications like connectors where no arcing is ever expected. It keeps seals supple and excludes oxygen. Not so nice when it can migrate anywhere an arc is a potential.

Having said that, really enjoying the write-up!

Thanks very much for the words of wisdom. I was pretty paranoid about using it in that situation to begin with because of proximity to the earth contact surfaces so it's good to get some clarity on it.

Thankfully I used very little silicone on the join because of my paranoia and the winch isn't back on the vehicle yet so it's no problem to clean it off. In retrospect I should have drilled/tapped the housing and screwed the brush holder on (as per Dave Jones' advice) to improve the electrical connection so perhaps I'll address that while I'm at it.

I'm more annoyed that I can't go back and edit that post anymore but hopefully anyone attempting this will follow SOP and read all the instructions first...

Now the brake can be reinstalled onto the hex shaft in the drum. As I said elsewhere, take care before you do this that there is no excess lubricant anywhere that might contaminate the brake shoes or the braking surface of the drum.

Also before you start, take a look inside the drum to see if there are any tell-tale marks on the inner drum that indicate where the brake shoes were making contact; the location of these marks will provide an additional check that you have the brake mechanism installed onto the hex shaft correctly.

To install I simply reversed the process used to take it out. Get the shoe assembly sorted as you insert it and, when the mechanism is half way in, remove one of the multi-grips. Continue pushing it down with the long nose multi-grips as far as you can, then release and manoeuvre into place with longer nose pliers. The mechanism may need to be rotated slightly to fit onto the hex shaft.

The brake coupler can then be dropped in on top but care needs to be taken that the tangs on the coupler are 90° to the cam follower tangs (the top two) on the brake mechanism.

When this was done I went back to the motor end and replaced a warning sticker which had disintegrated during the cleanup with some Picasso-level artwork.

Fit the second drum bush and o-ring in the same way as the first one.

Install the motor end by lining up the splined shaft in the brake coupler and the notch in the drum bush with the drum support index tab.

All that remains then is to line up the tie rods between the drum supports and screw them in place with some zinc or silver anti-seize. Warn gives a torque value of 18-22 ft/lb for the tie rod screws in the service manual.

So that's it. End of Part 1.

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PART 2: ELECTRICAL DESIGN AND TESTING

Let me preface this by stating the obvious: electrical work can be dangerous if you're unsure of what you're doing, and by the time you're reading this my truck could just be a pile of ashes. Nothing written by me is a substitute for expert, professional advice. Always seek expert advice, be careful and check everything twice if attempting this or anything like this.

Incidentally, if you're someone who routinely dishes out expert, professional advice on this topic and you think my truck's going to explode I'd appreciate you posting your advice without delay for the benefit of all.

You may recall the state of my factory solenoid unit from earlier posts, so I decided to replace it with a variant of the Albright DC88P. The one I have is an uprated version, Gigglepin model G13008. Wiring and function is pretty much identical to the standard Albright winch control units, but on mine the A and positive terminals are interchangeable which may not be the case with some other versions.

Opinions vary widely on some of the finer points of electrical design but one thing that seems to remain pretty constant is this: the more complex you make an electrical circuit in terms of connections, switches, new-fangled do-dads and what-have-you, the less reliable and the more prone to failure it will become. The simplest solution will be the best solution unless there's a specific reason why it won't. I managed to find a few reasons to complicate things, but for many the simplest way to do this will be the way to go.

So, to begin with, I'm going to talk about how you'd wire this up if all you wanted was to replace the XD9000 solenoid unit with an Albright type and keep the Warn controller. From a design perspective this was my starting point anyway.

My controller is the five pin type (Warn 38626) and I think the controller socket in the solenoid housing is Warn 39886. To remove the controller socket assembly from the housing I removed all the ring terminals from the solenoid studs, destroyed the plastic housing cover and cut the two pin fasteners off.

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Warn use AWG 2 (35mm², not to be confused with 2/0) cable and this is about the minimum that should be considered, especially for the longer runs from the Defender battery. I decided I wanted to go with 50mm², which is a size bigger. Some people go up to 70mm² but I thought that was overkill for me. Lots of people use welding cable, which is more flexible than battery cable and makes installation a bit easier.

I went down the rabbit hole a little bit on this one so I'll share...

Electrical components, cables etc obviously need to be sized to match the load. In this case the load is the winch motor.

Electric motors draw different current loads depending on the physical resistance they encounter. The more resistance they encounter, the more current they draw and the more heat they produce. The point at which they stop turning due to resistance (stall) is when they draw maximum current and produce maximum heat, and in this state most will destroy themselves after a few seconds. They also draw maximum current very briefly when overcoming the inertia of being stationary, which is called the inrush current. Some have a continuous rating, meaning that they can maintain a certain load indefinitely without overheating. In the case of vehicle winch motors this rating is generally about 1/6 to 1/4 of the stall load. Here's a plot I found of a very small electric motor being started up, stalled, then released:
DyWAs.png

What I get from that in terms of cabling is that we need something that is not in any danger of failing at stall load for a few seconds or so, and that will easily transfer the continuous load, or the approximate expected sustained load, with minimal voltage drop indefinitely.

In some dark corner of the internet you might uncover that the XD9000 motor draws 478A at stall, pulling nothing it draws 56A and a couple of stats in between. You will search in vain for any time vs load capability information or a continuous rating. Warn are unfortunately not as straightforward as you might hope regarding their motor specifications.

So look at the solenoid unit for a minute instead. If we go to the Albright (who are conversely very good with providing specifications) data sheet we can see this plot:
DC88P-Data-Sheet-performance.pdf

It shows that the unit will take 500A for about 30 seconds before it thinks about giving up. It will take 250A for a bit under 4 minutes and it will take 100A all day long. If you look at the rating you'll note that it's given as '100A continuous'.

From the XD9000 specs 100A will pull about half a tonne give or take, but we have no idea how long the XD9000 will do this for before generating so much heat that it destroys itself. One would assume quite a while, similar to the solenoid.

And, trying to make the best of Warn's paltry data, I think about real world scenarios: I confess I've done some silly things with vehicle winches but I don't think I've ever tried to pull two tonnes for four solid minutes without taking a break, nor have I stood there for thirty seconds deliberately cooking everything at stall load. I figure my typical usage would be around two tonnes, which according to the data equates to about 250A, for under 30 seconds.

So going through all this I'm starting to think a cable that can handle 150A continuous should be ample. If I then look that up on the popular Enerdrive/Blue Sea cable table, I get 1 AWG / 50mm².

For the switch wiring the load is the Albright coil. The DC88P coil, according to the data sheet, can consume as much as 30W depending on the version. At 12V this equates to about 2.5A. Back to the Enerdrive/BSS table: 16 AWG / 1.5mm². So I went with 1.83mm² for the switch wiring.

Alleged_XD9000_specs.PDF
DC88P-Data-Sheet.pdf
Enerdrive-Cable-Chart.pdf

I'll probably attract some attention if I suggest that you do/don't need an isolator for your winch circuit, so let's just say I'll discuss isolators a bit in a later post. Ultimately I used one in the build but I've never had one or thought I needed one before so I'm treating it as optional.

The main point of this post is to show how the Warn controller integrates with the Albright unit, but if you want your install as simple as possible it would look something like this.

Basic wiring for an XD9000 / Albright style contactor / XD9000 controller:
* Heavy cable from battery positive to Albright + terminal
* Heavy cable from battery negative out to winch motor ground
* Heavy cable from Albright A terminal to winch motor A terminal
* Heavy cable from Albright F1 terminal to winch motor F1 terminal
* Heavy cable from Albright F2 terminal to winch motor F2 terminal
* Wire from Albright spade terminal 1 to Warn controller socket green
* Wire from Albright spade terminal 2 to Warn controller socket black
* Wire from Albright spade terminal 3 to winch motor ground
* Wire from battery positive through a 5A fuse to Warn controller socket white

For reference, the wires on my Warn 5-pin controller socket are:
Green = winch in
Black = winch out
White = 12V power
Red = ground
Brown = switch ground

When connected to the Warn solenoid pack as intended, the controller switches the solenoid coil ground side as well as the voltage. This also disconnects the solenoid ground side when the controller is not plugged into the socket. The brown and red wires are used to switch the ground and are not required for the setup described above, which only switches the voltage side in a single pole arrangement. I didn't connect the ground switch side because it got a bit complicated once I started adding other controllers, but there isn't really any other reason not to. If you'd rather hang onto this safety feature connect Albright spade terminal 3 to the brown controller wire instead of directly to ground and connect the red controller wire to the winch motor ground.

Another safety feature you won't have anymore is the use of redundant solenoids to protect against overrun due to a solenoid malfunction. The old Warn solenoid pack has four whilst the Albright only has two.

albright_wiring.jpg

You can easily fit a wireless remote instead of using the Warn controller. I have one of these as well but, although I thought it might be handy in certain situations, I personally didn't like the idea of relying on it entirely. Mine is the Gigglepin T-T, which is a fairly cheap option in the scheme of things, not to mention it requires batteries and is easy to lose, so I view it as a potential weak link in the system.

If you're happy relying on it and don't need the Warn controller the wiring is, of course, very similar to my previous post. Other wireless options, or any other type of controller for that matter, should be wired essentially the same since they all do the same job. The only difference for wireless as opposed to a mechanical single pole switch is that you have a ground wire for the receiver.

Wired connections on the Gigglepin T-T receiver are:
Yellow = winch in
White = winch out
Red = 12V power
Black = ground
Blue = antenna (no connection required)

Therefore the switch wiring:
* Wire from Albright spade terminal 1 to receiver yellow
* Wire from Albright spade terminal 2 to receiver white
* Wire from Albright spade terminal 3 to winch motor ground
* Wire from battery positive through a 5A fuse to receiver red
* Wire from winch motor ground to receiver black

Note that with things set up this way the receiver is always on, which is probably not desirable; instead you may want to power it using a convenient ignition-switched supply rather than direct from the battery. Alternatively you could add a switch between the fuse and the receiver to enable the remote, or if you're fitting an isolator you can just power the receiver from that so it switches on and off with the main winch circuit.

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Originally Posted by genghis

I'll probably attract some attention if I suggest that you do/don't need an isolator for your winch circuit, so let's just say I'll discuss isolators a bit in a later post. Ultimately I used one in the build but I've never had one or thought I needed one before so I'm treating it as optional.

<snip>

You don't need an isolator because the winch solenoid/s is/are effectively an isolator, However in my opinion you should never live a have +ve feed to the centre pin on your external winch plug , nor your dash switch, nor your wireless remote transmitter.

I wire in a seperate fused 12v main power switch that disconnects the low current supply to the switches . reason being if some smart arse shunts your external remote plug , or a kid in your car plays with switches . or if someone has a remote on your frequency.
I use a Narva 60022BL , the red button illuminates when winch is live.

eg this one in my Power Wagon

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