Thread: Winch on a winch!

Some confusion you are not connecting the cables to each other but to the cars themselves so 2 cables and 2 winches, doubles the winch power and cable capacity

Yes, some confusion. I took it as the winch cables joined in the middle, I figured that would be obvious by my explanations....so in my example, speed would not increase for the winch/s themselves but the time would be halved.

Not sure about the loads - but it works and works well
One nasty Bathurst Heads trip we had a stuck tojo ute in the goop way in deep no trees worth a pinch of salt

I parked the fender on the hard and attached its winch onto the rear bar of the disco which drove off into the goop till he lost traction
then disco and tojo went winch to winch (with extension between)

So essentially 25m of fender rope to rear of disco - 25m of disco winch cable to 60 of extension attached to 25m of tojo winch cable)

Then all three vehicles just powered away till we could drive out

Obviously this isnt stuck fast to the rails or on steep rocks - just a failure to proceed in black soil mud

Cant see the problem and its definitely faster winch to winch
Load in this case was relatively unimportant but just think if each winch takes 5 minutes to spool its cable and you have to winch 50m total distance
One winch will take 10 minutes plus re-rigging an extension etc
Two simultaneous winches will take 5 minutes

Steve

Judo
I see your point but in my experience most low mounts will stall out way before they apply the full "9000lb" especially considering that once you get past the first wraps on the drum the "rated capacity" drops way down

S

Scenario 1 cable to cable
Twice the speed of single line
Not twice the force as the sheer pin will still break at same point of overload.

Scenario 2 winch cables connect to opposite vehicle.
Same speed as single line and twice speed of double line
Same pull force as double line

assuming perfect world, ie winches identical

Both probably have risk of damage to winch but in competition, hell go for it!

Me I drive not to get stuck as I have a Tirfor. And that is the best form of education you can get!

James
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Concfused

My understanding was the each winch cable was attached to each vehicle. So I stand by my theory.

In the case where the cables are link together in the middle, the speed would increase by double for sure.

The rating of winches, be 9000lb's or 12000lb's is worked out on the first roll of cable on the winch drum. For every addition layer of cable the capacity drops. Obviously caused by the increase OD of the drum.

Originally Posted by dullbird

We wondered could you attach the hooks of both winches and from each car to each other and both winch in at the same time effectively pulling the car forward?

If the "each other" refers to the hooks at the ends of the cable, you have the same load on each winch and double the speed, as I said originally.

If the "other" means the other vehicle, you kave the same speed and half the load on each winch.

So the answer is, "It depends on what you mean by connecting to 'each other'."

If your mate is hanging over a cliff and you have to rescue him/ her and you're both hanging on by one arm each, you are feeling the full weight (force) of the person who is dangling through that one arm. Right so far? So, as we've all seen in the movies and would, no doubt, do ourselves we would employ our other idle arm and grab the dangling person's idle arm. There, we've halved the load on the first arm we used. So the load would be halved but the rescue, retraction speed would not.