Thread: Hand vs electric winch: solo travelling

Hi Landi, i checked ebay ( my price reference system Mako $1300, with synthetic rope, Runva an unbelievable $650 with synthetic rope. Warn XD 9000 with synthetic about $2000. Runva seem to stand strongly behind their product, and Mako talk about good waterproofing etc. I recall there was an in depth discussion on one of the threads earlier about the various winches, that would be good reference.

My old warn XD 9000 winch, (with a steel rope), has done a lot of work, it's been rebuilt once, and stripped down for cleaning at least one other time, it's reasonable quality, but there is something I don't like about it. No effort has been made to water proof or dust proof, where the drum enters the winch ends. The drum is just sitting on nylon bushes. So water, mud, dust etc getting into your winch makes more work for you. So any winch where an effort to seal it has been made is a bonus and worth paying for IMV.

I'll have to make decision soon about replace with a new winch, or refurbish my old Warn again. I like the idea of the Mako, but will probably end up refurbising and fitting a new dyneema rope. ($400 all up).

I chose the XD 9000 because it had a reputation for reliability etc, and it fits between the chassis rails of a land rover, so it can be closer mounted to the car. good luck with you project cheers simmo.

Yeh interesting point about the waterproofing. Runva are doing a "Premium 11XP" which they say has an IP67 rated motor. That's the only winch I've come across so far that doesn't just make vague claims about how tight the seals are.

electric winches re cheap and generally reliable but have a duty cycle can leave you with a battery thats too flat to start your car and will continue to winch for a short time after your engine is stopped

pro winches will winch for as long as the engine is running but can be a little abrupt on the control

hydraulic winches have the best of both worlds ,can be fitted with back upelectric boost pumps for when the engine has died but wont winch uside down.

all are a bucket load easier than a handwinch.

but a hand winch will work anywhere you can for as long as you can and it doesnt care about the orientation of the vehicle if the engine is running or the state of the batteries or even if its being used underwater.

just stand by to sweat for it.

If I was travelling solo, could only afford the one winch and set of reovery gear I would take the hand winch and send the leftover on adding more bits to the recovery kit.

Originally Posted by Landi

Yeh interesting point about the waterproofing. Runva are doing a "Premium 11XP" which they say has an IP67 rated motor. That's the only winch I've come across so far that doesn't just make vague claims about how tight the seals are.

Water proof is realy not a issue All that has to be remembered is to operate the winch and get it hot not too long after a dunking with in a day or 2 to dry the moisture out of the winch
Plenty of winch`s have survived years with out being water proof just by doing this

I agree with rangieman, about water proofing, you can get by without it, its just extra work in maintenance.
But once the water is in there it is hard to get it all out quickly, some of it condenses again as the winch cools down.

The electric winches do work under water no problem, and drying them out is the go.
During my last overhaul, I drilled and tapped both ends of the winch/motor, and connected hoses to them.
I can blow air in one end and out the other, my plan at the time was to have a solenoid & pressure regulator connected to my air tank, to supply at at 2 psi via a canister filled with silca gel. ( a work in progress for 5 years ).

Before a deep crossing I could open the dry air into the winch to reduce the amount of water entering, and then leave the air on for a few hours while driving to dry the winch out. Silica gel can be refreshed by warming in the oven, it's not hard to get or expensive.

If I could have only one winch it would be an electric one, just from the point of view its easy to use and will get you out of 95% of the problems. Sure you can't winch backwards, but that's the only advantage I can see for a hand winch. If you follow the makers advice regarding the battery capacity, you should be OK. It's hard to exceed the duty cycle of the winch, even in difficult situations because you have to be constantly re rigging the winch to different points as the recovery progresses, it gives the battery and the winch some recovery time, I never winch without the engine running.

I used to almost always be alone in the forest , because of my work pattern I had time off during the weekdays. I got stuck a lot because of the terrain and the trailer/ weight. I couldn't have got out of some of those situations with a hand winch because of the amount of physical work required. A couple of times it took me 2 hours of solo winching and re rigging to get out situations. I was very tired at the end of it. Have fun cheers simmo.

That's why I pack my son with the recovery gear, to operate the hand winch

Trying to work out why most people think you can't winch backwards with an electric winch mounted on the front bar.
That bottom roller on the fairlead is not there for looks.
I have winched out of a bog and other impassable places by running the winch cable under the vehicle and attaching it to a tree behind and pulled my self free with no problems (another reason I don't use synthetic rope).
If I believe I may get stuck in an upcoming bog or I might need to pull myself back up a really steep downhill slope, I run my (wire) cable under the Disco and hook it up to the tow bar, a bit hard to run a cable under a vehicle that's bogged to the chassis and if I get stuck I just run out to an anchor point and winch myself out.
I use this method to pull a vehicle up onto a car trailer hooked up to the back of my Disco, never had a problem with catching or damaging anything underneath, will not work with Dyneema type synthetic ropes, for obvious reasons.
Snatch blocks are useful if used correctly, most have no idea of how to use a snatch block to give a Mechanical Advantage (MA), a stationary snatch block anchored to a tree will actually add up to 20% more load because of the friction caused by the pulley wheel against it's axle.
The only advantage gained by anchoring the SB to a tree, etc. is that you need to run out twice the length cable/rope, i.e. from the vehicle to the tree (snatch block) and back to the vehicle.
By doing this you reduce the number of layers of cable/rope on the winch drum and as we all know (or should know) max. pulling power of a winch is generated with only 1 layer of cable/rope on the drum.
For instance when you look at the specs. of a winches pulling power a 10,000lb rated winch will only ever pull that load at the drum, by the time you fill the drum to capacity your pulling power has dropped to around half the rated advertised pull.
So to get a 2 to 1 MA from a winch you will need 2 snatch blocks 1 attached to the anchor tree, the other to the front of your 4WD, the formula for working out the MA of winch and snatch blocks is: the number of parts of rope supporting the MOVING block. which is attached to the front of the vehicle, the lead rope which is the part of the rope from the winch to the stationary SB is not a supporting rope.
If you want to take MA of SB's buy good quality correct diameter (bigger the better) SB's from a rigging supplier, not some 4WD shop one that has one size to suit all. Kinks and broken wires are mostly caused by wrong size SB's, hope this helps, Regards Frank.

Originally Posted by simmo

I agree with rangieman, about water proofing, you can get by without it, its just extra work in maintenance.
But once the water is in there it is hard to get it all out quickly, some of it condenses again as the winch cools down.

The electric winches do work under water no problem, and drying them out is the go.
During my last overhaul, I drilled and tapped both ends of the winch/motor, and connected hoses to them.
I can blow air in one end and out the other, my plan at the time was to have a solenoid & pressure regulator connected to my air tank, to supply at at 2 psi via a canister filled with silca gel. ( a work in progress for 5 years ).

Before a deep crossing I could open the dry air into the winch to reduce the amount of water entering, and then leave the air on for a few hours while driving to dry the winch out. Silica gel can be refreshed by warming in the oven, it's not hard to get or expensive.

If I could have only one winch it would be an electric one, just from the point of view its easy to use and will get you out of 95% of the problems. Sure you can't winch backwards, but that's the only advantage I can see for a hand winch. If you follow the makers advice regarding the battery capacity, you should be OK. It's hard to exceed the duty cycle of the winch, even in difficult situations because you have to be constantly re rigging the winch to different points as the recovery progresses, it gives the battery and the winch some recovery time, I never winch without the engine running.

I used to almost always be alone in the forest , because of my work pattern I had time off during the weekdays. I got stuck a lot because of the terrain and the trailer/ weight. I couldn't have got out of some of those situations with a hand winch because of the amount of physical work required. A couple of times it took me 2 hours of solo winching and re rigging to get out situations. I was very tired at the end of it. Have fun cheers simmo.

Good point Tank, I never seem to have the for-thought to run the winch cable under the car. . I never think my landy will get bogged .

I do like my snatch block though, but have never needed more than double the power of my XD 9000. I run the wire out though the block and back to my front recovery point (s). Its slow going and short pulling as you said. I was trying to get up a slippery hill once, it was so slippery my car and 2000 kg trailer slid slowly side ways due to the camber into the spoon drain full of clay and sank to the chassis. But the XD 9000 and snatch block got her & trailer out OK and back onto some firm ground so I could unhitch the trailer. I drove half a km up the track and turned around to winch the trailer to the top of the hill.
The most frightening time was the first time going down the hills with the full trailer, fortunately the track was rutted, the trailer and a car had almost no traction and we slid down the hill like a slot car past all the big gum trees. I never let that happen again, I welded a lug to the chassis of the trailer at the back and used my drag chain to connect to a log, and dragged the log down the hill. All in days wood gathering fun . cheers simmo