When I began my career, I designed mine winders and haulage's, for raising/lowering workers and materials between the underground workings and the surface. They were installed in mines in NSW, QLD and WA. With the exception of the friction winders, the wire rope was wound in multiple layers on drum, not unlike a vehicle winch drum, except the drum had grooves for the rope, and some winders were double drum (simultaneous raise and lower). BTW the largest I have designed was 2 speed for hauling 90 tonne of material, or a lower load of men and material at 4 m/s, or 60 tonne of material at 6 m/s.Quote:
Originally Posted by ugu80
I don't base my comments on brand name. I prefer my experience and judgment.
I still have 3 Warn high mount winches, 1 low mount Warn XD9000, and 1 OX (TJM re-badged Mile Marker) hydraulic winch. I have had all of these for many years, over multiple vehicles.
The low mount I bought new, it was my first winch and it fitted the bar that was on my rangie at the time. That could have been 20 years ago, too long for my memory to be exact. I do remember Warn didn't have too much competition back then, and was easily the most popular/common.
What can I say - it is a common or garden type low mount winch. I found fitting a 6HP motor made it better and able to pull further before overheating.
That is possibly the main problem with low mount winches. Overheating if called upon for long heavy winching. The issue is the poor mechanical efficiency of their planetary type reduction gearbox.
If you are prepared to take a lot longer for a long hard recovery, allow the motor time to cool when it gets hot, and use a snatch block to reduce the rope load, a good low mount will do the job.
If you demand a winch that will work hard and get the job done in the least time, you need to look for something much better than the common batch of electrical powered low mounts.
Even though only rated at 8000 lb, Warn high mounts will out pull the low mounts, and particularly when the motor is uprated. Their triple reduction, spur gear box is much more efficient than the double reduction planetary, or worm gear boxes on low mount winches. This allows them to work harder and longer than low mount winches.
They are the best choice for driving while winching. Now everyone and their dog will now jump up and criticise driving and winching, but there are times when it is desirable, e.g. positioning the vehicle to negotiate difficult obstacles, or assisting the winch to get over an obstacle, or during a long steep pull. Low mounts are hopeless for this as the winch is too slow to keep the rope taught when the vehicle gains a bit of traction (even with an underdrive to reduce the vehicle speed - BTW the main market for the Ashcroft underdrive is for those who need to winch and drive without wheel spin).
The best winches for long hard work are hydraulic or PTO driven. These can also be faster than electric powered winches. They don't suit driving while winching when it is necessary to avoid wheel spin as it is too difficult to match winch speed and tyre speed, not impossible with hydraulics, but expensive to implement a good hydraulic solution.
I paid $300 dollars each for 2 of my high mounts. High mounts in good used condition would come up at that sort of price and represented excellent value. If I wanted a high mount I wouldn't hesitate to by a good used one. As long as they have not sat with water in them, replacement of a few consumable parts can have them back in almost as good as new mechanical condition. So I reject the higher cost argument against high mount winches, unless referring to competition winches.
My 3rd high mount was a bit more expensive. It came off one of the top competition vehicles in Aus at the time, and was one of, if not the first to have an air free spool that disconnecting the drum from the drive.
The stock free spool is a design weakness of high mount's, so most people simply power out, while pulling of the rope to reach the anchor point. There are some other well known issues and appropriate fixes, all bar a good fix for the lousy brake, but few winch recoveries are compromised by the poor brake holding.
Warn based the high mount on the old Bellevue (sp?) winch that they bought. They re-designed it to make it cheaper, but the Bellevue was a much better design in all respects, except it lacked a free spool. Warn have never addressed the few issues, and never will because they would like to kill-off the high mount (I guess better profits in low mounts), but people keep demanding it because, even with its faults, it is a better winch than their low mount offerings.
