Need to extend 12v winch's control cables

[Jay Hanig]

I just bought a 12 volt winch from Harbor Freight that came with 50" of

10 gauge wires: two that go to the winch and two that go to the battery... all coming out of the hand control. I really need more like 16 feet of length to do what I want to do with it, which is to mount it to my utility trailer and use it to pull my motorcycle up onto it.

As it is, it takes two of us to load it. I'd like to be able to do it by myself, so I'll need to hang onto the bike at the same time as I work the control. The utility trailer is 10' long with a loading ramp on the back of it.

I was contemplating replacing the 10 gauge wire with 4 gauge wire. What do you guys think?

Jay

[dpb]

What's the current draw under load supposed to be?

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[Jay Hanig]

All the literature that came with it says is that it needs a 12 volt 18 amp-hour minimum power supply. Supposedly the motor is 1.5 HP.

Jay

[Hustlin' Hank]

Why don't you just ride it up the ramp?

Hank

[Jay Hanig]

My bike is top heavy. I'm not confident I can do that without dropping it. If it starts to get away from me, I can't stop it. The solution has been to always keep it under control.

Maybe that makes me wimpy but I'm older and have had a hip replacement. I know my own limitations.

Jay

[Larry W]

Perhaps you can exchange the winch for one of their models that has wireless remote control.

and others.

[dpb]

...

I looked at one that had similar "specifications" -- at 746 W/hp, 100% eff would be nearly 100A to get 1.5 hp. That seems a stretch for 10 ga wire. No clue what it really might draw; is it fused (didn't see any mention)? Might be a clue if is.

Bigger is better although one tends to presume that if supplied w/ 10 ga it doesn't draw too terribly much over 40 A. Although NEC would limit

30 A, NEC doesn't apply so if used a high temp rate insulation, the wire ampacity might even be as high as 50A in single conductor, air, before it begins to seriously overheat. That's still far cry from 1.5 hp @ 12VDC, though.

Can't hurt to go up in size; difficulties might be in fitting much larger conductors to existing terminals.

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[Dean Hoffman]

I might go with the existing wire and add a continuous rated starter solenoid. Then use regular extension cord with a switch to run the solenoid. You'd want cord that is flexible when you're loading the bike. That heavier wire doesn't flex as well as the lighter stuff of course.

[mkirsch1]

Jeezus, you won't be able to hold the control up with all that heavy wire, plus it'll cost you more than you paid for the winch!

I MIGHT go 8 gauge, but I'm pretty sure that 10 gauge will be fine. Just extend the damn wires and quit trying to overthink things.

[Jay Hanig]

I was in contact this evening with the guy who first gave me the idea. He added 40 feet of 10 gauge wire to the same winch without any apparent problems. As he pointed out, all I'm asking it to do is pull 500 lbs of rolling stock up 4 feet of inclined ramp... something that the winch out to be able to do without straining in the slightest. He said his cables don't heat up.

So that's what I'm going to do, though I still plan on keeping the run shorter.

Thanks to everybody who took the time to reply.

Jay

[Jerry - OHIO]

Will the bike bat. power the wench ? Jerry

[LSMFT]

I don't know why they have the battery wired going through the hand control. Mine has a black and red motor going from the motor to the battery and a small 3 wire cord going to the hand control. My relays are in a box on the motor. It was a wireless controller that burned out so I put a manual cord on it with a SPDP toggle switch in a box. I made it 10 feet but could have been 20 for 50 feet.

[mm]

That sounds good. Short wires with the heavy load and wires to the remote can be long with no loss.