Question about Winch electrical install

M

mscot

New member
I'll be installing my Smittybilt xrc9.5, a light bar, and audio amplifier soon and I'm getting all the electrical parts together. I'm also considering doing the Big 3 upgrade.

The winch instructions say to install it directly to the battery. But, I'm wondering if I can use a distribution block similar to one of the two below so that I don't have a ton of wires coming off of the battery.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DX64U2W/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I22P3V0XN4TZLG&colid=1A12QBUOEK1G0&psc=1

or

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075XCMC2T/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?smid=AMVRK92LFYKXB&psc=1
 
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The second one should be safe since it's rated at 250a. Definitely recommend running a solid piece of 1/0 ga OFC wire to the block. That wire should be able to flow 300 amps pretty easily. Make sure to fuse your wires, the one that's coming from the battery and the one to the winch.

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Doesn’t a winch pull up to 400 amps?
I’ve read and been told there’s no need to put a fuse in the winch bc it can handle more than the battery can put out. What is your reasoning for adding the fuse?
Thanks for the help.
 
mscot said:
Doesn’t a winch pull up to 400 amps?
I’ve read and been told there’s no need to put a fuse in the winch bc it can handle more than the battery can put out. What is your reasoning for adding the fuse?
Thanks for the help.
Click to expand...
When you're pulling that much amperage fuses are mainly to protect the wire in the case of a ground out. I learned that dealing with high output amplifiers pulling 300 amps. It's for safety more than protecting the winch.

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mscot said:
[MENTION=90352]UnderFire[/MENTION]
Would this block be sufficient? If so I could hook my winch and audio amplifier (60a fuse) and all other accessories to it and only have to run one additional wire to each terminal of the battery. Not sure if it's rated high enough for a winch, though.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0053BTSEK/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1
Click to expand...
200 would probably blow when you put the winch under load. I remember seeing fuse holders that took one 1/0 wire and fused it using 2 ANL style fuses. That would be ideal since you could run 5-600 amps in fuses on a single wire.

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UnderFire said:
200 would probably blow when you put the winch under load. I remember seeing fuse holders that took one 1/0 wire and fused it using 2 ANL style fuses. That would be ideal since you could run 5-600 amps in fuses on a single wire.

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Click to expand...



The biggest I’ve seen is a fuse that bolts on at the battery terminal and can go up to 300.
If that would blow, I don’t know what to do, and it would seem that no one else with a winch would either.


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You can put multiple fuses or circuit breakers in parallel and add the capacity of them. My guess is that most winch fuse sets are 3x100amp fuses. If you were really worried about overdoing it you could buy 2 x 200amp circuit breakers and use them in parallel and then you can manually reset them if you did trip them. Every winch I've ever owned - except my current one - was direct wired in an unprotected circuit. I think the idea was basically if you have a direct short - it won't be all that much more than 400 amps anyway, so there's not much purpose in having a fuse. The problem with that is that you're prone to start a fire. With a fuse it'll be a very short time that you have a short circuit and no fire.

good luck
 
Another option would be to wire in a switch near the battery, that way you can kill the power to the winch hot lead any time you're not using it. I'm having trouble finding the dual fuse single wire blocks now, it was probably one of the competition audio specialty companies that were making them.

Sent from my Z981 using Tapatalk
 
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