A Winchy Question

Posts: 194

I know that big winches really draw on a battery, so how about these 2000 lb. winches you guys are putting on? Are you adding an extra battery? Will the stator provide enough juice to run the winch and not draw the battery down (if the motor is running while operating the winch)? How long is the cable on these winches?

Posts: 8

You could prolly run a 2k winch on a 14 series battery or maybe a 9. but you would have to stay in the throttle to keep your amps up. Tipically these winches have less than 50 feet. around 25-35 feet. If you feel that you need a recovery device use a come along and a chain. you should be ok with the stock stator I would think.

Posts: 3353

Most of the time our little buggies just get "a little stuck" and only need part of the winch's power--and not for very long. Adding a small winch to the existing battery might be fine if you use it only occasionally. The stator on a 150 or 250 buggy doesn't put out much more juice than what's needed to run the engine & lights so any winching you do will be off the battery. Of course it does help a little to keep the buggy running.

I've tried it with the stock dinky battery (about the size of a paperback dictionary) and could get 1 good pull out of it before the winch really slowed down. Adding a second, larger motorcycle battery really helped but I ended up with charging issues (tried to go cheap by using a relay instead of a battery isolator). Ended up chucking the stock battery and just using a single larger MC battery.

It's all a bunch of compromises on a small buggy. Not a lot of room for the winch or the bigger (or 2nd) battery. Extra weight hurts performance, too.

Posts: 8

unless you have a 400 or bigger I could not see needing an electric winch. 250's and smaller you can just pick up the front end or push it out. or if you wanted you could use a shortened tractor jack to pick up ur buggy and carry on