Adding winch to my 14k gn trailer questions

[hd99fxr3]

I've got the engineering worked out, on how to mount it using Cat V receiver parts. The problem I'm struggling with is how to power the thing with enough juice to load something that won't run. It's a 10k winch, and I want to be able to power it using the tow vehical batteries. I have all the welding lead for cable that I could possible need to do the job. My questions would be: How do I hook it up to the batteries? What should I use for terminal connectors at the back of the truck, and coming off the winch on the trailer.

[Wild and Free]

To be totally honest you are not going to like the extra work and results of trying to run welding cable that far to run a winch.There are formulas to tell you what size cable you need to run certain amounts of voltage and amperage through and what distance is allowable. I can tell you that running 12 volts and 120 amps through welding cable that far is going to result in high parasitic losses and it could cause damage to the whinch motor and you alernator over time.You will be a lot better off adding a battery to the trailer to power the winch. there is already power to the trailer connections for battery power for charging batteries in rv's and trailer batteries like you would need.

[diesel4life]

Ive got an 800 cca bat mounted on my trailer, grounded to the frame, and a positive lead tied into the acc term in my junction box. That way its always charging when the trailer is hooked to the truck and ive never had any issues dragging anything up on my 14k trailer.

[VectorG]

Agreed much easier to have a Big ole Farm Battery from Napa or such and mount on the trailer

[mrtowman4u]

I have a 12k warn on my gn. I have 2 31T truck batteries on mine. I ran a wire to keep the batteries charged while driving down the road and don't have any power issues.Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

[hd99fxr3]

Thanks for the replies. A battery on the trailer was my original idea. The problem I see with that is, I pull the trailer once or twice a month, April through Oct.. Where I park the trailer there is no possibility of electricity for a bat, tender between hook ups, and enough of a pain in the butt. That hooking and unhooking the batteries between uses would see me leaving the battery at home. The use is also an occasional maybe once a year possibility. Just want to be able to pull a tractor that won't run up on the trailer. It's a sticky mess, that would be best solved, by using the on board truck batts. That way I don't have to have a battery that never works when I need it once a year if that.Is the problem the length and size of cabling that I would need to do this, or something else? These winches were designed to be wired directly to a vehicals electrical system, and not ruin the system it is hooked into.

[Wild and Free]

There is one solution for you then.Solar powered trickle charger.You can don what you want to do you just need to size the cable/wire appropriately for the size of charging system you have on the pickup.Like I posted earlier do a search on electrical wire size and distance acceptable for set amount of amperage being used. You need to know what maximum amperage draw the winch needs and figure that into the equation as well.Too big of a cable will have results similar as too small of a wire, not enough power reaching the destination. Too big results in residual or parasitic loss and too small results in burned wires caused from too much resistance. Both can lead to shortened motor life of the winch.

[diesel4life]

Do you have any spare batteries laying around? Even if you dont, if this is something your only using once a year you could even pull a battery out of another vehicle or tractor or whatever youve got sitting around and throw it in the back of your truck, and when you get to wherever your going simply set it on the trailer next to your winch and hook it up. For as little as your going to be using it, a battery with a good charge will have more than enough to winch something up on your trailer. And once you get home, you can throw the battery on a charger and put it back in whatever you pulled it out of. Just another suggestion, it would certainly be about your cheapest option. Ive done this before withno way of charging the battery while drawing from it and havent had any issues.

[Mopar1973Man]

My buddy down the road has a car trailer that got 2 batteries in a steel box lined with rubber. The batteries are use for the 8K pound winch, lighting, and trailer brakes (break away).

[flagmanruss]

If there's no load on the batteries, a little solar trickler would be fine, aim it toward the sun. Make sure it's waterproof. A couple of alligator clips. If you want to be sure nothing kills it, a cut off switch... I'd still wire the battery to the power lead in the trailer plug so it could charge when you're hooked up, replacing the power you use winching.It took a year but I trenched underground a few inches & buried 1 1/2 plastic conduit... fished my extension cord through... plug the camper into the barn 100 feet away. Don't hit the cord with the lawn mower this way. Heck... at my ex's we went a year with 200' of extension cord on top of the ground to the old horse shed just to run lights.