Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Has anyone tried cooling a winch motor by filling it with a light oil?

I'm not sure if the commutator would still work acceptably, but it would greatly improve heat transfer internally.

I know you can force feed them air with a compressor, just looking at options.

Thanx
Paul

I'd be a little concerned about a fluid "floating" the brush gear but I understand where your comming from. "Armature "windage" would also be a concern.

Large alternators ( power generation ) are water immersion cooled ( very pure water obviously ) with others using Hydrogen (!!!) so the concepts valid.

IIRC there was a Landrover in 4wd Monthly(as it was known then) that was using Nitrogen to cool the winch motor.
Don't know anything about it though.
I had a thought a while ago about fabricating a "water jacket" around the winch motor and then pumping glycol through it. A lot of work and expense I know. Just an idea I had while having a beer in the back yard.

I've noticed the rotor gets much hotter than the stator - hence I don't think cooling the shell would actaully achieve that much.

Paul

If you look at industrial 3 phase motors they usually have fins cast onto the ends of the rotor to provide significant internal air movement.

Its a concept that would be worth investigating IMO although obviously the heat would still have to dissipated by the field housing. Perhaps a finned aluminum sleeve and external fan would help as well, Once again its what industrial 3 phase motors use.

Not sure if I am missing somethung here, but doesn't using a compressor to blow compressed air into the motor casing cool it?

Or is that just to pressurise it for water crossings?

Cheers

blowing low pressure air thru it should help with cooling. A low pressure high volume pump, like those used for pumping up airbeds etc. Should do the job and are 12v.

I'm currently setting up internal air cooling on my winch. Where the earth is bolted on the motor I made up a bolt with a hole down the centre and tig welded a fitting to accept a air line. Then removed the end plate on the motor drill a hole for another air fitting and run the hose of that through a filter in the engine bay. I thought about using the diff lock compressor but with that running would very annoying so instead I'm using a cheap air mattress blower.

Struth wrote:Not sure if I am missing somethung here, but doesn't using a compressor to blow compressed air into the motor casing cool it?

Or is that just to pressurise it for water crossings?

Cheers

I'm sure compressed air would serve both purposes but you need to get it in and out and IMO you would need a significant supply to make it worthwhile.

If you have lots of HP air then the temperature drop from expanding it at the motor should be significant and would probably work very well but that's a big compressor and a large volume of exhaust air, and moisture from the expanding air could be an issue.....

Liquid CO2 expanded at the motor would be very "cool" but still has the exhaust volume issue and could freeze any water that got in. Perhaps use an aircon tx valve to control the expansion dependent on motor temperature ?

Getting more complex by the minute....

We use air cooling on our Flaminfab twin motor setup and have never had a heating problem of any sort. We use air from a dive bottle (95cu), fed through a regulator to 7psi. This capacity lasts a whole day of stages. Our theory behind this is air from a compressed source is COLD. Air that is sourced from a pump like a air locker pump, is warm to start with. In addition to cooling, it also creates a positive atmosphere inside the motor and this reduces water ingress while the winch is under water or in the soup!!!!