Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Aldi winch, Dual Batteries, winch has trouble dragging cruiser with brakes on, on flat dirt.

Rather unimpressed I get the multimeter out and see that whilst loaded up (nearly stalled) engine at 2000rpm the voltage at the battery terminals is around 11V
(slightly lower than I expected, maybe new batteries in order)
but at the winch terminals I am seeing 9v at best I guess I found why my winch is struggling..

Next step I think is to double up the cables (I have a spare set around here somewhere..)

Wondering if anyone else has had similar problems, and if the cheap ass solenoids might be part of the problem as well??

What size cableing are you using...??

It should be written on the plastic coating on cables

whatever came with the winch.. it's not printed on it.. me and a mate reckon its smaller than 4 g and bigger than 8g so that makes it 6g? lol Will double up cables and see what happens.

fair voltage drop. double check a good earth as well.

whats your normal voltage at idle and how are the batteries reading when the car has been sitting for a while?

normal voltage @ idle about 13.8, sat for a while 12.8 ish

crunk81us wrote:normal voltage @ idle about 13.8, sat for a while 12.8 ish

basics say your alt and batteries are fine - could still be issues with load etc but from the basics it looks good so cables are very likely to be crappo or conections.

have you tried different/extra cables?

just another though i had too, i dont know much about how solenoids work but i would check voltage in and out of your solenoid to see if voltage drop occurs accross them at all.

good luck

crunk81us wrote:Aldi winch, Dual Batteries, winch has trouble dragging cruiser with brakes on, on flat dirt.

Rather unimpressed I get the multimeter out and see that whilst loaded up (nearly stalled) engine at 2000rpm the voltage at the battery terminals is around 11V
(slightly lower than I expected, maybe new batteries in order)
but at the winch terminals I am seeing 9v at best I guess I found why my winch is struggling..

Next step I think is to double up the cables (I have a spare set around here somewhere..)

Wondering if anyone else has had similar problems, and if the cheap ass solenoids might be part of the problem as well??

I have an aldi winch on my hilux, it will drag the car on concrete with all four wheels locked up, the cables that comes with the winch are crap. They have a massive amount of insulation and only about 25mm2 of copper. I upgraded mine to 50mm2 cable.

will be doing the cables next week, also will check voltages again and post up here.

The solenoid may not be the best either, dropping voltage across the contacts.