Outer Limits 4x4 Board

I'm missing the hand controller for my warn winch(xd9000), I have one for one of those cheap ebay winches... would it still work ? From memory the plug looks the same. Cant get to try out untill Sunday, but then it will be to late. Dont want to have to buy the controller and then find the other one would have worked.
Any help would be appreciated.

Is your winch 3 pin or 5 pin? (look into the socket on the control box). Unless its an old Warn it will be 5 pin (if its 3 pin, now is a good time to upgrade to 5 pin as the kit includes a new controller).

If your ebay controller has the same number of pins theres a small chance that they are in the same positions and it will work. If it doesn't the worst that could happen is you melt all the wiring!


edit: probably easier to just wire an in cab switch for now and keep your eyes open for a warn controller (if the ebay one doesnt work)

it is a 3 wire/pin one. If I wire in an in cab controller, how do I know what wire does what ?
Also whats the difference between the 3 pin and the 5 pin ? beside the obvious !!!

The 3 pin setup just switches the +ve side of the solenoids. If something goes tits up the winch can just run and run and run until something/one gets crushed. The 5 pin setup switches the +ve and -ve sides of the solenoids, thus reducing the likelyhodd of something nasty happening.
The 5 pin upgrade is worth looking at, especially as you have no controller at the moment.

If you put an in-cab switch in, just take the cover off the control box, one of the 3 wires will be coming from the main battery cable terminal - this is the live wire, the other 2 go to the solenoids, these are the wires that power will be switched to to operate the winch. Very easy to do on a 3 pin and you can also add an isolation switch at the same time to prevent anyone messing around with it.