Partner Article

A Quick Guide to Electric Winches

Electric winches are supposed to be an indispensable element of lifting industry for conducting a multitude of lifting practices for different workplaces. The performance of a typical winch depends on how efficiently it can be used.

An electric winch is operated electrically by a vehicle’s battery and at the end, the duty cycle is restricted to the fluid level in your battery. A good practice here is to run your engine while working with an electric winch so that your battery can be prevented from complete drain.

An hydraulic winch, on the other hand, is powered by power steering pump of a vehicle. This makes them capable of seemingly endless and extended duty cycle for longer pulls and thus allows a consistent pulling power flow.

There are several versions of electric winches available in the industry as per the different business types and it is an easy go to install them on any vehicle with universal mounting kits.

Electric Winch Framework

A typical electric winch can be considered as complex set of machinery with various intricate components. It is necessary to analyze the basic ingredient materials that makes up a winch to check their safe and efficient working.

Below elements constitute the framework of a basic electric winch-

Battery

Although batteries are not a built-in part but these are connected directly to a winch and puts a great impact on its overall performance. The stock batteries are of major use to start any vehicle, but the discharges needed by winching are tough to be handled by them. Therefore, keep your engine running while pulling helps protect against entire battery drain.

The solution lies in using premium battery units like spiral cell or marine batteries that are made specifically to be used like dual purpose battery type. In other cases, an extra battery can also be added with a vehicle to manage available power effectively for winching.

Alternator

An alternator can add both positive and negative impact to the winching performance. An alternator can overheat and fails when winching is performed for extended periods of time at maximum output. This issue can be resolved by upgrading to a premium alternator with improved output. But it is equally important to upgrade the electrical cable to manage the load of heavy electrical current.

Drivetrain

Electric winch supports multiple variations of drivetrains with associated features. The basic available versions of drivetrains are Spur Gear, Worm Gear and Planetary Gear, each with different capacities.

Motor

An electric winch motor is also a considerable element and there exists two different varieties of motor to choose from, namely, permanent magnetic and series wound type.

For better performance, your electric winch capacity must be 1.5 times the weight of gross vehicle. It works best when one or two layers of winch cable are wrapped across the winch drum with less gear ratio.

However, the electric winches serve a major purpose of diverse lifting operations, but only when they are treated well in the safest manner to avoid any kind of flaw. Above points can help to a great extent in taking out the best from a winch.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Bishop Lifting Services .