Jay Hanig wrote:
On 6/20/2010 2:48 PM, dpb wrote:
Jay Hanig wrote:
I just bought a 12 volt winch from Harbor Freight that came with 50"
of 10 gauge wires: ...

I was contemplating replacing the 10 gauge wire with 4 gauge wire.
What do you guys think?

What's the current draw under load supposed to be?


All the literature that came with it says is that it needs a 12 volt 18
amp-hour minimum power supply. Supposedly the motor is 1.5 HP.
....

I looked at one that had similar "specifications" -- at 746 W/hp, 100%
eff would be nearly 100A to get 1.5 hp. That seems a stretch for 10 ga
wire. No clue what it really might draw; is it fused (didn't see any
mention)? Might be a clue if is.

Bigger is better although one tends to presume that if supplied w/ 10 ga
it doesn't draw too terribly much over 40 A. Although NEC would limit
30 A, NEC doesn't apply so if used a high temp rate insulation, the wire
ampacity might even be as high as 50A in single conductor, air, before
it begins to seriously overheat. That's still far cry from 1.5 hp @
12VDC, though.

Can't hurt to go up in size; difficulties might be in fitting much
larger conductors to existing terminals.

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