On 2013-04-15, J.B.Slocomb wrote:
wrote:
For a semi truck use, and 400A demanded by the winch, it means that I
will need a 40 foot two conductor welding cable, at least 1/0. And the
number one concern is that it will be eventually stolen. I would
rather slowly recharge.

Ah well, if you are using a winch that requires 400 amps than you will
have a significantly big battery bank to support it. But still that is
no larger than many cruising yachts use for a "house bank". A "battery
combiner" isn't going to work as it simply isolates the batterys in
discharge mode and not in charge.

The problem is that an alternator putting out say 14 volts, is going
to pump a lot of amps into a mostly discharged 400+ amp battery bank.

This is exactly the problem that I am trying to solve.

I suspect that the easy way is a large resister in the charge line to
the winch batteries. Another alternative might be to build a pulse
width controller but that seems like a lot of work for little benefit.

My limited experience with truck winches is oil field trucks - 50 ton
truck, flat bed, load by winching load up over a tail roller - and
these all had mechanical winches driven off a power take-off, but I
would think that an electric winch drawing 400 amps would be a pretty
large device. A quick look at the catalog shows a 1260 lb. capacity
winch drawing 85 amps so a 400 amp winch may well be a 4 ton winch.


I bought a "12000 lbs rated" Mile Marker winch. It pulls 400+ A at
maxc. load. I think that I will just go with the resistor, it is the
most idiot proof device.

i