fused winch??

does anybody fuse their winch? I am an electrician and we generally fuse wire(or use a breaker), but don't recall ever seeing a fuse before a winch.

I've not seen winch kits offered with fuses.

If I were going to fuse the winch supply circuit, I'd do so using an ANL fuse (available in steps to 600A, easily replaceable) and be sure to size the fuse accordingly. The feed leads tend to be a bit undersized, but that's because the duty cycle of the winch is rather low and the pulls tend to be short (1 or 2AWG serves most common applications. If you were planning on using your winch far more often or for far heavier pulls, going to something like a 00AWG or 000AWG would be indicated.)

I'm pretty sure my superwinch has four circuit brakers in line

The 8K winches I have seen have nothing larger than 4ga.

A Winch can pull an incredible amount of power, especially if close to stall. I have not seen a fuse on a starter motor either, and that's pretty much what a Winch uses.

Zuki-Ron said:

The 8K winches I have seen have nothing larger than 4ga.

A Winch can pull an incredible amount of power, especially if close to stall. I have not seen a fuse on a starter motor either, and that's pretty much what a Winch uses.

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Dunno - from what I've seen, the draw from a winch can make a high-compression V8 starter motor look sick (some specs call for up around 500-600A to run a winch motor, while even a Diesel starter tops off around 400-450A. And the starter motor doesn't run anywhere near as long as a winch motor at a go...)

A fused winch might not be a bad idea, but fairly difficult and expensive to implement (and coming up with a practical ceiling per kit gets difficult as well - most people seem to "overbuy" on winches. Yah - most people here who have winches have them rated up around 8500# or so.

(Kerb weight on the XJ runs about 3300#, trail weight probably 4000-4200# at a guess. That reduces the current requirement - but it's still hefty.)

Most of them do have thermal cutouts on the motor (where they really should be!) but it's not the same thing as having a fuse inline as well. Still, it's probably a more effective compromise...

The point has nothing to do with the draw of the winch.

What you need is a way to shut off the power to that fat wire in the case of accident or short. That's where a fuse comes in. Place the fuse as close as possible to the battery so if you rear end somebody and pinch your winch wire you don't have a million degree 4ga wire causing all sorts of havok.

It's very uncommon to see on winch installs though. Largely because of the current requirements and also because the short run of the wire has less chance for catastrophic results in comparison to a car audio install where the wire is run through the passenger compartment.

My winch as an in line breaker which came from an electric lift gate.will look at ot an get the spestis