Progress capture for an electric winch?

[Slad]

I'm trying to drag bits of tree to a portable mill on a slope, so can't use the 4x4 to drag them. I'm getting a small electric winch mounted on the 4x4. But the winch has 15m of rope, which won't be long enough sometimes when the log is further away.

 

How do i make this work?

 

Edited January 11 by Slad

[peds]

Sorry, I might be missing something, but you'll have 15m of steel winch rope that you'll be using to pull, incrementally, a second rope attached to your log, for the distance? What size and material is the second rope?

 

Depending on the materials involved, anywhere a shunt can be used as a rope grab, a prusik can too, and is arguably a lot better in many ways. As for progress capture at the top of the system when you are resetting each 15m, an ID would be fine as it's the winch doing the pulling before the device, so efficiency isn't really an issue, but if you want to splash some cash you could upgrade to a Petzl Maestro or a Clutch...

 

Or... a pulley and a prusik...

[woody paul]

Two options I use, 20mm polysteel rope and just adjust with bowling knot, or 4m slings to reach and just hook on to next one once pulled in one length to keep max pulling capacity of winch. 

[AHPP]

Look up capstan winches. 

[Slad]

9 hours ago, peds said:

Sorry, I might be missing something, but you'll have 15m of steel winch rope that you'll be using to pull, incrementally, a second rope attached to your log, for the distance? What size and material is the second rope?

 

Synthetic rope, but yes. And a 13mm winch rope from the load. 

 

Prussic is a good shout, but I've found on really heavy loads the knot gets really difficult to release. That said, for logs that shouldn't be the case. I've got some old fall arrest kit, a Shunt and some petzl ID s which would work the same.

[Slad]

8 hours ago, woody paul said:

Two options I use, 20mm polysteel rope and just adjust with bowling knot, or 4m slings to reach and just hook on to next one once pulled in one length to keep max pulling capacity of winch. 

That's smart, just looping the slings on like prussics and hooking in? I've got some old slings which would do this. I have an old piece of 13mm I could loop up permanently... 

[Slad]

7 hours ago, AHPP said:

Look up capstan winches. 

I'm doing this because I broke my capstan winch ☹️

[Slad]

Thanks for the ideas. I'll have a go with them all once I've welded the mount plate on. Is it worth putting a manual winch on the back, like on the Ironhorse*, to stop the 4x4 sliding? These aren't huge logs but it might help on the slopes?

 

*Also broken. Expensive week...

Edited January 11 by Slad

[woody paul]

4 minutes ago, Slad said:

That's smart, just looping the slings on like prussics and hooking in? I've got some old slings which would do this. I have an old piece of 13mm I could loop up permanently... 

No not as prussic, I meant webbing slings and just join together with shackles to make them long.

How big is the winch being fitted..

  

[peds]

23 minutes ago, woody paul said:

No not as prussic, I meant webbing slings and just join together with shackles to make them long.

How big is the winch being fitted..

 

I was working for a guy just before Christmas, we pulled a big leaning sycamore over with a digger... six 4m slings all shackled together... definitely not the most elegant or aesthetic of solutions, but by golly, you can't argue with the physics of them. Nothing escaping from that.