Warn winch

[broonie]

I had on mine twin alts, one for front winch twin batteries and vehicle electrics and one for rear winch with twin batteries and spot/flood lights ... just loved doing recoveries

[Treewolf]

HI TREE thanks what the best one husky do then electric then im all so looking at pto husky you say 8274 are only any good for off road chaps why is this then they eat batteries thanks jon

 

The Husky 8000 is great for most purposes, however the competition boys don't like it because it is quite slow, although this actually makes it better for most normal winching operations. 8000lbf line pull is also quite enough for most applications (no point having a winch so powerful it will rip itself off the vehicle).

 

The old 8274 is great for competition use because there are so many ways to modifiy it, such as fitting twin motors etc, and it is also a fast winch.

 

The Husky is unique amongst current light electric vehicle winches in that the gearing is by worm and wheel (using substantial phosphor bronze components) which give two big advantages. One, the winch doesn't need a brake, it will hold the load naturally (since the wheel can't drive the worm), and therefore there are no problems lowering a load with it, and two, the gearing arrangement means that the speed difference between no load and full load really isn't that great.

 

On nearly all other winches the drive is through a series of epicylic gears whcih means that they run much faster with a light load than a heavy load, and also since the gears are reversible there has to be a brake of some kind. Most winches use a friction device for the brake which means that the winch will overheat very quickly indeed if lowering a heavy load, and I have seen the drum on a Warn XD9000 get hot enough lowering a load to melt a plasma rope - not good!

 

I have several Huskys (two on the Series 1, and 1 on the Defender) and the build quality is very high. It doesn't matter how long they've not been used, they always work. I have a Warn XD9000 on the Disco, and by comparison the buld quality and the quality of the internal components is rubbish. It also doesn't like not being used. The paint has also gone completely from the aluminium parts whereas the older Husky still has a good finish.

 

The downside of the Husky is the price (of course), but the build qulaity is high enough to mean that a good s/h Husky is in my view a better bet than a new inferior winch.

 

For value for money at the moment, the TDS Goldfish seems to have a good reputation. I have never actually met one nor examined one, and bearing in mind the price it must be of pretty cheap construction, but those who have them seem happy and if you want a "value engineered" winch (ie cheap but not total rubbish) they have to be worth a look.

 

For me, the Husky is the only electric vehicle winch built to a proper industrial design and standard. It inevitably also has the industrial price.

[Robert_S]

Ended up wiring it with a wireless remote control, mounted on the hilux and working great, cheers for all the offers of help guys.