Greetings,

I am in the process of adapting a winch to my 16 foot car hauler so that I can winch up inoperative vehicles, etc. I purchased the Harbor Freight Badland 12000 lb electric winch which I think will handle the job. It's not the most expensive (quality) winch out there, but for my purposes I think it will fit the bill. I don't need a front (bumper mounted) winch on my 2011 Dodge Ram 2500 4X4 since I don't get out in the sticks much. But I do use the trailer on a regular basis so a winch on that would be the cat's meow.



Now I just have to figure out how to mount it and power it. Mounting it won't present that much of a challenge but getting power to it will – thus this post.


Got this from HeyYou on my introductory post: Put a battery on the trailer for the winch. You can slow-charge it off the power feed thru the trailer harness, but, don't try and run it with that powering it. Good way to set things on fire.


I think that is the way I am going to go. Question is can I obtain a wiring harness adapter that will charge the winch battery while the trailer is attached? I have two factory installed adapters on the rear bumper already: one is the round plug that I use to power the trailer lights and brakes and the other is the one that was used for the flat early model trailer plugs. See below pic.






Upper plug is the flat style.
Lower plug is the newer round style currently in use.




Can I use the early model plug to send power to the winch battery?


Also what kind of battery should I get for the winch. A deep cycle RV type battery or.......


Thanks for reading.


Mike

 

You will want a charge controller to charge the battery, or else you risk frying it from overcharging.

I would say you want a standard automotive type battery since the winch is a high load, short use type function. "Marine" batteries are made for relatively low load, long use type applications.

 

The 7 pin connector has a power wire in it somewhere. I pulled my buddies 30Ft camper once and once i plugged it in the camper had power to run the lights and what not. I also played around with it one time trying to power my 3000 pound winch on my car hauler and was able to run it untill i blew the fuse in it. Installing a battery and using the 12 volt to a charger would probably work awesome.

 

ditto. the 7 pin harness has a 30 amp fused connection specifically for powering things like this. it will charge the battery while connected to the truck. im not positive if the truck has to be running or not. while I haven't done it with my current dodge, we have used this setup on several other trucks and trailers.

 

My truck kept a constant hot wire when it was on and off.

 

I thought that the fuse for the 7 pin trailer connector was 40A. It doesn't really matter, a winch depending on size can pull hundreds of amps. DO NOT USE THAT WIRE FOR A WINCH.

 

I've got my old Warn XD9000 from off my 3rd gen on a gooseneck I welded a mount to hold it and a deep cycle battery. This trailer is very rarely hooked to my truck so I simply keep a trickle charger on it plugged in all the time while the trailer sits. Maintains a full charge and I don't have to worry about burning it up. If for some reason I need to use the winch a couple days in a row, I can always hook up a fast charger in between uses...