Have you tried calling an electrical shop and have them convert the winch to 12v? Just the motor rewound (if that, I dont think 24v motors differ all that much) and solenoids need to be changed over. I think its going to end up being more of a show piece though. Heavy as sin and the slowest line speed around, the bigger winches are super low geared. Plus 24v motors draw low amps, if it was 12v doing a real pull I think its going to pull some serious amps.

Then again I've had an 8000lbs winch on my jeep for 2 years now and I've only used it twice to pull dead vehicles up my buddies steep driveway. As long as it looks good.

 

Run it on 12V. It will be fine just slow..... half the rated line speed. My dad has run an 18K 24V on a 12V new holland tractor for 12 years this way winching trees and stumps in VT.

 

Really? I've heard I can do this but was a bit skeptical. Would be way easier this way, no doubt. Thanks.

 

You can run an electrical motor at 1/2 voltage just fine. We do this a lot on systems I design to control the speed of the motor crudely where we are not using a sophisticated controller. You will start to see issues if you try to run below the 1/2 voltage mark ie trying to run the winch at 8 volts instead of 12 for a 24v motor.

 

I can see the lower voltage being used to control motor speed, but why would 1/2 be the point below which issues begin to show up?

Also, at 12 volts, the rated "pull" of the 24 volt winch will be significantly lower.

 

Well I figured it out
It took 2 extra batteries, some wire and some connectors.

I built a box from some old deck wood that fits behind the rear seat that holds 2 extra batteries. It locks shut with the hasp I stalled so when I have no doors or top it provides extra secure storage. It's also bolted to the rear seat mounting bracket so in the event of a rollover it is not a trajectory.



How do you keep them charged you ask?



Simple, just run 2 strands of 8 gauge from the alternator to the batteries. Their grounded locally. But that just gives you 12 V not the 24 you need. Great observation.



12 V charging hookup



24 V hookup
I bought some 2 gauge jumper cables, cut the clamps off, attached copper ends. I have a red and black 2 awg line running from the batteries to the winch. When not in use I just spin the wing nuts attach the 8 awg that run to the alternator and they stay charged.

And a 550 cord handle.

Less than 100 buck to make it operational.

BAM!

 

Oh boy....battery acid and hydrogen gas inside the Jeep?

Please tell me those are gel batteries

 

I learned a lot reading this thread. Can anyone point me to a site that will teach me the basics and intermediate knowledge of eletronics and wiring? Anything I google isn't quite what I'm looking for. If anyone knows of a book too that would be fantastic.

 

A little battery acid and hydrogen gas never hurt anyone.

 

not sure how it will react at 12v. my experience with DC motors is that they do work at 1/2 voltage (RPM is basically cut in half) but torque drops exponentially as voltage decreases. if you are running a 24v motor at 12v, you're probably only going to get about 1/10 as much torque as you'd get at 24v.

i don't think it would hurt to test it out, but you might not be able to pull much...