lowendrider

I went trail riding with some friends today and got to try out my winch for the first time. It worked like a charm and glad I had it because the guy who was stuck couldn't get his winch to work. After the pull, which was a fairly hard pull and about 30ft, we continued on. Shorty after I noticed my battery light was on. I got out and found that I had left the winch turned on. I continued on and after about 30 mins we broke for lunch. I restarted my JK and no more light. Could leaving the winch on cause this?? I didn't think it would be drawing anything from the battery unless I was actually using it. During the pull, I had another friend operate the winch while I held the brakes and kept the idle up around 2k. So what gives? Any ideas?

ronjenx

The winch draws a lot more than the alternator can provide, so you probably depleted the battery to the point it threw a warning light. Sounds like it went out after the battery got some juice back into it.

FallschirmJaeger

Army recovery equipment requires the engine to be in neutral and RPM's at 1200+ while winching, hoisting, etc. Probably not a bad idea to increase RPM's while winching. How is your winch hooked to your battery? Do you have heavy duty terminals that are meant for large energy draw equipment? Just a couple of thoughts.

lowendrider

I have an Optima red top and the winch is hooked to the battery using the stock JK terminals which are basically just thin metal rings. I noticed that Quadratec has some "heavy duty" replacement terminals, maybe this would be the way to go.

wayoflife

won't make a difference and a red top isn't up to the task of hard winching. if anything, you really needed a yellow top which is a deep cycle battery and intended for heavy use. but, even at that, i have found optimas to be junk and now run diehard platinum p-1 which are essentially repackaged Odyssey's and work exceptionally well.

lowendrider

Thanks for the advise. I know the Redtop isn't ideal for winching being a starting battery, but its been good to me so I can't complain. I actually pulled it out of the wifes explorer before we sold it and stuck it in the JK when I bought it. I'll be looking at the diehard platinum/ odyssey deep cycle down the road when the time comes for a new battery.