Portable / Battery Winch

[Mathieu18]

Anyone know of a portable (and ideally affordable) battery powered winch? I don’t need real heavy duty, but looking for something to help move equipment around and possibly drag a small tractor out of the mud (that was fun…) I have regular access to a trailer but it isn’t mine and I don’t want to install something on it, so wondering if there are options.

 

[DangerRuss]

Check out this thread:

1 winch, 3 mounts

Got this like new winch for a no-brainer price, rigged it up with 3 mounts, all on a dedicated deep cycle battery in my truck. Now I can drag all the fallen trees outa me woods, an' chop 'em up to heat the house. It's got no wire, 'cause I removed it... waitin' on synthetic replacement.

www.carolinafirearmsforum.com

 

[Mathieu18]

Check out this thread:

1 winch, 3 mounts

Got this like new winch for a no-brainer price, rigged it up with 3 mounts, all on a dedicated deep cycle battery in my truck. Now I can drag all the fallen trees outa me woods, an' chop 'em up to heat the house. It's got no wire, 'cause I removed it... waitin' on synthetic replacement.

www.carolinafirearmsforum.com

Interesting thanks. Some good thoughts there. Bonus points if I can rig something to use the spare solar trickle charger to keep battery topped off for use when needed. Something to do a bit more homework on.

 

[DangerRuss]

Is your tractor 12v? Could you rig a receiver hitch mount on the front of it? Then you could hook the winch to the tractor battery when you need to drag the tractor

 

[Mathieu18]

Is your tractor 12v? Could you rig a receiver hitch mount on the front of it? Then you could hook the winch to the tractor battery when you need to drag the tractor

It is but I need to replace either the battery, alternator or both. Not just the tractor though, I’m thinking of implements if I don’t have a tractor with me, brush mower etc. but then I guess for those occasional uses I could probably just get a manual crank. Prob making this overly difficult (and didn’t really think of hand cranks).

 

[Scsmith42]

I’d recommend that you expand your search to include a gasoline powered winch, such as this.

Portable Winch PCW3000 Gas-Powered Pulling Winch GX35 | eBay

Motor/Engine: Honda GX35 4-stroke - 360� inclinable, Air-cooled, 1.0 kW - 1.3 HP @ 7000 tr/min. Pulling Capacity for Standard drum (single line / double line): Diamter 3" (76 mm): 1,600 lb / 3,200 lb.

www.ebay.com

 

[1911gobang]

We have several of these drill winches. We have the 1000 pound models which will pull 2,000 pounds if you 2- part the cable with a block. We use them a LOT!! Have even used 2 of them simultaneously in 2-part to pull a 9/16” guy wire to 3,500 pounds tension. They will also drag a Kawasaki Prarie 650 around like a sack of potatoes…. And they easily fit in a truck tool box

 

[Scsmith42]

Alan’s drill winch recommendation above may be a good one for you to consider.

One other option that you can consider is mounting a regular 8000 - 12,000 lb winch on a Reese hitch insert. I have one that I move between trailers (they have a standard receiver hitch mounted to the front of the trailer) and also some trucks. A former F450 had a receiver hitch mounted to the front behind the bumper, and all my trucks have a receiver hitch on the back.

For power, I use an “Appleton” style connector on the winch (forklifts use this to disconnect the batteries). Two of the trailers have onboard batteries and three have winch receivers built in. I also have a set of jumper cables with an Appleton connector on one end that will allow me to use any vehicle battery.

The main downside to what I have is that it is heavy. Mine is a Pierce winch (industrial wrecker duty) with stainless steel cable and it is not lightweight. I set this system up almost 20 years ago before the advent of composite cable and I was focused on toughness and durability. You could use a lighter weigh winch with the same principle though, and also the modern composite cable is great.

 

[Crankbait]

I don’t need it much but when I do I use this set up or if I’m close enough to use a drop cord

 

[Mathieu18]

@Scsmith42 Agree the drill winch might work. Bonus points, I considered a boom pole, with a drill winch I could use the tractor to pull things off as well. A winch on a hitch is another possibility if I can find an easy way to tie it in, but part of my desire is to winch things onto a trailer, that might be occupying the same hitch. But then I still might be able to fab a bracket or hook and run it off the truck battery. But ultimately I think that drill winch might be a good bet. I won’t be using this too often.

Crankbait, I considered that too but I don’t always have or want to load up the little generator to power it.

 

[Flashpoint]

Surprised no one has mentioned Harbor Freight yet. They have several small 12v winches of the Badland brand. I bought a 2000lb one (the smallest they had) to mount to my tilt bed utility trailer for loading riding mowers and my off road buggy. I think I only paid like $59. It comes with jumpers to attach to a 12v battery (or hw to permanently install) and a wired controller.

 

[Mathieu18]

Strengthen the case for the drill winch, just saw Lowes has Kobalt 24V drills with battery and charger for 59 bucks. Are they great tools that stand up to lots of abuse? No, but I’ve successfully had tools replaced hassle free within their five-year warranty (just save your receipt). That gets you a store credit to buy a new one, which resets the 5 year timeframe. So beat the crap out of it and get one new forever. Anyway, useful to get one to just toss in the truck and run the winch.

@Flashpoint, I saw those. They were so much less expensive I was skeptical. Good to hear a positive experience, I’ll keep them on the list as an option too.

 

[Squanchy]

My dad has a HF electric winch he rigged up as a crane. The winch itself is on a homemade frame for the fairhead(?) And Battery carried separately. It's at least 3 years old and still kicking.

I've abused 3 or 4 of the hand come a long winches from HF. They are great if you weld together the straight cut gears. Cost cutting it's just 4 pieces of thick sheet metal then pressed onto the spool. Weld it all together and it'll hold up to it's max payload. Unwelded they break fairly easily if you hook a fullsize truck to one.