Best way to run power from truck battery to trailer winch. Quick disconnect ends.

Think about what Ricko is saying. It makes a big difference in what is the best and/or most economical or practical approach.
Couple times a year? First, don’t let the winch sit out in the weather or at least cover it from sun n rain.
Second? I wouldn’t even mess with all that. I’d just keep a deep cycle battery in a battery box,on a maintainer in the garage and bring it along and connect it to the winch as needed.
All the work and expense of making it plug n play seems to get lost if you only use it rarely. IMO.

I don’t know if this applies to where you keep your trailer but sometime in the near future I’ll be in the process of rigging up some kind of solar charger for my bosses dozer that sits outside…

Grit dog said:

Think about what Ricko is saying. It makes a big difference in what is the best and/or most economical or practical approach.
Couple times a year? First, don’t let the winch sit out in the weather or at least cover it from sun n rain.
Second? I wouldn’t even mess with all that. I’d just keep a deep cycle battery in a battery box,on a maintainer in the garage and bring it along and connect it to the winch as needed.
All the work and expense of making it plug n play seems to get lost if you only use it rarely. IMO.

Click to expand...

Buddy of mine used to pull the second battery out of his truck (Dodge Ram w/Cummins) and run his trailer winch with that. I can't recall if he had actual top post terminals on the wiring or just squeeze clamps. Probably the latter.... whatever it was, he made it work! And he hauled cars all over the South, so he used it frequently. He was a tight wallet country boy, and he didn't spend $$ if it wasn't absolutely necessary to.

I have a harbor freight 12k winch mounted on my trailer. I power it with the largest automotive battery that would fit in a battery box. I have the trailer wired to charge the battery whenever it plugged into the truck thru the 7 way plug.

As long as you have a good battery it should hold a charge for months.

Here's the Blue Sea Systems reference on wire gauge at amps:
https://d2pyqm2yd3fw2i.cloudfront.net/files/resources/reference/20010.pdf


Here's the rest of the Reference Library for alternative data and options for isolators:
https://www.bluesea.com/support/reference

You can download the catalog and the reference is included.
It's all copy written, so I did not post the charts.

Keep in mind, every battery is considered a DEEP Cell Marine using the Blue Sea charts and diagrams.

Every picture of a 250hp motor is another load, just like your portable welder, your winch, your 200 amp power inverter, your camper, you sewerage pump, etc.

There's diagrams for multi-battery with and without isolators and solar backup and solar charging options, for nearly every style of system you can imagine.

WARNE is $389 on sale for $311 directly from WARNE for the Truck side winch cables with isolator:
https://www.warn.com/quick-connect-power-cable-32966
(You can find it cheaper elsewhere, like ebay).

Here's the 90 inch extended cable for the trailer side:
https://www.warn.com/winch-quick-connect-power-cable-90-106077

I have an 8k Warn winch on my car trailer that is rarely used. When I do use it I don’t know what truck I will have so I do have a setup like you show with a good insulating sleeve over it. When I do use it, typically it is for a small tractor or a pickup truck with inflated tires so it is not a very hard pull. If the winch struggles enough to start warming up wires I just double the line pull. That has only happened one time.

If you can put a receiver on the front of your truck you can use a short power cable to help with the power loss.

Matt69olds said:

I have a harbor freight 12k winch mounted on my trailer. I power it with the largest automotive battery that would fit in a battery box. I have the trailer wired to charge the battery whenever it plugged into the truck thru the 7 way plug.

As long as you have a good battery it should hold a charge for months.

Click to expand...

This is my preferred method as well. Simple and reliable. I've never found a need for an isolator on the aux wire. The winch should be used with the tow vehicle running anyhow.

The reason I was talking relay as an isolator was as a way to charge a trailer battery with the vehicle running on a 4 wire system, I suppose a person could run a single 12v source from battery to trailer,never thought about it. I think for the small expense involved and fairly easy install I'd still want to isolate the 2 batteries.

Ricko1966 said:

The reason I was talking relay as an isolator was as a way to charge a trailer battery with the vehicle running on a 4 wire system, I suppose a person could run a single 12v source from battery to trailer,never thought about it. I think for the small expense involved and fairly easy install I'd still want to isolate the 2 batteries.

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Honest question... is there anyone with a trailer big enough to utilize a winch that doesn't run a 7-pin connector anymore? I thought pretty much everyone has went to the 7-pin, which has the aux wire.

bucket said:

Honest question... is there anyone with a trailer big enough to utilize a winch that doesn't run a 7-pin connector anymore? I thought pretty much everyone has went to the 7-pin, which has the aux wire.

Click to expand...

My trailer is big enough and 4 wire,but it's very old. Wow just realized it's gotta be 30 years old and my usual truck is almost 40.

Ok, Thanks everyone for all your efforts in educating me with this. I guess I was overthinking
what I wanted. Good Idea, but not worth it. I only use this a couple times a year. It stays in storage.
Enclosed. I will just find a solar panel I can use to trickle the charge for the battery. Thanks again.

I got to use it today and just put another battery from one of the other c10's. The WARN winch is
BAD A$$.

Just adding this if you have the battery, this ought to keep it charged, and they can live in the wild for a good number of years. We use them on deer feeders to keep batteries charged, and we easily get 7 or 8 years from them in central/west Texas sun. Pretty sure we have some much older than that, and they keep a battery alive for years with a 2-4x per day 5 second draw of a blower motor.