Hello all, I'm checking to see if this might work. I'm adding a small warn winch to the front of my 12 foot utility trailer to help in dragging things on to it. The winch is the smallest Warn I could find and is rated at 1700 pounds. I am considering how to power the winch. I could add clamps to the winch leads and clamp them to an extra car battery, or I could run the standard heavy winch wiring and quick connects that people use with the multi-mount style full size winches. But I got to thinking and am wondering if the 12v constant on the 7 PIN trailer socket has enough amps capabilty to power the warn 1700 winch. Please let me know if you think it will work.

 

How many amps does the winch pull? I would think you would want a heavier gauge wire / fuse / relay in the circuit than the wire that's just designed for little lights or a trickle charge.

 

I wouldn't try it, those are awful small wires for powering a winch- you wouldn't want to burn something up.

 

You will need to run a new power wire to feed the winch. The amp draw by the winch is more than the trailer wiring can handle. I run a remote battery on mine that is charged by the truck when it is hooked through the trailer wire harness. It is also used to power the safety mechanism for my electric brakes.

 

Thanks Guys: Heavy Wiring To The Back Of The Truck Coming Soon

 

Good choice Jimr. You would possibly wind up with a mess if you used the tralier wiring

 

I think that you need a battery in that location. Winches pull a LOT of current. Even if you run fairly heavy wires back to the trailer, you will still get a significant loss. Better to have the battery right there to run the winch.

Also, how often would you use this winch, and for how long each time? If you can tolerate it taking a while to re-charge the trailer battery, the trailer plug wiring would probably work fine for that.

I would put a medium-sized deep cycle battery on the trailer, and connect the winch directly to it. I would use the trailer plug wiring to re-charge the battery.