winches-in general, just a thought

[sean f]

The problem with most of the designs for this sort of thing on the market is they aren't designed for high side loads.

A helicopter winch (relatively low loads any way) would have most of the load vertically below the winch so only low side loads would be required to lay the wire correctly, the same applies for a fishing reel where the rod eyes assure it is reasonable in line.

A system strong enough for full load to be applied at say a 45 deg angle and still be able to layer the rope correctly would need to be very strong and hence big. I expect the book answer is to position the vehicle or use snatch blocks so a straight line pull is achieved, great in theory......

One system I have seen on a truck (ex MOD?) was a fixed circular fairlead (actually 4 rollers but with a small "window") and the winch it self mounted on sliders and moving side to side, extactly how something like this could be achieved on a smaller vehicle I am not sure

[Night Train]

You could track the winch drum sideways.

Mount the drum on a long splined driving shaft so that it can slide sideways.

The driving shaft won't take any of the winching loads so machine the drum flanges to a bearing surface, maybe with large needle roller bearings or bronze bushing.

The bearings can then roll and track sideways on a pair of tracks (like a wide fairlead roller) on the front of the winch housing that takes the pulling loads while the rope goes through a static donut fairlead.

During winching the winch and donut stay till while the drum is driven back and forth against the tracks by any of the methods I mentioned above.

[sean f]

You could track the winch drum sideways.

Mount the drum on a long splined driving shaft so that it can slide sideways.

The driving shaft won't take any of the winching loads so machine the drum flanges to a bearing surface, maybe with large needle roller bearings or bronze bushing.

The bearings can then roll and track sideways on a pair of tracks (like a wide fairlead roller) on the front of the winch housing that takes the pulling loads while the rope goes through a static donut fairlead.

During winching the winch and donut stay till while the drum is driven back and forth against the tracks by any of the methods I mentioned above.

Yep thats pretty much what I meant, either move just the drum or the entire winch.

The problem comes that if the available width is fixed (front of the land rover) then the width of the drum would need to be narrower to give it room to move hence the capacity of the drum reduced possible to a point that not enought rope can be put on to make it usable. It can be done but a real compromise would need to be made (as with most things!) it would be a question of where peoples individual prioities lay.

[Mark90]

the width of the drum would need to be narrower to give it room to move hence the capacity of the drum reduced possible to a point that not enought rope can be put on to make it usable.

If you are going to end up with much reduced rope capacity, just put the shorter rope on the original unmodified winch as you might not have enough to worry about bunching anyway.

[errol209]

If you are going to end up with much reduced rope capacity, just put the shorter rope on the original unmodified winch as you might not have enough to worry about bunching anyway.

A Welsh rope-hauled funicular railway of my acquaintance winches 8 ton tramcars up and down, and the (ex-colliery) winding drums have an arm geared to the drum which forces the rope into (near enough) the right place for it to "fleet" itself, meaning the last pulley is only about 3m away. This arm is operated by a slotted plate cam run from the main drum shaft through a reduction gear: why couldn't you do exactly the same but have the cam move an annular fairlead across on a guide, where the normal one goes? Admittedly the cam would need to be able to pull against the rope when the fairlead is trying to lay "uphill" under load, but we're talking hydro levels of torque here!

[errol209]

Like this Linky but smaller.

[jbs]

errol, thats what I meant-thank you-thats what i saw on the back of the drainage truck,

I did find this though http://www.columbiawinch.com/specs/autoadvance.pdf which is another alternative i suppose

John

[Night Train]

errol, thats what I meant-thank you-thats what i saw on the back of the drainage truck,

I did find this though http://www.columbiawinch.com/specs/autoadvance.pdf which is another alternative i suppose

John

That is a good way to doing it.

I can also imagine that set up upside down in the middle of the truck with the rope in a donut on the top of the roll cage.

[cieranc]

Here is the photo the guy sent me

That's a winch off an overhead gantry crane, as found in workshops, factories etc...

Which is why it has a single layer rope, really quite short. It only has to pass from the roof/gantry to the floor a few times through a snatch block.

Ours at work has a 4 line pull through the snatch block, and is still only a single layer drum.

[FridgeFreezer]

http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=31850&st=0&p=311192

And