Mounting a winch to trailer

Baker

Baker

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2010
Location
Suffolk, VA
I just bought a warn m5000 winch this weekend and would like to mount it to my trailer. My question is rather than run a deep cycle battery is there a way I could set it up so that the winch is powered from my truck as long as the trailer is plugged up?
 
You could but you'd have to run some heavy gauge wire. What most do or at least what i'd do is throw a battery in trailer and wire it to the truck so it charges it while the truck is running.
 
How would you wire it so that it charges? I haven't really ever messed with wiring I know the basics but I don't wanna mess stuff up.
 
Basically you'd have to run a wire from the truck battery to the tralier connector, would have to a 7-pin. Just wire it to a spare and correspond that to the trailer then run that to the trailer battery. This is the way my shop teacher did his on his race car trailer and it worked pretty good.
 
The orange wire(im pretty sure) on 7 pin connectors is your charge wire for a trailer mounted battery......if im not right on this someone chime in
 
Depends on the truck it should be a heavier gauge and I think it should be the center pin which on most is either the aux or trailer brakes not really sure.
 
7pin-diagram.jpg

IF you use the auxiliary wire to charge a battery, you need to put in some protection, like a breaker. If not when you drain the battery you will smoke the wire because it will try to pull too much power too fast to recharge. And, on the other end, if you drain your truck battery it will do the same thing if you try and start the truck, it will try to pull starting power from the aux battery and smoke it then too.
 
something doesnt look right about that diagram chip. Check this out: http://www.etrailer.com/faq-wiring.aspx

The center pin should be for reverse lights. If you hook it up, it could blow out the lights on your truck. The black wire should be the constant 12V source, that you can use to charge a battery. You could surely rewire your trailer and truck to use the center pin for your need, if you werent going to have a battery. Just be aware that it would only work when hooked to your truck.

What I would recommend, if you did not want a battery on your trailer:

Run a seperate set of leads back from the battery and use a set of disconnects on the truck and trailer. Then you could plug/unplug as needed. You could also put the winch on a multimount type setup, you it could be taken off the trailer and put in your truck hitch for other uses.
http://www.warn.com/truck/accessories/quick_connect_all.shtml

If you want to build your own setup, you can find the Anderson connectors cheaper other places. Just need to make sure that they are rated for the proper amperage, and are properly installed on the cables. For cable size I would go up atleast 1 size if not more from the factory wire that came with the winch.
 
i agree, but if the truck has factory wiring then the backup lights will blow when hooking battery to them... With that being said, I have considered a number of times of hooking up backup lights on my trailer, esp my gooseneck
 
Redneck92 said:
Basically you'd have to run a wire from the truck battery to the tralier connector, would have to a 7-pin. Just wire it to a spare and correspond that to the trailer then run that to the trailer battery. This is the way my shop teacher did his on his race car trailer and it worked pretty good.
Click to expand...

Not sure I understand. :confused: So would the wire go to the positive side of the trailer battery? Would you run a wire from the negative side of the trailer battery to a ground?
 
Caver Dave said:
A show of hands for everyone with "backup lights" on their trailers o_O

Now, a show of hands from those that charge a break-away or winch battery :D
Click to expand...


Caver,

Not necessarily reverse lights, but on my boat trailer, this circuit locks the brake solenoid on the trailer (when truck is in reverse) and holds the fluid, and keeps the surge brakes from holding while backing up.

Just trying' to help.............
 
I've got both. I've got reverse lights wired right in, with no additional switches, and another set of wires for trickle charging the winch battery. All courtesy of Kraftsman Trailers. I can look something over on mine for you if you'd like

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk
 
Caver Dave said:
A show of hands for everyone with "backup lights" on their trailers o_O

Now, a show of hands from those that charge a break-away or winch battery :D
Click to expand...

I have both. Break-away battery is actually isolated. +12V charges the house batteries, reverse lights help ensure I don't back over anything.
 
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