Winch solenoids - inside vs outside

RatLabGuy

RatLabGuy

You look like a monkey and smell like one too
Joined
May 18, 2005
Location
Churchville, MD
Curious how many of you guys go through the trouble of mounting the solenoid box somewhere else, like tucked up under the hood, instead of the easy route of on top of the winch?
Trying to motivate myself that it's worth the extra PITA of wiring.
 
The biggest problems I've experience with cheaper winches is the solenoid boxes don't really protect from the weather very well. I've had a smitty and an engo with the solenoids located under the hood and hard wired controls and never had any issue with them. I now have a 9.5ti so that's not an option.
 
the TMax controller rhat came with the winch got dunked in everglades swamp muck too many times and went out. I got the solid state solenoid from Mile Marker and mounted it under the hood on a fender well...ran leads to the dash for in cab controls, left the pigtails for the wired remote and added the wireless option. The wireless crapped out years ago, but the other two options still work fine and I have had no regrets for doing so...
 
one vehicle in, one out
 
Mines mounted inside the winch case. It's a older Dayton 6k.. but that's how I want it because it's on a removable cradle and spends most of it's life on my trailer than on my DD.
 
Great timing on this. I have a brand new Smittybilt 9500# winch for Christmas to put on and I have also been trying to consider if it's worth the cost of the longer wire and time to put the box under the hood. I already have everything to do in cab controls. I really just wanted to put it under the hood cause it looks a lot better that way, I didn't think about it also protecting the box from the weather. When I took that thing apart to access my 3 wires for in cab controls, I do recall it not be sealed at all and really not protecting that stuff from anything... Guess I'm gonna do it.
 
I ditched my window washer bottle under the hood to put my solenoid box there. It'll die from vibrations before weather gets to it.

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The weather thing is a good point, had not thought of that. This is a Badlands (HF) 12k winch so I'm sure the box isn't going to last forever.
The other thing is that I'm not a big fan of having that always-hot giant line right so close to the bumper. I once hit a ledge or something coming out of one of the play-holes at URE and my olf REP8k sparked like crazy.
Thanks to the other thread on cable crimpers I just got a good one so i'm a little more motivated to do all those wires now...
 
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