When quizzed about the symbolism of a particular personal habit, noted psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud retorted, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” Aah, the simplicity. Only problem, you can’t apply that axiom across the board. Take winches, for example. What happens if you try a super tough rescue with what you think is your honkin’ fat winch, a belief backed by the simple-minded idea that “a winch is just a winch?” Your great off-road adventure just might result in a panicked call to one of those even fatter honkin’ rescue trucks that really is capable of pulling everyone out of the gulch.
In truth, a winch is a complex, highenergy piece of equipment designed around the rules of rotational torque. That’s probably something to study in physics, but we wouldn’t really know because we skipped that in high school — too much stress on too little a brain.
If you think this scholarly reference constitutes outrageous exaggeration, look at the two founders of Superwinch. Back in 1971 in Connecticut, Frank Tolsdorf was a marketing guy — a science based on the theory that the company with the most ad dollars wins; Ian Dodds was an aerospace engineer - aka, a rocket scientist, a title right up there with brain surgery as a description of stuff that’s really difficult to grasp. Grasp we will, or at least try.
The state of the winch world when Tolsdorf, Dodds and Superwinch made their entrance was pretty limited. According to Mark Hart, Superwinch’s marketing manager, in the early ’70s, winches were considered a specialty tool-an “assisted purchase,” as they say in marketing-eze. That is, if you needed a winch, you’d go up to the counterman and he’d head to the back room and dust off his wares.
“One of the biggest changes in the marketplace-as 4x4s have become more aggressive, winches have become more popular,” says Hart. This wasn’t always the case, as already noted.
At the beginning of their enterprise, Dodds and Tolsdorf’s primary objective was to dominate the world marketplace for small winches. They wanted to capture the 1,000- to 5,000-pound (basically ATV) market. That was pretty revolutionary, considering that 36 years ago, ATVs were relative babies in the recreational, or even the utility arena.
Superwinch’s X-series winch was the first of its kind to be mounted on an ATV. Of course today ATVs are everywhere, even replacing small tractors in some applications since their smaller tires do less damage to the terrain. Also today, Superwinch’s Connecticut manufacturing facility has grown to crank out a broad range of winches, from the smaller ATV and trailer series to the EP16 with a 16,500-pound rated line pull. Meanwhile, a factory in England concentrates on making hydraulic winches and the hand-made, work horse Husky.
The science of winching (which we think of as only slightly less mystical than voodoo) starts with a small motor that, let’s say for the sake of our discussion, provides 10 lb./ft. of torque. Doesn’t sound like much, does it?
Well, here’s the magical part: “The physics of gearing,” explains Hart, “allows for the delivery of a ratio of multiple torque sometimes as high as 153:1.” In the real world, that means our 10 lb./ft. motor could produce 1530 lb./ft at the drum — think of the torque of two or three full-size diesels squeezed into that winch!
Gears take the speed of the power source and harness, or reduce, it into pulling power, or torque. Of the four major gearing systems available (3- stage planetary, differential planetary, spur, and worm), Superwinch’s engineers concentrated on the planetary systems. Differential planetary gear sets are common in automatic transmissions, allowing for reduction and high torque, overdrive with a faster output speed than input and for a direction change, i.e. reverse.
“Differential planetary gears used in the X Series are a robust gear set with wide teeth and wide spacing,” adds Hart. “The X-series built the company.” But, robust and the mounting space available on an ATV or auto trailer are not compatible. In the mid-1990s, Dodds challenged his engineers to develop a smaller winch that would perform at the same, or better level as the X-series.
The engineers’ response was 3-stage planetary gears and the T-series of winches. For those not familiar with the origin of the term, planetary describes the gear set’s configuration: a central (sun) gear circled by smaller gears (planets) with only inward facing gear teeth. A major advantage of the 3-stage planetary system is that small sets lend themselves to stacking. In fact, the 3-stage planetary gears used by Superwinch are three stacked gear sets. The T-series became the basis for both the GP and ATV line of small packages with big pulling power.
In the early years of ATV development, the three-balloon tire design dominated. For those who rememcreate ber this design, it was a little like trying to steer a giant beach ball. After a series of lawsuits and threats of government regulation, the industry decided to self-regulate, says Hart, and restrict the width on all future ATVs. Following the rule that all things must grow or die, ATVs became progressively larger, with bigger tires and more upgrades and accessories.
But because of the width restriction, the mid-section-the logical mounting spot for winches-was squeezed to accommodate the growth. As a result, the winches were getting squeezed as well. Superwinch’s design was the most efficient-motor and gears on one side, drum on the other — but the larger tires bumped the motor in sharp turns. The solution was simple: put the motor on one side of the drum, the gears on the other. This newly configured series of Superwinch ATV winches was introduced in early 2007 and was available in the marketplace a few months later.
So much for the little guys. Most 4x4ers want a minimum of 6,000 lb. rated line pull. But what the hell is rated line pull (RLP) anyway? As the standard for choosing a winch, RLP is the amount of dead weight a winch can pull with the wire rope at the bottom (or first) layer on the drum. More specifically, the wire rope is wrapped around the drum five times on that bottom layer — the five wraps are required to rope and the drum to distribute the pulling energy. That is the optimum pulling power zone, a point Superwinch stresses. Example: a winch with an RLP of 5,000 loses 42 percent of its pulling power with five layers of rope on the drum. So that 5,000 lbs. drops to only 2,894 pounds pulling power at the outer wrap. It’s a matter of a shorter turning radius.
“Think of a wrench moving a nut,” says Hart. You get more turning power from the wrench when your hand is farther away from the nut. With a winch, it’s the nut moving the wrench and the opposite is true. It’s easier for the nut to turn the wrench the closer the weight is to the nut. Think of the winch as the nut.
“That’s the number one reason for dissatisfaction with winches. The buyer doesn’t understand rotational torque,” Hart points out. These dissatisfied buyers apply wrench-logic. In fact, the importance of minimal layers of rope on the drum is the primary reason for the application of a pulley block, a standard piece of equipment on some Superwinch recovery winches. The use of a pulley doubles the pulling power, but reduces the line speed by half. But a pulley block also allows the wincher to pull enough line off the drum to get into the pulling power zone.
We need to take a minor detour in this train of thought and talk about how companies arrive at the RLP for specific models. “Superwinch tests in real world conditions,” notes Hart. “When we say one of our winches will pull 1,000 pounds of dead weight at a 14.5 foot per second line speed with an 80 amp draw, it will deliver that level of performance in the back country.”
