Will a Winch run off a cigarette lighter?

A friend of mine gave me a 2500 ATV winch. Because it's powered through a remote I don't plan on installing it on my ATV because on the rare occasion that its needed the remotes battery will likely be dead. What I would like to do with it is mount it on a removeable 2 x 6 in the box of my truck so I can lift and drag my cartopper boat into the box a lot easier. Would there be enough power in a fish finder battery for example (usually 7 amp or 8 amp) to run this thing or could I even jury rig a connector for the trucks cigarette lighter?
Usually the simplest is always the most efficient so if this doesn't work then I'll just go to a Beaver hoist set-up. Your thoughts.

No. With no weight attached, it may run for a half a minute. Most of those winches have a 30-40 amp fuse or circuit breaker. Even the cigarette lighter won't do it. If you have a 7 pin plug at the back of your truck, one of those pins is wired for 30 amp. I've seen guys use that plug at the back with an ATV winch to power their 14-16 foot boats onto the trailer.

My 2018 only has 20a to that 7 pin connector, I assume the usual cost cutting of auto makers. It wouldn't even handle trickle charging a decent sized auxiliary battery I had for camping.


Sawbill, what's a beaver hoist setup?

There are a whole bunch of factors in winching. Number of line wraps on the spool and the weight you are pulling including drag is another.

At full load a 2,500 lbs. winch can draw up to 170 amps so definitely a direct connect job to a full size battery.
Here is an owners manual for reference on a Champion winch.

https://y79961nbs4u2hvbnwronx9zx-wpe...om-english.pdf


For the occasional use you could also use a portable battery box such at this one on sale at CTC.
It would also do double duty such as running and charging electronics such as a fish finder or floodlight...etc.


https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/m...?rrec=true#spc

If the winch is going to be in the box, it shouldn't be that far from your truck battery? Perhaps you could get some 10 ga. or 8 ga. wire with heavy alligator clips and rig it up that way?

I have one of those portable winches that you can mount to the hitch ball in an emergency. It is 12 volt, 2000lb, and it uses a cable with alligator clips that you connect directly to the battery.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rf2

I have one of those portable winches that you can mount to the hitch ball in an emergency. It is 12 volt, 2000lb, and it uses a cable with alligator clips that you connect directly to the battery.

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I have the same one for my UTV.
It has come in handy a couple of times already.

https://www.amazon.ca/Champion-Power...0&sr=8-16&th=1

I installed one on a Honda Big Red, I plugged it in the cigar lighter plug in that was on the bike. Worked great. Might of been a 1500 lb.

A bit of physics.

Watts (power) is joules/second (energy per unit time). To lift 1 pound in 1 second would take 1.345/1 = 1.345 watts.

The output of a cigarette lighter is 10 amps fused circuit. So, OHMS law states that P=IxE which is 10 amps X 12 volts for a maximum of 120 watts.

120 watts divided by 1.345 = a lift of 89.22 lbs.

Using the same formula, at 170 amp draw the lift would be 1,516.73 lbs.
We never lift off the ground but simply drag along a surface and it also brings in another coefficient called friction.

There, enough said....lol. Time to refresh my beverage.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by impact

A bit of physics.

Watts (power) is joules/second (energy per unit time). To lift 1 pound in 1 second would take 1.345/1 = 1.345 watts.

The output of a cigarette lighter is 10 amps fused circuit. So, OHMS law states that P=IxE which is 10 amps X 12 volts for a maximum of 120 watts.

120 watts divided by 1.345 = a lift of 89.22 lbs.

Using the same formula, at 170 amp draw the lift would be 1,516.73 lbs.
We never lift off the ground but simply drag along a surface and it also brings in another coefficient called friction.

There, enough said....lol. Time to refresh my beverage.

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Impact, I knew someone was going to screw with my head.
It never even dawned on me to use the trailer connector for power. Anyway, I caved and actually read the specs in the manual. It said the winch needed a minimum of 12 Amps which is considerably larger than a fish finder battery. Given this, I came up with the brain wave to use my little 2 ton Beaver hoist as the simplest solution. By hand I can lift the stern of the boat onto the tailgait and use the hoist to drag it most of the way into the box.