A little back story about why I'm looking at doing this. A few years ago my dad bought me a winch for Christmas. It is an old Ramsey REP8000 we drove a couple of hours to buy it from a guy that had taken very good care of it. It was a memorable trip. Fast forward a year and we end up with a 12000lbs winch in a barter deal. I mount the bigger winch on my truck and put the winch on Dad's Jeep. Well he passed away a few weeks ago. We're selling the Jeep but I'm keeping the winch for sentimental reasons.
I'd like to mount it on my back bumper in the crewcab. I'm looking for options, ideas, and opinions on how best to wire it up.
I run dual batteries in the engine bay which I have wired in parallel. No charging isolator. They are wired through a battery selector switch and I run them together all the time.
I see 2 options right away. Option 1 would be to run power from the batteries I have now all the way back to the rear winch, which is a long ways in longbed crewcab. Option 2 would be to mount a third battery in the bed.
I'm liking the third battery idea. I could set it up to charge thru a battery isolator so I'm just running a large primary wire from the engine bay. The third battery could also run a power inverter in the bed for tools and misc camping stuff. Maybe even add a solar charger for camping when the truck isn't running. It would be a much shorter run for the battery cables to the rear winch. And it would also give me a back up battery in case something happened to the 2 primaries in the engine bay since I don't have those separated/isolated.
Another option would be to put the 2 batteries I have now in the bed to split the difference between the winches.
I'm curious what you all think.
I'd like to mount it on my back bumper in the crewcab. I'm looking for options, ideas, and opinions on how best to wire it up.
I run dual batteries in the engine bay which I have wired in parallel. No charging isolator. They are wired through a battery selector switch and I run them together all the time.
I see 2 options right away. Option 1 would be to run power from the batteries I have now all the way back to the rear winch, which is a long ways in longbed crewcab. Option 2 would be to mount a third battery in the bed.
I'm liking the third battery idea. I could set it up to charge thru a battery isolator so I'm just running a large primary wire from the engine bay. The third battery could also run a power inverter in the bed for tools and misc camping stuff. Maybe even add a solar charger for camping when the truck isn't running. It would be a much shorter run for the battery cables to the rear winch. And it would also give me a back up battery in case something happened to the 2 primaries in the engine bay since I don't have those separated/isolated.
Another option would be to put the 2 batteries I have now in the bed to split the difference between the winches.
I'm curious what you all think.
