Proper way to hook winch to battery

[Stuckinthesand]

I followed the book and I wired positive to positive and negative to negative, closed the hood and walked away. No issues.

I’m with you. Just made sure to run wire loom on the cable anywhere it could possibly rub and I leave a cover on it unless in use so not worried about the control box getting wet.

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[Levin_tom]

Cut off a piece of 1/2 inch vinyl tubing that I had kicking around.

Will do the same! Does the ground stay plugged in?

 

[CarbonSteel]

I did this:

https://www.jlwranglerforums.com/forum/threads/winch-disconnect-and-mounting-plate.44275/

 

[LS7]

Will do the same! Does the ground stay plugged in?

Yes, I leave the ground connected. As noted by others, this is probably an unnecessary precaution, but it only takes a couple of minutes to connect the positive cable on the rare times I need to use the winch. In the unlikely event that I have a front collision, or something shorts out in the winch, I have eliminated the possibility of a direct short to the battery.

 

[Goin2drt]

you need a relay.

I do not think this is correct. My Smittybuilt X20 runs off Factory Aux button and there is no relay and anything added other than what comes in the box. I also have the big red power cable to the non middle post. Been using it for years and all is fine. Caveat is I did not do the install but know the folks that did and they did not add a relay.

 

[MandKM]

I agree with @jeepdriver99 that it is safest to have a physical disconnect between the winch and battery. Though I haven’t installed my winch yet, I’m looking at a manual switch such as this since I have more applications than I have AUX switches.

Well, I installed my winch a little while ago and after all my research into switches, solenoids, etc, I decided to keep it simple.

When the winch is not in use I attach the positive lead to the battery ground with a wing nut. I then move the lead over to the positive post when it’s time to use the winch.

Here it is attached to ground.

...and attched to the positive post.

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