Troubleshooting badlands winch not working

[A Sober Animal]

Looking for advice on where to start in terms of troubleshooting my Badlands 10k winch no longer working. Tried to use it yesterday to help an idiot in a rental Subaru stuck in deep snow in the mountains above Denver and it didn’t seem like it was getting power.

Does anyone know if the wireless button lights up (flip on the winch) when you turn it on? I only have my wireless controller as the wires are at home.

Other than checking all of the connections, any suggestions on what else I should be looking for in terms of troubleshooting this thing? I can hear an audible clock when I switch the power on coming from the Warn interrupt kit, but believe this is normal behavior when allowing power to it.

Sponsored

 

[A Sober Animal]

Update now that I'm back home and can use my wired connection on the winch. The motor will run 'in' (pulling line) but won't run 'out' (giving line).

Unsure on next steps in terms of troubleshooting; any help would be appreciated.

 

[jaymz]

First of all, the guy that leaves the most reliable way of controlling his winch at home probably shouldn’t be calling other people an idiot.

Second, winch controls are pretty simple. If it works one way, but not the other there’s really only a couple of things it can be. Your “in/out” switch is bad, reversing contactor is bad, or you’ve got a poor connection at one of those locations.

I have no idea what your controller looks like, but if it’s easy to disassemble and the switch for in/out has 3 wires on it, reverse the locations of the top & bottom wires and see if the winch works opposite of what it does now.

 

[A Sober Animal]

First of all, the guy that leaves the most reliable way of controlling his winch at home probably shouldn’t be calling other people an idiot.

Second, winch controls are pretty simple. If it works one way, but not the other there’s really only a couple of things it can be. Your “in/out” switch is bad, reversing contactor is bad, or you’ve got a poor connection at one of those locations.

I have no idea what your controller looks like, but if it’s easy to disassemble and the switch for in/out has 3 wires on it, reverse the locations of the top & bottom wires and see if the winch works opposite of what it does now.

Let me clarify the idiot comment I made earlier: this guy we rescued was 1) in a stock rental Subaru legacy, 2) had no off-roading experience, 3) was traveling alone and 4) the trail had 6+ inches of snow on it.

Secondly, in the 26 months that I've owned my winch, I have never, not once, had to use the wired connection. And, it turns out, I had it in my trunk the entire time, simply forgot that I had it with me.

That aside, thank you for the info - I'm going to try swapping the top and bottom wires as you started to see if that works. If that doesn't, my next step is to take a look at the solenoids as I understand those can go bad.

Sponsored