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do I need a bigger alternator

Hobkvet

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About to add a 12v 13000 winch to my 150 with a 2.7 ecoboost do I need a bigger battery or alternator
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Tall Tail

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What is the mfg and model of your winch? post a link to it.
How many amps does it draw?
 
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Hobkvet

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It's an OPENROAD and draws 300 amps at max pull 13,000 pounds
 

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Yes on the battery - if you don't use the winch all the time the alternator should be good. I sell a very good deep cycle/starting (combo) AGM battery (thin plate for max output) that will work well, you will need to upsize to the largest that will fit in that space if you want to use just one battery. Also, make sure you use very good high quality wiring and follow the directions, etc.
 

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About to add a 12v 13000 winch to my 150 with a 2.7 ecoboost do I need a bigger battery or alternator
Might have to add an additional battery so the alternator won't have to work so hard.
 

Tall Tail

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lots of posts on winches in the forum search. good advice on spare battery and wire size above too. 300 amps seems on the lower end for 13k lbs. Other similar sized winches draw 400+ amps. Make sure that is max draw and do the wire size calc.
 
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Hobkvet

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lots of posts on winches in the forum search. good advice on spare battery and wire size above too. 300 amps seems on the lower end for 13k lbs. Other similar sized winches draw 400+ amps. Make sure that is max draw and do the wire size calc.
yes, you gave me 4/0 on wire size before (I wrote it down some where) so you folks are saying carry a spare battery? If so now does that mean a dual battery system for the winch I may use (hopefully) once in a full moon in an emergency?
 

Tall Tail

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If you are going to use the setup infrequently, you can do a temporary setup and only carry the battery on the truck when you may need your winch. This will save some weight and space under normal driving conditions. I don't recall if you plan to permanently affix the winch to the truck or do a hitch attachment, but that may play a role in your battery setup. You can bring a solar battery charger if you are concerned about battery capacity over multiple pulls or setup your alternator with a temporary connection to charge the 2nd battery. If you get a LiFePO4 100 Ah battery you can get about 16 minutes of full load pulling at 300 amps. Its not likely that you will be pulling full load the entire time so that would be a minimum pull time. If you think you will need much more than that, set up a charging system or bring a second (or third including your truck starter battery) battery.

100W (8.3Amp) solar panels are pretty cheap these days. This would take about 10 hours to recharge the battery from 20% to 100% capacity. The 200 amp alternator would have you back to full capacity in about 24 minutes.
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You are going to have the engine running while operating the winch so your current setup should be OK. The winch may draw 300 amps but you are probably going to be using it for 10 minutes or less and the current draw also depends on the actual load against the motor.

Unless you plan to winch the truck up steep hills I doubt that you need a 13,000 lb capacity winch. These are used primarily by contractors and utility companies with much heavier trucks.

I have found when I had winches on my trucks that 100% of the time they were used to extract some fool who took his 2WD vehicle off the pavement. Now with air bags I would rather not take the risk of having the winch mount prevent the sensors from activating the air bags.

If I was going to add a winch I would add a front mount hitch and then use something like the Warn winch sleds that can be attached to the receiver so I could use the winch at the front or at the rear of the vehicle depending on the situation.
 
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Hobkvet

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Yup- that's the new plan- I've scrapped running a cable to the rear of the truck (for now) Going to mount the winch on a "cradle" then mount it if necessary up front(I have a front receiver installed), Thank God in 50+ years of off roading I never needed a rear winch and only used a front mounted one only in a handful of circumstances. I already had this winch, and I agree about pulling someone else out of dumb things- Thanks for the response.
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