[gman74]

Hi can you run a winch on a standard battery? I recently put a new battery in and want to put a winch in now. Will it work?

[Dec]

What cca battery do you have?

You can run a winch off one battery, however i'd only do it as a last resort.
I can't quote what size battery a jimny takes as i've never owned one, however with the space a sierra has without modifying it you would not run a winch off a NS40 size battery.

Battery Recommended: 650CCA minimum (off the tigerz11 website)

[gman74]

Yeh my battery is only 330cca.

[Dec]

Yeah same issue as me, dual-battery is really the only solution. I'm running a 'All-rounder' battery as my secondary which has 525CCA it's never given me an issue, mind you i'm not one to be winching every-trip.

http://www.supercharge.com.au/product_detail.php?seq=95

That's the one i'm running, dimensions are on that link to give you some idea. Also check out Century Optima batterys there's a great range there with good cca

[Mike57]

gman

You won't find a 650 CCA battery to fit the Jimny. I use the Optima Yellow top D51 battery which is the largest I could fit. Check out my thread on that topic. I think your 08 model does not have the ABS so that might mean you can fit a secondary battery in the engine bay.

What ever battery you have if you winch slowly and use a low duty cycle like winch for 10 seconds then wait for 20 seconds then any battery should be OK, just don't draw a lot of current from it continuously. There has been lots of discussion on this forum about batteries and winching. Basically IMO it is internal heat that kills any battery. That heat comes from delivering sustained high loads. The other thing to watch is the battery voltage. Dropping down to about 10 volts will also damage just about any battery, but that is more in terms of long term low current draw that slowly flattens the battery. Of course continuously drawing a high current will also drop the voltage.

Another possibility is to run two small batteries in parallel. Rather than main and secondary connect them together and you get double the CCA capacity. In that case it will be best that both batteries are the same so that internal resistance is the same, well in my opinion anyway.

You should also check what your alternator size is. The 2009 model is 75 amps. If yours only has 50 amps then an upgrade might be a good idea. The alternator will also supply current for winching so if it has a 75 amp capacity then that will be used first and any additional current will be delivered by the battery. When you are not winching the battery is topped up again from the alternator.

I have a second battery in the back of the car and it is identical to the main battery. If I stuff up the main battery then I will swap them. This would be an expensive mistake but at least I still have a working battery.

The Optima D51 is 500 CCA according to the published data but I am pretty sure the label says 450 CCA.

I would think that you run a risk of damaging a 330 CCA battery if winching, but others may have experience with this. I have never killed a battery but then I have not done a lot of serious winching either.

Mike

[gman74]

Thanks Mike, I might just put winch in and see how it goes. If I then have a problem I can look at battery.