Hello, and where to get an electric winch

[Jonathan Kraidin]

Hello everyone. new to the forum. I have a wind turbine I built a year ago. The web diary is here: http://www.mindchallenger.com/wind

I am thinking about changing my hand winch to an electric one. I saw some on Ebay, but I don't know if this is right for a tilt-up guy tower. I want one that will not let the tower fall if the power goes down. It would also be nice if there was a hand crank in case I wanted to finished the job manually. I don't want to be caught with the tower half-way up and the electric winch fails. Any suggestions?

Jonathan

[Cor van Houtum]

Hello Jonathan,
We have also done the trick with electric winches and it this almost killed me one time
it looks far of the bed show but look at hydraulic cillinders
if you study a bit on this you will find that this is not rocket technology and much safer
not to mention the enormes power that hydraulics have

:blink1:

[Rob Beckers]

I've seen installers use regular car-mounted electrical winches with success. If it was me I would go for something with capacity to spare and a worm-gear (so the tower won't move by itself). Of course, if the winch fails (motor burns out or some such thing) you will still have to rig your own steel cable and pulleys to complete the raising/lowering.

-RoB-

[Jeff Birkle]

You can always attach 2 cables to the Jin pole incase the winch fails you just conect the second cable to another winch.
On some hand winch's you can remove the handle and attach a 1/2 drill.
If your turbine weights less than 120LBS, the winch and drill should have no problem.

Jeff

[Steven Fahey]

Just be sure not to get a winch with a "free-spool" switch. Disaster if you hit that by accident. Truck winches usually have one - hence ruling them out for tower work.