Harvesting jump cables for winch battery cable

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AndywoodTD5

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9
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Ellesmere Port
First post!
Forgive me if this is an obvious question, in terms of saving money would there be anything wrong with cutting up some 35mm2 booster cables to use for the winch power and earth cable? (Warrior Samurai 9.500lbs-90 TD5) Im aware you can buy them made up but id be saving about £35 doing it this way. Is it safe? Got them at Halfords for use on engines up to 4.0 litres.
 
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I can't see a problem with doing it that way, I've often "harvested" cables from one job for use on another.

Your only difficulty is likely to be fitting any terminal, crimp is the best method, soldering can go high resistance and crystaline, especially on joints carrying higher currents which will lead to problems later on.
 
I used jump leads when i moved one of the batteries on my 101.
Not all leads are equal, but, if you get chunky ones, then it wont be an issue.

Crazy that copper, mass produced, into leads, is cheaper than just off the roll, but that's the way it is.
 
Its cross sectional area that youre looking for - ability to loose heat affects current rating, but general 'compactness' can probably be ignored.
 
If you have no data (nothing on the packet / cable etc?) then that might be your best option.

You will, i think, need to load the winch. See if the cable starts to warm up.
 
Here's some we made earlier.... 70sq mm welding cable:

Jumpleads.jpg


Peter
 
Expensive!

The cable is what costs, plus labour to assemble.

We had some 70mm cable in an offcut, plus the heatshrink tube, Philip just bought the clamps.

I'll check on prices, we don't do it for a living :)

Peter
 
By the time we have bought 10 metres of welding cable, connectors, heatshrink and labour, we'd need to charge £116 or so just to break even! Cable is about £7.50 a metre, £12 for the grips, £4 for heatshrink, £25 labour. To make a profit......

That's why shop-made or bought leads are so wimpy, to keep the price down.

By using odd lengths and offcuts it keeps the cost down, but still relatively expensive if you have to cost your time and buy parts.

Peter
 
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