CharlieS
GOLD Star
I have a high amperage mechanical kill switch (Comeup branded), that I'll install one of these days. I toyed with using a high amp relay like you are doing, but was dissuaded from it by experienced people that seemed to know a lot more about it than I do. I don't think I've heard of a fused winch power cable though - something to do with the high start up amps doesn't play nice with the amperage fuse needed to protect the wire. Definitely lots of different approaches possible.If my bumper ever gets here I’ll be running my winch behind a fuse and a switched relay.
Many winch manufacturers are recommending a physical switch at the battery. A few are even including it in the box. I guess that big fat hot wire on the front of the rig had them nervous in a potential front end collision. That switch is typically under the hood and I didn’t love the thought of stop and pop at the beginning and end of each trail, so I’m running a switch ‘on’ in cab which activates the control box, and a large ign switched solenoid (500a continuous) for the relay.
Bonus - without cab access my winch won’t be able to be spooled out by the mythical street joker who wants to. Though in reality this would almost always be some prankster in camp.
I fuse all positive wires. I don’t see how the winch is special and wouldn’t need one.