Warn 8274 winch Contactor comps?

[Captn Conch]

7/5/1977 Warn 8274, Thinking about replacing the solenoids with a contactor.

Amazon has a variety of 12 V 500 amp contactors from $30 and up, all look quite similar to the Albright. They claim to be for 8500 to 12500 lb winches.

Input about the use of one of these options on the 8274? the Warn Albright $200+ Ouch.

Anybody have ACTUAL experience with these contactors?

My original 1977 solenoids still work (one replaced 20yrs ago,) but for ongoing dependablilty time to go contactor route.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

You might want to post that question here: Winching and Recovery

 

[1911]

There are several threads on this in the Winching and Recovery sub-forum that @WarDamnEagle gave the link to. Apparently, there are a lot of Chinese knock-offs of the various Albright models. The "Superwinch" contactor that used to be sold at Summit (which I used myself) may in fact be one.

The short story is, you want a contactor that is rated for 500+ amps for a few seconds (winch start-up) but also one that will hold ~250 amps for an extended period, say several minutes (i.e., a long winch pull or repeated pulls in over a short time). Albright publishes these data for every model of contactor they make; everyone else, not so much.

 

[Captn Conch]

OK I didn't see that forum when I was searching, Thanks WDE. Yes the info is sketchy indeed on the Chinese models. I couldn't find much on the Warn Albright either but maybe if call Warn, they are always helpful. I'm just checking here to who has actually installed one of the budget models.

 

[1911]

I'm just checking here to who has actually installed one of the budget models.

I installed the $90 (at the time) "Superwinch" contactor in mine and it has worked flawlessly for 7-8 years, but they don't seem to be available right now. Not sure that I would be willing to try a $30 one though. YMMV.