I would think having a small 12V light bulb across each solenoid would work. If they don't both turn on when the pedal is released you know something is wrong. If both solenoids open both bulbs would be running at reduced brilliance at about 6V, but if one solenoid failed you would get one on hard and the other off. You just want to make sure that the bulbs don't draw too much current. Hi brightness LED's might work even better so long as they are protected against the on/off spikes from the solenoids.
Randy
At 11:51 AM 2/11/03 -0500, Fritz Bien wrote:
At 08:24 AM 2/11/2003 -0800, WE Johns wrote:I love my Tim McCann winch. A first class product. So we stood around admiring it, and delighting at the dual solenoids, an important safety factor when someone asked: "How do you know if one solenoid hasn't already welded shut and you are running on one?"
?
Not a clue. I presume someone on the list has already faced this problem and has a working detector for monitoring dual series solenoids on a typical winch. Any comments/suggestions most welcome.
Thanks,
Bill Johns
We attach an LED in series with a 1.2K resister across each solenoid. The LED will light if there is no contact on the solenoid, therefore stay lit when the arming switch is on but the pedal switch is not activated. If the solenoid is closed, or welded shut,(or is there is a broken wire to the LED) the LED will shut off. Its then time for service to determine what went wrong.
When the winch is activated, both LEDs should go off.
-Fritz
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