[Terry M. Hunt]

I’m shopping for a portable electric winch. I plan to install an anchor in the garage floor that will accept a D ring that the winch can be hooked to. This will make it easier for me to move the rearmost car that is parked across the back wall. I use a set of Go Jacks to lift the tires up off the floor, but the problem in the past has been the fact that it is really,really difficult to make the almost immediate 90 degree right turn required, then to switch to a straight ahead push to get out of the garage. I mocked up a system using a manual winch that has a flat nylon strap instead of a steel cable that greatly simplified this whole process, but I want to make it even easier by using a portable electric winch instead of the hand cranked version I used during my test. The Warn 1000 pound Pullzall is a nice model that could be set up and removed quickly and easily. The problem is that the specs for this device show it can only run for 30 seconds at a time after which it must “rest” for 30 minutes. At least that is how I interpret the specs listed on the Northern Tool site . That would make it take forever to move the car far enough to start it up and drive it out of the garage. I seem to see this kind of limitation on other portable AC powered winches. I’ve seen guys winching cars onto trailers for years using battery powered winches that run for several minutes until the car is completely up on the trailer. Why is the duty cycle on this Warn winch(and others I ‘ve found on line ) so short? Am I missing something here?

[Stuart]

This one? https://www.northerntool.com/shop/to...5486_200455486 It says 1 minute run, 30 minutes cooldown (although that's not a lot of time either.) I looked at the operator's manual on the Warn website and the run time does increase if the load is less - it says 2 minutes run time for a 500 lb load.

It comes down to size versus power versus cost...they want to make it small enough and light enough to be easily handled. They could sell one with a longer duty cycle but it would require a larger, heavier and more expensive motor with better cooling built in.

[tooski]

My winch manual also has similar info. That duty cycle is for the maximum rated load of the winch. That load rating is attained with one turn or less of the cable on the drum. As the number of turns on the drum increases, the load rating goes down. The manual does not give the duty cycle for any load rating between maximum and minimum.
Another thing I found is that the manual states that my winch draws 250 amps at the maximum load rating. However, it came with a 6 ga power wire and a 50 amp breaker. My thought was that how would this winch operate at anything much more than the minimum rated load without tripping that breaker. Also 6 ga wire rating is 55 amps and would burn up putting 250 amps through it.
I used an economical 1000 lb winch bolted to a 2 x 6 across the studs on a garage to pull a car (no engine) into it. The approach to the garage was around a 30* incline. I had no thoughts about duty cycle and no problems.
I suspect you will be just fine.

[Terry M. Hunt]

I read the cycle time wrong. 2 minutes pulling 500 pounds may just be enough to do what I need. Not sure how much force it takes to get my car moving, then make the 90 degree turn, but seems like it would be less than 500 pounds since I can actually do this manually with considerable effort. Will probably go ahead and buy the Warn. Looking forward to no longer having to wrestle with this. Thanks for the input,.