Add-on radio remote for timber winches?

[rustythread]

While I'm shopping for tractors, might as well get some other questions resolved.
I have seen ads for several add-on radio remotes for timber winches, and am wondering if anyone can advise which brands / models /sizes of winches can be retro-fitted with radio remotes. I expect to be doing a lot of winching, much of which will involve climbing hills to the logs and winching them down to the flat; strikes me that a remote would be just the ticket, so I can stay near the log to clear any hangups.
Any info or warnings would be useful.
TIA

 

[boggen]

without actually looking up at any radio controlled addons. i would assume most of the radio controlled addon's have a relay in them. and as long as the winch requirements for amps does not exceed the relay amps for the radio controller. you should be good to go.

warning though cables do break. and can be a very mean and deadly whip. when they do break. that can take arms, legs, and heads off of people. a radio controller. would be more of getting out of the way of possible cable breaking more than anything for me. vs being near the tree for any possible snags.

if you just want say 20 feet of wire remote control for a winch. that should be fairly easy to do. recently, just wired things up, so i could use a regular 110v extension cord. for a pull behind sprayer. so instead of placing 12v battery on spray rig, i could undo plug for battery clips and add in an extension cable, to run battery clips to front of a vehicle that did not have some sort of rear trailer plug that could be used to run sprayer pump.

just be careful using winches, it can be fairly easy on the bigger winches to run battery dead on a tractor, even when the tractor is running. and for some folks, it has came down to have a secondary battery to run the winch. and then buy a trickle charger / battery maintainer for the 2nd battery and mount and place battery some place on tractor for when ever winch gets used.

 

[leonz]

While I'm shopping for tractors, might as well get some other questions resolved.
I have seen ads for several add-on radio remotes for timber winches, and am wondering if anyone can advise which brands / models /sizes of winches can be retro-fitted with radio remotes. I expect to be doing a lot of winching, much of which will involve climbing hills to the logs and winching them down to the flat; strikes me that a remote would be just the ticket, so I can stay near the log to clear any hangups.
Any info or warnings would be useful.
TIA

with out even shaking a stick or reading the dried chicken bones for guidance I can tell
you that you are looking at three or four thousand dollars.

It gets less expensive per function with larger number of functions.

Its not so much the winch as the cotrols for the winch and how easily they can be mated
with the clutch controls and the failsafe to stop it in an emergency.

free spooling
Power in
Power out
emergency stop

You have two functions which require normally open
contacts to operate and the emergency stop which has to tied
into the winch at the winch with the servo and the wireless remote.

For the money you would be better off buying a remote controlled
wrecker winch from AW Direct: Towing Equipment, Work Truck Supplies & Accessories as a Cattron system will set set
you way back because of the remote and the work required to install the servo racks
and linkages as well as the battery powered operating system.

 

[Gordon Gould]

I have seen some Warn ATV or truck winches w/ radio remote controls. They are On/Off winches w/o a clutch. There are probably clutch controled logging winches with RF remote control but I have not seen any. I am interested in what you find out.
I know what you mean about going up and down the hills pulling cables and chasing hang-ups. If you can get a young guy to help you and if you can cut and lay down your trees in groups so they can use the approximate same skid path then tie a long rope on the hook end of your cable. Send the young guy up the hill with the cable and chokers. You stay at the tractor and winch the trees down. The young guy stays up high and pays out the rope as the tree comes down. He also repostions himself and the rope for the next tree. After you unhook it at the bottom he pulls the cable back up using the rope and hooks the next tree.
Takes two guys but there is alot less up and down involved and it is much quicker.

 

[grsthegreat]

I added a remote control unit to my atv winch. It cost about $50.00 from ebay and works great. Problem is the range is only about 30-50 feet. It consist of a relay but i don't remember the amperage rating. Took only 20 minutes to wire in.

 

[debushau]

I have recently added a Lodar remote control system to a winch. It works quite well but I was lucky because it's a hydraulic winch and the hydraulic circuit is controlled by solenoids (and ultimately, a joystick). It should also be a simple matter to wire in an electrical winch also. The Lodar works well, it's commonly used on tow trucks, the range of the remote exceeds the length of cable (200 ft). The Lodar can also be purchased with a number of additional circuits (just two are needed for a basic in-out winch system).

A PTO driven winch is a much more complicated to retrofit because it's controlled by a manually operated clutch. I have seen Tajfun and Uniforest winches offered with remotes but it's an extra $2k or so. I don't believe Farmi, Fransgard or Norse offer a remote control. So, if you were going for a PTO winch, it might be worth looking at Uniforest and Tajfun.

 

[rustythread]

Mates, I get more educated with every response (altho somewhat embarrassed as my total ignorance is exposed).
I gather from the responses that expense of installation and utility of radio remotes depends a lot on whether the winch is electrical, hydraulic, or mechanical ( pto-driven), with the complexity and expense of the necessary remote-operated controls increasing as you look from electrical to hydraulic to mechanical. Since I'm looking primarily at PTO-powered winches, I think I'll back-burner this thought until I get other questions out of the way.
Thanks, all!

 

[dstig1]

When you say Timber winch, I assume you mean a Farmi, Fransgaard, etc that mount on the PTO. I would assume you would have to get any remote system for those at the time of purchase. Possibly they can be retrofitted later - you would have to ask them. I'm sure it would be a fully proprietary system to actuate the drum clutch as it is normally done by hand with a pull cord, so you would need to find a winch that also has a system available. I bet that would be pricey, though I seem to recall Farmi had one that I saw somewhere.

 

[J_J]

There are lots of wireless and wired remote control for winches on Ebay. Most of them have a range of 50 to 65 ft.

This wireless control from Baileys is not cheap, but has a range of 200 ft.

Electronic Valves, Controls and Switches 301-114 Detailed Information

Electronic Valves, Controls and Switches 301-144 Detailed Information

Hydraulic Cylinder Components, Products

 

[J_J]

rustythread, You said.

Since I'm looking primarily at PTO-powered winches, I think
I'll back-burner this thought until I get other questions out of the way.

Answer:

The way around that is since the winch you are interested in is PTO and mechanical, then the best remote control system for you would be another person with walkie talkie on tractor and you down by the log.

There all sorts of wireless remotes for electrical and hyd winches, and long wired remotes.