Using snatch blocks to increase power how to#
Using snatch blocks to increase power upgrade#

Remember what it looked like when you got your winch? Nice, tight, even wraps. How can you prevent your winch cable from breaking?įirst, keep it correctly wrapped on the drum. Have a little more respect for it when you're using it. Spool nicely, buy it flowers once in a while instead of asking it to getĪll dirty for you when you haven't been taking care of its needs. Maybe you can keep it a little more lubricated, keep it wrapped on the What we are saying is that maybe you want to treat your winch cable a little better. You would lose 30-60% of the length of your winch cable by moving to a

Using snatch blocks to increase power upgrade#

What are we saying here? That you should upgrade to 9/16' cable for all your winching? No. We've all accepted 3/4' shackles with a WLL that's close to 2X many 4x4 weights, but we've also accepted winch cables with WLLs that are 1/2 those same 4x4 weights. Is just a huge incongruency in how we think about recovery safety. How come no one is losing their minds!?!?!?!?!?

The WLL of 5/16' winch cable is about 20% of the WLL of a 3/4' shackle. Minimum Breaking Strength of 9800 lbs, giving us a design factor of 5. If you don't remember from above, standardĥ/16' 7x19 aircraft cable has a Working Load Limit of 1960 lbs and a A 5/16' cable has a WLL of 1980 lbs and a 3/8' winch cable has a WLL of 2880 lbs. The first thing you should know about your winch cable is that its Working Load Limit is far below whatever you're doing with it. In fact, some hoisting operations actually call for a design factor of 10!ĭ-ring shackles, snatch blocks, cables, and straps all have design factors built in to account for non-ideal conditions and people doing dumb things (maybe like, I don't know, in fourwheeling.?). If you think '5' is a crazy amount of design factor, or that design factors sound dumb, there are plenty of construction videos on YouTube that show that people still manage to exceed the MBS on critical rigging, even with high design factors. The design factor ensures that the I-beam Kevin rigged up incorrectly doesn't fall and kill Bob. In hoisting, design factors are for when Kevin screws up the rigging and overloads a component. The '5' in the equation above is called the Design Factor. Working Load Limit x 5 = Minimum Breaking Strength For wire rope that we use in winch cables the WLL is 1/5 the Minimum Breaking Strength. Working Load Limit is determined using the Minimum Breaking Strength (MBS). If that isn't clear, cable manufacturers are saying, 'Don't ever put more than X weight on this cable.' Working Load Limit (WLL), is maximum allowable weight.

Using snatch blocks to increase power how to#

Hoisting and lifting do have governing organizations that say how to do things and how things should be rated.īelow, we're going to walk through cable characteristics and 'build' a cable that we can use on our winch. Some of the gear used in 4x4 recovery operations is also used in hoisting and lifting. That's all up to you and the manufacturers that you trust. One thing you should understand about your recovery gear is that there is no governing body that tells you how to winch, or how to rig your snatch blocks, or what size bolts your recovery points should use. Recovery points are strong, don't overload your winch cable, etc. Mistakes - don't hook your winch cable on itself, make sure your Your gear, know your gear, respect the boundaries of your gear, readĪbout recovery setups, and practice your skills.

Massive forces and weights involved in recovery operations, so care for People get hurt and killed in recovery operations. Let's first say that you are ultimately responsible for your recovery There are reasons winch cable is small and ways to keep it lasting longer. But did you know that your winch cable is delicate and underrated for winching? Probably not, and this is one reason why we use recovery dampers.

Almost every winch today comes with steel winch cable from the factory.