Windlass woes

[Sea Change]

The other day my windlass kept cutting out on me. I could hear the relay clicking but the motor wasn't turning.
It was a particularly hard lift- lots of boulders on the bottom and the chain was a bit tangled. Once it came free it ran ok.

It's a 12v Tigres and the motor will be either 1200w or 1500w, I'm not sure which. I thought it would be plenty powerful enough.

It runs from its own battery which I recharge using a 30A charger. I put the charger on to boost the voltage but it still wouldn't lift. After we'd finally got the anchor up, I checked the app for the charger and it had only taken 1.5Ah to put the battery back on float.

Any suggestions? I've got a 150A thermal breaker which did not trip. I thought maybe it should have, if the windlass was simply stalling under too high a load.

 

[geem]

The other day my windlass kept cutting out on me. I could hear the relay clicking but the motor wasn't turning.
It was a particularly hard lift- lots of boulders on the bottom and the chain was a bit tangled. Once it came free it ran ok.

It's a 12v Tigres and the motor will be either 1200w or 1500w, I'm not sure which. I thought it would be plenty powerful enough.

It runs from its own battery which I recharge using a 30A charger. I put the charger on to boost the voltage but it still wouldn't lift. After we'd finally got the anchor up, I checked the app for the charger and it had only taken 1.5Ah to put the battery back on float.

Any suggestions? I've got a 150A thermal breaker which did not trip. I thought maybe it should have, if the windlass was simply stalling under too high a load.

How old is the battery? If its sulphated the capacity could be very low. Not enough grunt to turn the motor?

 

[Sea Change]

How old is the battery? If its sulphated the capacity could be very low. Not enough grunt to turn the motor?

That's possible. It was newish when we left the UK in 2021. It then sat in a locker unused, and I would generally remember to stick it on charge every few months.

The (Victron IP22) charger doesn't indicate anything wrong with the battery, and usually it takes less than 2Ah per lift to return to float.

 

[salar]

It might be worth checking to see if the motor brushes are sticking. I had the same symptoms and I took the brushes out and sanded them down slightly on their sides so they ran freely in their slots. Worked perfectly ever since. It was a Lewmar winch.

 

[Plum]

, ........if the windlass was simply stalling under too high a load.

Are you saying the motor stopped due to the excessive load? Surely your windlass clutch should be set to slip before that happens....... or have I misunderstood

 

[Sea Change]

Are you saying the motor stopped due to the excessive load? Surely your windlass clutch should be set to slip before that happens....... or have I misunderstood

That's a fair point, tbh I just crank it up a bit and then leave it.

FWIW it operated perfectly this morning.

 

[stone beach]

I think your battery may be done. 1200W = 100A @ 12 V
If it really only takes 1 or 2 Ah to bring your battery back to full charge then not a lot of amps have been taken out of it.
That could be because your brushes aren't carrying the required current as mentioned elsewhere, or it could be your battery can't put out the required amps. A load test of the battery will give you more clues, put a searchlight on it for example and see how long it takes to go flat.
If you aren't getting the amps into the circuit then your overload cut out will NOT operate, as you describe when the motor stalls.
Of course you should also check your terminals and connections for good condition before condemning the battery.

 

[Sea Change]

I deliberately try to put as little load on the windlass as possible, we always motor up to the anchor and only start lifting when it's as slack as possible. Habit forged by years of sailing without an electric windlass.
In shallower anchorages I quite often just lift by hand, because the breaker and wired remote are down below and I can't always be bothered going down for them.

 

[Sea Change]

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[Zing]

Something might be amis. I’m guessing not though. If you stall your motor it will draw its peak power and it will pull the chain very hard. Did you see that? Can you measure it’s amp draw when working hard, say pulling you forwards in strong wind, it should be fairly high. If all that is so, then it might just have been overloaded. As your breaker is above windlass power it didn’t trip. If not, then look at battery condition and a good sign of ill health is very high voltage drop when fully charged under high load, plus low motor speed and low peak amps, also a lower than spec peak resting voltage after an initial load after fully float charging.

if you only stalled it very briefly and just pulled up for a few minutes you wouldn’t use a lot of amps, so your top up charge numbers don’t look far out. Say 3 minutes at 1/3 of max windlass power is only 2Ah and your charger will onto float a fair bit before the battery is 100% full, so at 1.5Ah input you are in the ball park.

 

[Sea Change]

I don't have a clamp on ammeter, bit I could stick a voltmeter on next time I'm using the windlass and see what that shows.
I'm trying to avoid climbing in to the chain locker to open up all the connections to look at them...

 

[salar]

That's a fair point, tbh I just crank it up a bit and then leave it.

FWIW it operated perfectly this morning.

Another pointer to brushes sticking, that's what happened to me! My windlass had 4 brushes and not all were stuck, also I think the stuck ones were coming unstuck sometimes maybe due to expansion differentials of metals and graphite. Eventually they stuck for good and had to have a good talking to. Agree with the reluctance to get in the chain locker, that's where the motor part of my capstan lives and its a massive PITA to get the windlass out to access the brush caps. When I did replace them, I taped over the brush caps with insulating tape to be sure to be sure.

 

[Sea Change]

Another pointer to brushes sticking, that's what happened to me! My windlass had 4 brushes and not all were stuck, also I think the stuck ones were coming unstuck sometimes maybe due to expansion differentials of metals and graphite. Eventually they stuck for good and had to have a good talking to. Agree with the reluctance to get in the chain locker, that's where the motor part of my capstan lives and its a massive PITA to get the windlass out to access the brush caps. When I did replace them, I taped over the brush caps with insulating tape to be sure to be sure.

Fortunately my motor is easily accessible on deck so it's not too big a pain to take a look.

 

[dansaskip]

Personally I wouldn't run with a setup as you describe using a standalone battery. Using a windlass takes a lot of power. I have my windlass powered from a battery that is connected up to my boats charging system, so the battery gets charged when running the engine. I always run the engine when using the windlass and I am pretty sure that is the recommended way to do things

 

[Sea Change]

Personally I wouldn't run with a setup as you describe using a standalone battery. Using a windlass takes a lot of power. I have my windlass powered from a battery that is connected up to my boats charging system, so the battery gets charged when running the engine. I always run the engine when using the windlass and I am pretty sure that is the recommended way to do things

It ended up like this because when I priced up the heavy cable needed to run from the engine battery with acceptance colleague voltage drop, it was just astronomical. This is at Caribbean prices btw.
I already had a spare 110Ah lead acid so I just installed that. I bought a DC-DC charger to keep it topped up, but 'temporarily' started just using my inverter and an AC charger to do the job, and it seemed to work. So I stole used the DC-DC elsewhere.
It's a bit of a mess but it worked (until recently!) and it was cheap.