Posted by Stephen W. Thomas on February 25, 1998 at 22:37:31:
In Reply to: Winch Rigging posted by Henry Jacobs on February 22, 1998 at 16:28:38:
It seems to me that there are three important issues in choosing wire rope:
1) The number of layers of wire rope on the spool will effect the
line pull and line speed.
2) Wire rope capacity of the winch.
3) The wire rope breaking strength.
Based on information I have from Braden regarding the AMSU3, which is a
PTO winch with 10,000lbs of line pull, layers of wire rope on the spool effect
line pull and speed as follows:
(Line pull in pounds, line speed in feet per minute.)
Layer 1 Layer 2 Layer 3 Layer 4 Layer 5
cable Line Line Line Line Line Line Line Line Line Line
size pull speed pull speed pull speed pull speed pull speed
1/2 10000 16 8200 20 6900 24 6000 27 5300 31
7/16 10000 16 8500 19 7300 22 6400 26 5700 29
3/8 10000 16 8800 19 7700 21 6800 24 6100 27
The AMSU3 has a 4" drum barrel diameter giving it the following capacities
per layer:
(Capacities are in feet)
Cable Layer Layer Layer Layer Layer Layer Layer
size 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1/2 21 47 80 115 155 200 250
7/16 24 53 85 125 170 215 260
3/8 28 60 100 135 185 235 290
Information on breaking strength that I have for steel wrap, steel core
wire rope is 11.4 tons for 1/2 inch and 7.9 tons for 7/16. (Price from
one place is $0.71/foot for both 1/2 and 7/16...I don't know if this is
a good or bad price.)
In deciding on my setup I've chosen to go with 150' of 1/2" steel wrap
steel core wire rope with a 4' chain leader (I haven't decided what size
chain yet since I don't know the breaking strengths) and a nice big removable
hook on the end of the chain. I'll be caring an extra 25', 50', and 100'
lengths of wire rope, a few nice big steel rods, and a few snatch blocks.
My reasoning in this is that most of the time you can find an anchor within
a 100' or so (I live in northern Minnesota = lots of trees everywhere), so
pulling off a 100' of cable to connect to the anchor gets me down into layer
two on the spool which has ok line pull. Having the extra lengths of
cable and snatch blocks gives you a lot of other options to work with also.
And the big steel rods + big hammer lets you make your own anchor if needed.
Hope this helps.