Turbo Power For Safe Over-Volting
Goodwinch's Turbo Power Controller has been around for a couple of years, but a lot of people still don’t seem to understand what it does. Put simply, it’s a safe way of running a 12-volt winch on 24-volt power when you want to give it an extra short-term boost – making it ideal for use in competition scenarios where speed counts for so much.
Designed to work with the company’s well known TDS and Bowmotor winches, the module has push-button operation and can be used on the fly to deliver an instant increase in speed. It operates by linking two similarly sized batteries – normally in parallel, maintaining an everyday 12-volt system but, when primed, automatically over-volting the winch by opening up a series circuit the instant the winch-in button is pressed.
‘At the flick of a switch in the cab,’ explains ‘Mr Goodwinch’ David Bowyer, ‘you put the controller into standby for running the winch with the two batteries in series when you operate the hand control. A sensor cable fitted to the solenoids tells the controller to wake up, pushing out 24 volts because the “winch in” control has been pressed. You’re giving maybe 200 amps to run the winch on 12 volts, which is good enough for most winching scenarios – but operate the master switch in the cab and hey presto, you have real speed!’
The concept of over-volting sounds like a recipe for disaster, but David says the controller is set up not to ask too much of the winch. ‘As you are still charging at 12 volts, the winch voltage will drop after some serious winching from 24-26 down to 18-22, which 12-volt TDS or Bowmotors seem to be happy with.
So you are not really over-volting too much for too long. ‘What will damage motors is over speeding, which you can get when lowering out under load. However, our Turbo Power Controller is set so that you can only winch in on 24 volts and pay out on 12 volts.’
As for your batteries, they’ve thought of those, too. ‘The 12-volt alternator is always charging both batteries when they are in parallel,’ says David, ‘but only the vehicle battery while the winch is in use. When you take your finger off the winch control, the alternator immediately pumps charge into the auxiliary battery again and should re-balance both batteries.’
Everyone we’ve spoken to who runs one of these set-ups has told us they’re very happy with it. And that includes some properly hardcore winch users. If over-volting is on your horizon, the Turbo Power is definitely worth a look. It costs £199 for the standard unit, or £299 for the ‘2’ model – designed to be used with winches running twin Bowmotors. Either way, www.goodwinch.com is the place to go.
GOODWINCH, WINCHES, WINCHING ACCESSORIES, OVER-VOLTING, COMPETITION
