Recovery winch with the engine running?

I was watching some Matts off road recovery videos, if you havnt heard or watched any of these they are great entertainement, anyway, Matt mentioned in one if his videos that he only runs the recovery winches with the motor off because he says he goes through alternators faster if he runs the motor to charge the batteries during recovery operations... your thoughts?

 

I always run mine with the truck onn. Especially if im stuck deep in some mud or something. Never had a problem with the alternator going bad. Just depends how often you’re winching. They are winching basically everday which would make sense for him, but for a winch every now and then i dont think it will cause any harm to the alternator

 

I agree with @Uscgamecock7 , but want to add I'm sure Matt has a helluva lot more battery than our Tacomas. My old OEM battery didn't even like running my air compressor with the engine off. You could hear how much better it sounded when it had the extra power from the alternator. Now that I have a big AGM, you can barely tell the difference, but there still is one. And that's just 35 or 40 amps, not 200+.

 

He’s also winching or was winching 4-5 days a week, multiple times per day in some cases.

 

Agreed, for my little jobs winching, moving sheds, dragging - pullingtrees/shrubs etc I leave the motor on. The problem I have is that the darn Tacoma is too light. I have to put 6x6 blocks in front of the wheels and then there are times where the winch will still pull the truck over the blocks. I noticed he uses Ramsey winches also, at least on the one rig.

 

Winching for more then a minute or two will suck your battery down to nothing. If you are really loading it, [hard pull] it'll draw amps like a fat guy inhales pizza. Even running the engine at idle with the alternator charging the battery it can still run your battery down if you are not careful, it's why hardcore wheelers that winch a lot add an extra battery.

 

The stock alternator is weak at idle as well, would having a higher output alternator mean less strain on it/better longevity?

 

A lot of guys used to put a hand throttle on their vehicle to run the engine RPMs up a bit with electric. My old 72' FJ40 had a factory PTO winch so you used the throttle to slow or speed up the winch speed.

I'd put their draw down to way more then a 3K inverter and you can eat a battery fast with those using most of it's output.

 

Max draw on a 9000 pound winch is close to 500 amps.................. even winching in under no load is 60-70.

 

The reality is rigging and recovery is his full time job. He’s gonna have special equipment and methods.

The typical off-roader, or someone using a winch for general utility, you will want to keep the keep the vehicle on while the vehicle is under load, in neutral, and foot on the brake.

There are “basic” rigging procedures I would learn first before emulating what a professional off-road recovery crew would do.

 

I used to watch a lot of MORR and now I’ve been into Trailmater - Rory’s got a lot of skill and helpful advice.