Upgrading ground strap from battery to frame

Thank you for that link.

NOT having read through it, just brushing over tue intro, and the examples posted for correct/incorrect wiring for loads, does this mean everyone who has theirbwinch wired directly to theor pos and neg battery terminals has been doing it wrong? That instead, the native ground path of the vehicle to the negative terminal of the battery should be replaced with worong capable of handling the higher/prolonged load of a winch, and the negative lead off a winch control pack should instead be wired to the chassis ground?

Going to have to give this a thorough read through tomorrow, this is just what immediately came to mind.

 

i had a chance to read through about half of it.

i would also argue that's just a word-salad to not the best advice either. the guy runs in circles across multiple paragraphs to prove his ideal, has only minor caveats for corrosion(which does exist and is a major issue for a good part of at least half the country), and really doesn't get into his logic for that ideal until 13 paragraphs from the beginning... especially ironic that at paragraph 7, he makes it clear that his personal diatribe goes against official manufacturer specifications.

and now begins my diatribe!

TLDR: if you want the answer, scroll to the end paragraph. but i feel it's important to write this other stuff as pretense for that answer.

"there is more than one way to skin a cat"

i've got a lot of electrical experience. i started in 12v systems almost 30 years ago for my own projects, eventually migrated to high voltage systems as an electrician, and now am currently back into low voltage 12v systems as a mechanic.

there are drastically different end goals that everyone loves to tout as "the absolute truth". and they are. and none of them are.

what i've learned in all that experience is to read beyond the absolutist statements of the person touting their method as "absolute truth", and to understand their perspective, goals, and the overall argument they've worked out to arrive at that "absolute truth".

when i did my own 12v projects, before becoming an electrician, i rarely fused anything. all of them were small gauge wire, absolute worst case, my wire would burn up very fast in a direct short. my reasoning there is that it was all low current, low voltage projects, with minimal expenses and risks. if the wire burned up, i learned what caused it to burn up and made sure not to do that again. the risk was myself, my gear, and my then-tiny wallet.

when i transitioned to being an electrician, it was beat into me to fuse absolutely anything and everything. in most cases, protection is even staged and layered as sub-systems are connected off primary systems, even sub-systems off sub-systems. the reasoning there is somewhat straightforward. first, fusing to the device ensures that if the device fails, it only effects that device, and doesn't effect the entire sub-system. but also, it's done for risk-mitigation-- insurance companies are very involved in high voltage wiring system installation regulations. the entire goal of electrical regulation, NFPA 70, is to guarantee that any failure minimizes damage to people or property. the safety of the electrical system is secondary to this goal. in fact, it says so right at the very first introduction page of any electrical code book, under 90.1(a):

the only part of NFPA 70 that even allows an electrician to omit breakers or fuses is the part about fire equipment. 696.6(C) specifically calls out that fire system pumps shall not have overload protection--basically, if the buildings burning, they want the pump to run until the building falls on top of it.



getting to the original posted links argument. he wants everything to get to the same ground plane. while he doesn't specify his experience in the post, it smells to me of a HAM operator. again-- understanding his personal experience and goals from that experience.

he never specifies dedicated systems going only straight to the battery, only systems that connect to the battery and also connect to chassis ground later on. though his failure modes are accurate-- if one wire breaks, the other, generally unsuitable wire, becomes the new ground path.

my mom had this issue a long time ago in her vehicle. somehow the engine block to chassis ground came apart. the engine instead used the 20 gauge horn wire for ground. i still don't understand the path continuity of the situation, but vividly recall the smoke rolling out from in front of the radiator while the wire burned up, trying to carry the power for the starter..



to your question on the winch wiring situation, and also why i felt compelled to post so much pretense.

when i installed the winch on my truck, i researched it for a few weeks. the responses and advice i read was all wildly different, but the core of every argument was the same tone as the differences i've noted above.

everyone has a different take on the liability, and usefulness of the winch. but generally fall into two camps

like NFPA and their fire pumps, many people are of the mindset that if they're using the winch, shit has already hit the fan and scattered, and they want the entire vehicle to be an insurance claim before the winch even thinks to stop working.

others come from the high voltage field or similar, where non-essential loads are ALWAYS fused, to protect people and equipment. those will fuse the winch at 300-600A, so they can save their truck and the occupants if the winch starts heating up and threatening to start on fire.


and lastly, a point that hasn't been brought up in either the linked article, or my post, is going to be ground length and final cost.

he discusses the difference in wire resistance. the big thing about running a ground all the way back to the battery is that we're effectively doubling the resistance of the power wire. by connected directly to the frame, it's a big 'pool' of ground conductor, which reduces the resistance. this can easily be countered by over-sizing the ground wire returning to the battery.

but over-sizing wires to account for resistance has some significant cost and time effects on most projects, as well as the side-effect of having to explain your reasoning every time someone see's the oversized wires, where their adequately sized setup 'works perfectly fine'...

as far as a winch directly at the front of the truck, cost, wire resistance, and time-to-install have no significance. the wire runs are short, and resistance is low.

but neither i or the linked article so far have really addressed your question of connecting directly to the battery for power for a dedicated device like a winch that doesn't have another ground connection. we've really only talked fusing and interdependency between loads....

TLDR: if we're fully isolating the winch (only 2 connections-pos/neg, with a wireless remote) from the rest of the vehicles electrical system, direct connection to the battery is perfectly fine and doesn't matter.

in this instance, we'd be creating a secondary electrical system off the battery, with no interaction to the original electrical system. there's still liability in this method regarding the fusing and personnel/property protections i've already mentioned, and he has a point about electrical/ground loop feedback during 'equipment'(winch) usage, if other parts of the vehicle grounding system are electrically compromised somehow. though i'd be quick to make the argument that no one cares about a little interference when they're stuck so hard they need to use the winch.

 

Thank you for the detailed response. I agree the opening read as some sort of absolutist-tier diatribe, the short segments I read over at the bottom made sense- however- I've never heard of someone wiring an accessory, like a winch not tying it directly into the battery at both terminals. It's one of those things where if it was a problem, after 70 years of people slapping electric winches on the front of their whatever-it-is, somone would have realized, and the word would be out.

Now, maybe it could be argued that some people have nuked their ecu's or bcm's or whatever with extended winching, and not realized that their wiring caused the damage, but even then, there's so many people with winches out there, what are the odds they're all completely incorrect, and one switch move from breaking their vehicle?

I'm one of those more cuatious types. I'll be putting a circuit breaker in the circuit. One for convenience and safety, I'd like some way to disconnect the power from the winch in the event of a front end collision, but two, I also mixed a 9.5xp motor onto an m8000 gearbox, in theory it could pull closer to 12k, but with the difference in gear reduction it ahould be able to pull 8k at a significantly lower current draw than the m8 motor.

I was tied up all day yesterday, I will be able to give it a read through this evening.