I’m replacing the battery and power cables on the winch mounted on my trailer. I installed this winch probably 10 years ago, it’s done everything I have asked of it.

Can anyone explain in plain English how this motor works? I assumed the solenoid pack would reverse polarity to change motor direction. However, with 4 connections to the motor I’m not clear how this works. While I don’t NEED to understand how it works to replace the cables, I’m curious how the motor and solenoid pack actually work.

This is a picture I copied from the instructions.

 

I'm not in any an electrical engineer, but I think the solinoid box reverses the polarity of the windings inside the motor making it run in reverse.

 

Wire going back to battery is the ground. The other three wires I think are motor up, motor down, and I am going to guess the last one is overload for when it's winched all the way in.

 

Ah Ha!! I found a decent YouTube video explaining how this works.

It appears to me the solenoid pack reverses the polarity of the field winding. If I understand this correctly, if you reverse polarity of either the field or armature winding, the motor reverses direction.

I assume the solenoid pack contains a couple of internal switch. When you engage the push button to run the motor either direction, one contact closes and apples power to the red wire coming out of the solenoid block, which applies power to the armature. Then, depending on with way to run the motor, another pair of contacts applies power to the field coils, reversing the switch reverses the polarity. Do I have this right?

I found a diagram for the solenoid pack.


If like to find a electrical diagram of the internal function, just to try and understand how this works.

 

Are there 2 or 4 solenoids in the solenoid box?

 

I have slept since I finished this project. All I can say is it works now.