Greetings all of you most venerable skippers! I am seeking some advice and opinions on the various winches. I have a Treasure Tooling hull (registered EC-454) and I need to come up with another sailwinch system. I used to have a system from Sail Engineering (Richmond VA) wired to work with the old Kraft 2 channel radio set but Vince Serio, the gentleman who designed and built it never sent it back after I sent it to him for repair about 4-5 years ago. I honestly don't know whether the old fellow is still with us or gone to Glory.

As a result, about 2 years ago I purchased a M.A.C.K. Products jackscrew unit which seems to have the power but the speed of transit leaves a bit to be desired. Somewhere I read an artical about the use of dual Hitec HS-815 servos. Unfortunately I do not remember where I read it and thus cannot find it again. I don't believe it had any setup instructions, but I sure would appreciate any help / photos of said hookups if anyone has some.

Finally, I would appreciate any information/suggestions about hooking up a jib twitcher (separate servo). Thank you all in advance. Feel free to e-mail me direct with setup/hookup pictures.

Jim Carter

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Propa</i>

Greetings all of you most venerable skippers! I am seeking some advice and opinions on the various winches. I have a Treasure Tooling hull (registered EC-454) and I need to come up with another sailwinch system. I used to have a system from Sail Engineering (Richmond VA) wired to work with the old Kraft 2 channel radio set but Vince Serio, the gentleman who designed and built it never sent it back after I sent it to him for repair about 4-5 years ago. I honestly don't know whether the old fellow is still with us or gone to Glory.

As a result, about 2 years ago I purchased a M.A.C.K. Products jackscrew unit which seems to have the power but the speed of transit leaves a bit to be desired. Somewhere I read an artical about the use of dual Hitec HS-815 servos. Unfortunately I do not remember where I read it and thus cannot find it again. I don't believe it had any setup instructions, but I sure would appreciate any help / photos of said hookups if anyone has some.

Finally, I would appreciate any information/suggestions about hooking up a jib twitcher (separate servo). Thank you all in advance. Feel free to e-mail me direct with setup/hookup pictures.

Jim Carter
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Jim,
Check the EC-12 sources for winches. You have several to choose from: the Ozmun swing arm (like your old Sail Engineering winch but smaller), Whirlwind or the winch of choice today, the RMG programmable winch.

As far as twitchers are concerned, the jury is still out. It is a simple set up but it can be another thing that breaks if not set right. Check the building site for the info.
Mike

The HiTec drum works OK, if a wee bit slow, and is cheap.

You shouldn't go past using an RMG - fast, reliable and you set up the travel you want. Also as Rob makes and sells from Aus you Yankees get a pretty cheap unit with the exchange rate.

Chris
NZL1 Longtack

Hi Chris. The RMG is going for $178 from GB. That not to cheap anymore. Guess the dollar is going to hell. Skip

Skip

<font size="2"></font id="size2">ONLY $178!!!
<font size="1"></font id="size1">I wish - try our Kiwi - Aus exchange rate - the same winch costs me $300 in our poor 3rd world money[8D]

Chris
NZL1 Longtack

I have the RMG winch in both my new boats. I have adapted to the winch and would use nothing else. The speed and the ability to program the winch travel are a bonus but come at a cost. First if you turn the winch on before the radio the winch will go into programming mode and settings can get horribly mixed up. Secondly until you get use to working with the speed (slowing it down on the radio stick), you will spend a lot of time knocking the wind out of the sails.

In conclusion, for me the RMG is second to none, For people who use the my other boat, im always reprogramming it.

Phil