Sail Engineering Winch

[Bryan Respess]

I have an old EC12 with a Sail Engineering Winch. Does anyone have one of these or know where I can find info regard battery voltage? TIA Bryan

[kahle67]

Yes, I have a Sail Engineering winch. It is as heavy as lead and requires 12 volts ([xx(]ouch!). It has not been in a boat since the late 80's. Might make a great anchor one day.

RK

[Bryan Respess]

Well, its what I have and the boat is ballast correctly for it and the battery. Maybe I can make or find a BEC for the receiver and just use one battery for both. Anyone have any BEC ideas? May be a 5 volt diode on a separate set of wires to the receiver.

Your time line gives me an idea also when this boat was made. Hull #100 from John Hickman.

Thanks, Bryan

[MichaelJ2K]

The Sail Engineering winch is an industrial servo motor that was made proportional. Earlier versions used micro switches for stops, the transmitter winch stick is spring centered and was "pulsed" to position the sails. It is designed to run on 6 to 12 volts. Mostly, they were used in the A and J classes so for a big boat, carrying that kind of weight is not a problem. For an EC12, it's overkill. I had a couple of these in my A's. There is a value to the SE winch so don't toss it![:D]
Stick with separate power sources; 12 volts for your winch and the normal 4.8 volt pack for your radio.

[Tom Payne]

EUREKA!!!!!! I've been searching for info on Sail Engineering winchs for a while now.

I just inherited an older EC-12 with no TX, Kraft electronics and a SAIL Engineering winch. Yes it is a ton.
Can this winch be used with new electronics? If so, whose? How?

I thought I would never find an answer to this...

[kahle67]

Yes! If I remember correctly. Assuming that it is the proportional version, you should be able to buy a Futaba (or whatever brand) servo extension wire, cut the old Kraft connector off of the winch and solder the new reciever plug from the extension in its place.

The Sail Engineering winch that I have is a non-proportional "bang/bang" version.

RK

[Tom Payne]

YES, I do have the proportional winch. So it doesn't matter whose electronics I purchase, just that I solder a new connection on? That is so cool. I was thinking I might have to build a whole new electronics board and I need to get this thing into the water ASAP. A few of the upper guys in my office have Lasers and I <i>SPANKED</i> them in a round robin thing with their own boats. I'm quite sure that they have many advantages over this boat but right now I cannot afford to join their class so I'm going to have to do it the old fashioned way and beat them with boat handling and tactics. [:D]