I spent the weekend trying to wire up an in cab winch control, but I am a lost as to why its not working. I followed the "EXACT" instructions as given in the September Wire article on "In Cab Winch Control" as well as the details off the Jeep link in that article. http://www.outdoorwire.com/4x4/tech/winch/remote/


The winch is a Warn HS9500i. I spliced into the green wire(in) the black wire out(out) and directly connected the white wire to the power terminal in the winch as per the instructions. All connections are solid and the wiring is correct as the winch works perfectly with the supplied Warn Remote, and I checked the connections in the winch with a voltmeter to make sure the wires(green & black) were receiving power when given the correct switch signal. The one "Different" thing about this the HS9500i is that it has a 5 pin connector as does the supplied remote, whereas both articles only referred to a 3 pin connection. The jeep article said that the 5 pin connector world be wired the same because the 2 extra pins serve no purpose except maybe to add strength to the connection. I believe this may be "INCORRECT" as the 2 pins have wires coming off them in the winch. I can only assume these two connections complete the circuit some how because for example when I hook the remote up and test the green wire(in spliced area) the voltmeter reads positive and the winch winds "IN" as would be expected , but when I supply direct power to the splice via a hot wire or my in cab switch, the winch does nothing. Any help would be greatly appreciated before I fry this thing. TIA

I just ran the winch control through the firewall and hooked it around my steering wheel column. Easy incab setup :D

Can you get the cover off the solenoids? If so, that takes you straight to the source and you can easily see which wires activate what....

I wired up my Ramsey REP8000 this way - direct tot he solenoids and into the cab.... was pretty easy to do to :)

As I posted in your Jeep Tech thread:

Your winch uses a five wire control system which controls both the power and ground for the winch solenoids. The three wire used white(power), green(direction 1), and black(direction 2). The two other wires (red and brown if I remember) are a simple ground loop. So you can do is either loop the two wire together at the winch (please note that Warn added the ground loop as a safety feature that you will bypass by doing this), or run the wires to your switch (you will need a six pin switch) and wire them so that the circuit is completed when the switch is in either on position. You will need to not skimp on the wire size, as this being a loop circuirt the current is making two trips back and forth to the switch, so if too much resistance is built up your solenoids will not fire.

Originally posted by Blackjack
As I posted in your Jeep Tech thread:

Your winch uses a five wire control system which controls both the power and ground for the winch solenoids. The three wire used white(power), green(direction 1), and black(direction 2). The two other wires (red and brown if I remember) are a simple ground loop. So you can do is either loop the two wire together at the winch (please note that Warn added the ground loop as a safety feature that you will bypass by doing this), or run the wires to your switch (you will need a six pin switch) and wire them so that the circuit is completed when the switch is in either on position. You will need to not skimp on the wire size, as this being a loop circuirt the current is making two trips back and forth to the switch, so if too much resistance is built up your solenoids will not fire.

As Blackjack has said, and he should know sense he works on warns all the time,,, and even one HS9500I recently that had weather-pak plugs for the in cab controller.............it's a 5 wire deal.. I used some 4 wire cable from a trailer shop, I pick up the hot lead from dash power.. Use a cut off switch in the cab from the hot lead to the in cab switch.. This makes a safety in the event the wires short out on the path from winch to in cab switch.

http://www.jeepclub.co.uk/articles/winchrefurb2/wires.jpg