Winch damper vid

[GATORB8]

Don't take this as picking on you because it isn't. You mentioned "properly rated" several times. What does that mean in your recovery use world?

What information do you want to see on a rating tag?

On the rigging side, you rarely see Max Breaking Strength (MBS) tagged. You occasionally see the better recovery equipment list a second number, Working Load Limit (WLL) (sometimes listed as rated capacity) which is the only thing we use in rigging. This is the designed repeat use strength of the part, and is normally the MBS reduced by a Factor of Safety determined by an engineer. The FoS is normally some ratio greater than 4:1.

I grabbed a couple shots back in the shop, attached here.

As much as possible, I try to apply the same logic in recovery. Although they're proud of their stuff, at least F55 labels their items. For example, the Flatlinks I use on the Jeep are stamped with 16k capacities with MBS over 40k. Their "standard" 7/16 soft shackle has a WLL of 7,800 lbs and MBS of 39,000 lbs (there's that FoS of 5:1).

IIRC, even the reputable manufacturers use a lower 2:1 factor of safety when they rate winch line. For example, I think 3/8" Dyneema has an MBS of around 18k and is preloaded on even a Warn VR Evo 12-S.

It's always important to properly use the equipment as well, as you can see on the Crosby shackle pictured above, they've marked the 45*. Just going to 45 reduces WLL by 30%.

When I originally heard the name Factor 55, I assumed it was from them using a FoS of 5.5, I later learned listening to an interview it had nothing to do with that, unfortunately.

 

[mrblaine]

On the rigging side, you rarely see Max Breaking Strength (MBS) tagged. You occasionally see the better recovery equipment list a second number, Working Load Limit (WLL) (sometimes listed as rated capacity) which is the only thing we use in rigging. This is the designed repeat use strength of the part, and is normally the MBS reduced by a Factor of Safety determined by an engineer. The FoS is normally some ratio greater than 4:1.

I grabbed a couple shots back in the shop, attached here.

View attachment 650843View attachment 650844

Yeah, I was afraid you were going to go there.

As much as possible, I try to apply the same logic in recovery. Although they're proud of their stuff, at least F55 labels their items. For example, the Flatlinks I use on the Jeep are stamped with 16k capacities with MBS over 40k. Their "standard" 7/16 soft shackle has a WLL of 7,800 lbs and MBS of 39,000 lbs (there's that FoS of 5:1).
View attachment 650845

F55 doing that is the dumbest thing I've seen in awhile. Why are they mixing recovery limits with overhead lifting limits and then telling you not to use it for overhead lifting? That's just silly. But if you and they insist, what is the WLL of your winch?

IIRC, even the reputable manufacturers use a lower 2:1 factor of safety when they rate winch line. For example, I think 3/8" Dyneema has an MBS of around 18k and is preloaded on even a Warn VR Evo 12-S.

It's always important to properly use the equipment as well, as you can see on the Crosby shackle pictured above, they've marked the 45*. Just going to 45 reduces WLL by 30%.

When I originally heard the name Factor 55, I assumed it was from them using a FoS of 5.5, I later learned listening to an interview it had nothing to do with that, unfortunately.

Let's go back to the basics and get this into a perspective that adheres to the reality of recovery. I have a brand new Warn 9.5XP in the driveway. It came loaded with the same steel cable Warn has put on 100's of 1000's of winches. 100 feet of 5/16" steel cable. I've not checked in some time but every time I have looked it up, that cable has a MBS of 9800 lbs. To your point, is Warn a reputable manufacturer?

If we want to mix and match breaking strength and apply some arbitrary WLL to recovery gear, then what possible reason can Warn use to justify installing a cable with just a smidge over the winch rating for its breaking strength? It has a safety factor of 1.03 if we want to get picky, so why are they able to do that and how does that apply to all the rest of the silliness of these made up arbitrary WLLs?

There is a big clue in that little shackle I posted.

 

[GATORB8]

Yeah, I was afraid you were going to go there.

F55 doing that is the dumbest thing I've seen in awhile. Why are they mixing recovery limits with overhead lifting limits and then telling you not to use it for overhead lifting? That's just silly. But if you and they insist, what is the WLL of your winch?

Let's go back to the basics and get this into a perspective that adheres to the reality of recovery. I have a brand new Warn 9.5XP in the driveway. It came loaded with the same steel cable Warn has put on 100's of 1000's of winches. 100 feet of 5/16" steel cable. I've not checked in some time but every time I have looked it up, that cable has a MBS of 9800 lbs. To your point, is Warn a reputable manufacturer?

If we want to mix and match breaking strength and apply some arbitrary WLL to recovery gear, then what possible reason can Warn use to justify installing a cable with just a smidge over the winch rating for its breaking strength? It has a safety factor of 1.03 if we want to get picky, so why are they able to do that and how does that apply to all the rest of the silliness of these made up arbitrary WLLs?

There is a big clue in that little shackle I posted.

My initial response would be why not? Other than cost and weight that you can make a personal decision with, it doesn't hurt to have things be over rated and safer.

While I agree that lifting ratings are inherently more dangerous and likely need to be safer than a horizontal pull, I disagree that generally a FoS is an arbitrary number, while equipment like this is one use, it's a staple throughout structural engineering. It's intent, among other things, is to take material fatigue and degradation into account. The recovery industry basically isn't regulated, which is why it hasn't been standardized. That's the opposite of rigging where OSHA's all over it and huge damage claims result from failures.

Personally, I'd say the safety of my family and friends would be more impactful to me than a multi million dollar lawsuit to a company. As such, I do put some value in the addition of ratings and safety factors, while knowing that a good chunk of the industry makes the stuff up and has the Chinese manufacturer stamp it on the tag.

Purely a personal decision, and just like ducks and rubber bands on 22s, you have the freedom to do whatever you want in this case, at least in the US.

While it's not the same trust I'd put in a rated Crosby, at least companies like Warn do have to consider their liability for failures when deciding on margins, I would at minimum buy a winch from a company that's likely to still be around if it was to ever fail. And I'd also assume the engineered design of their winch has enough of a factor of safety that it's not going to eject the drum before it runs out of balls.

 

[mrblaine]

My initial response would be why not? Other than cost and weight that you can make a personal decision with, it doesn't hurt to have things be over rated and safer.

While I agree that lifting ratings are inherently more dangerous and likely need to be safer than a horizontal pull, I disagree that generally a FoS is an arbitrary number, while equipment like this is one use, it's a staple throughout structural engineering. It's intent, among other things, is to take material fatigue and degradation into account. The recovery industry basically isn't regulated, which is why it hasn't been standardized. That's the opposite of rigging where OSHA's all over it and huge damage claims result from failures.

Personally, I'd say the safety of my family and friends would be more impactful to me than a multi million dollar lawsuit to a company. As such, I do put some value in the addition of ratings and safety factors, while knowing that a good chunk of the industry makes the stuff up and has the Chinese manufacturer stamp it on the tag.

Purely a personal decision, and just like ducks and rubber bands on 22s, you have the freedom to do whatever you want in this case, at least in the US.

While it's not the same trust I'd put in a rated Crosby, at least companies like Warn do have to consider their liability for failures when deciding on margins, I would at minimum buy a winch from a company that's likely to still be around if it was to ever fail. And I'd also assume the engineered design of their winch has enough of a factor of safety that it's not going to eject the drum before it runs out of balls.

While I appreciate the personal philosophy dissertation, you didn't address 2 key points which skew everything. If you want to apply any other industry standard WLLs to recovery gear, how do you reconcile a 9500 lbs rated winch that came from Warn with a 1.03 safety factor for the MBS of the winch cable? If your partial trust of Warn is warranted, then surely you have to ponder the why of that and then what it means.

As for the regulation and standardization of the recovery industry, that will never happen because NO ONE will buy a winch that costs 1800 dollars that they are only allowed to pull 2500 lbs. with, nor will they spend 4 times that much to get a 4-5x monster that weighs 200 lbs on the bumper so they can up the capacity to 1/4 of max to get a 9000 lbs rated winch. And that's what happens when you try to apply overhead lifting rules to recovery. That's why not.

 

[GATORB8]

While I appreciate the personal philosophy dissertation, you didn't address 2 key points which skew everything. If you want to apply any other industry standard WLLs to recovery gear, how do you reconcile a 9500 lbs rated winch that came from Warn with a 1.03 safety factor for the MBS of the winch cable? If your partial trust of Warn is warranted, then surely you have to ponder the why of that and then what it means.

As for the regulation and standardization of the recovery industry, that will never happen because NO ONE will buy a winch that costs 1800 dollars that they are only allowed to pull 2500 lbs. with, nor will they spend 4 times that much to get a 4-5x monster that weighs 200 lbs on the bumper so they can up the capacity to 1/4 of max to get a 9000 lbs rated winch. And that's what happens when you try to apply overhead lifting rules to recovery. That's why not.

I did address it though. In an unregulated industry, the manufacturer's decision is a monetary one. I'd assume Warn's bean counters are comfortable that regardless of ratings, the winch isn't capable of exceeding the MBS, and as such the chance of getting sued is less than the cost of additional safety overhead.

I will say that it's likely there is some consideration given to line strength. Warn is more comfortable with a slim safety factor on wire rope, which is more durable, than they are for synthetic where the factory lines are closer to 2:1.

Regulation won't happen because it's not a priority for politicians. If you had inspectors doing trailhead drive bys and issuing 4+ figure fines, it suddenly makes being safer make more financial sense.

If Pelosi's husband got hit with a piece of failed recovery equipment instead of a hammer, we may be having a different conversation.

 

[GATORB8]

Yeah, I was afraid you were going to go there.

I did have this feeling when I saw you pose the question, lol

 

[mrblaine]

I did address it though. In an unregulated industry, the manufacturer's decision is a monetary one. I'd assume Warn's bean counters are comfortable that regardless of ratings, the winch isn't capable of exceeding the MBS, and as such the chance of getting sued is less than the cost of additional safety overhead.

I will say that it's likely there is some consideration given to line strength. Warn is more comfortable with a slim safety factor on wire rope, which is more durable, than they are for synthetic where the factory lines are closer to 2:1.

Regulation won't happen because it's not a priority for politicians. If you had inspectors doing trailhead drive bys and issuing 4+ figure fines, it suddenly makes being safer make more financial sense.

If Pelosi's husband got hit with a piece of failed recovery equipment instead of a hammer, we may be having a different conversation.

Has almost nothing to do with bean counters. It has to do with the common misunderstanding of what you actually got versus what you thought you were getting. The 9500 lb rated winch is only capable of pulling at that rating for about 6-7 feet and even then only under a very contrived set of circumstances. After the line hops up onto the second layer, the pulling capacity is reduced by roughly 20% and then another 20% for each layer after.

The take-away should be that if the winch is virtually unable to break a 9800 lbs line, then using a shackle from Crosby with a breaking strength of 47,500 lbs. is ludicrous. Your winch can't break a 7/16" Crosby alloy shackle. Tossing on a 20,000 MBS synthetic (which I fully agree with doing) is almost the same level of ludicrous.

 

[mrblaine]

I did have this feeling when I saw you pose the question, lol
View attachment 650874

Well, you come by it honestly.

 

[GATORB8]

Has almost nothing to do with bean counters. It has to do with the common misunderstanding of what you actually got versus what you thought you were getting. The 9500 lb rated winch is only capable of pulling at that rating for about 6-7 feet and even then only under a very contrived set of circumstances. After the line hops up onto the second layer, the pulling capacity is reduced by roughly 20% and then another 20% for each layer after.

The take-away should be that if the winch is virtually unable to break a 9800 lbs line, then using a shackle from Crosby with a breaking strength of 47,500 lbs. is ludicrous. Your winch can't break a 7/16" Crosby alloy shackle. Tossing on a 20,000 MBS synthetic (which I fully agree with doing) is almost the same level of ludicrous.

You still design to the anticipate maximum load applied.

The ludicrousosity of each does get impacted by several factors, including using pulleys (yes, I understand the winch and line see the base force), usage by dumbasses, emergency miss-use, and good old wear and tear. While the overdesign may still be excessive, it's nice to have some headroom.

Using some of your parts, you could side load that 47.5k Crosby on the anchor side of a snatch block on a full strength 9.5k pull and still be good (19k applied with an adjusted 23.75k MBS), just not ludicrously good. Just like you can let MORR borrow your soft shackle to use a "kinetic" rope to pull someone's bumper off.

 

[mrblaine]

You still design to the anticipate maximum load applied.

The ludicrousosity of each does get impacted by several factors, including using pulleys (yes, I understand the winch and line see the base force), usage by dumbasses, emergency miss-use, and good old wear and tear. While the overdesign may still be excessive, it's nice to have some headroom.

Using some of your parts, you could side load that 47.5k Crosby on the anchor side of a snatch block on a full strength 9.5k pull and still be good (19k applied with an adjusted 23.75k MBS), just not ludicrously good. Just like you can let MORR borrow your soft shackle to use a "kinetic" rope to pull someone's bumper off.

I'm not much of a betting man, but I'd certainly spend a few bucks to watch you set up that side loaded Crosby shackle with a snatch block. I think you are way overestimating how easy it would be to do that and get it tensioned where you could try to get a full rated load pull on it. You have about 3 1/2 feet to play with to get all the slack out and under load before you lose 20% of your pulling power.

To be clear, I'm not picking on headroom, I'm picking on the mixing and matching of industries.

 

[GATORB8]

To be clear, I'm not picking on headroom, I'm picking on the mixing and matching of industries.

I'm good with that, and appreciate the opportunity to use ludicrous in a post.

 

[sab]

I'm good with that, and appreciate the opportunity to use ludicrous in a post.

You even had opportunity to make up a ludicrous word - “ludicrousosity” That alone, for me, was worth monitoring this thread!

 

[GATORB8]

You even had opportunity to make up a ludicrous word - “ludicrousosity” That alone, for me, was worth monitoring this thread!

Yeah, I'm pretty proud of that one.

 

[mrblaine]

I'm good with that, and appreciate the opportunity to use ludicrous in a post.

Doesn't it strike you a bit odd though that their soft shackle has a WLL less than the rated pulling power of most of the winches we would use? Not even a tickle of a pause to wonder WTF they are doing?

 

[mrblaine]

Yeah, I'm pretty proud of that one.

To be fair, we are easily amused.

 

[mrblaine]

You even had opportunity to make up a ludicrous word - “ludicrousosity” That alone, for me, was worth monitoring this thread!

He spelled absurd wrong.

 

[GATORB8]

Doesn't it strike you a bit odd though that their soft shackle has a WLL less than the rated pulling power of most of the winches we would use? Not even a tickle of a pause to wonder WTF they are doing?

Yup, also strikes me odd that they want f'in $70 for it.

 

[mrblaine]

Yup, also strikes me odd that they want f'in $70 for it.

No matter what else we learned, you have my highest compliments for being able to have an adult discussion without being outwardly offended and resorting to some less than stellar deflection tactics of some sort.

 

[GATORB8]

No matter what else we learned, you have my highest compliments for being able to have an adult discussion without being outwardly offended and resorting to some less than stellar deflection tactics of some sort.

Same to you, and I think we both shared some information that others can use to make their own decisions on equipment.

I was actually really surprised by how tight the rating is in the Warn wire rope, learned several things during the discussion.

 

[mrblaine]

Same to you, and I think we both shared some information that others can use to make their own decisions on equipment.

I was actually really surprised by how tight the rating is in the Warn wire rope, learned several things during the discussion.

I'm one of the synthetic line early adopters. Been using it since late 99 or so. My first was from Emil at Masterpull who I would still be using today had he not succumbed to his normal tendencies and let them take over. My favorite was his marketing that his 3/8" Dyneema line had a higher MBS than anyone else's. He was right and wrong. His lines he sold as 3/8" were rated higher but only due to the fact they were not 3/8" but 10mm. He also used MBS instead of average breaking strength which my buddies at Viking and Winchline.com used.

Using that to lead up to Warn and their early insistence that the use of synthetic was forbidden on their winches. Some non critical thinker there put out a warning that the steel cable acted as a heat sink and prevented damage to the drum and brake so the use of synthetic was out. I just had one question. What happens if you use the winch on a long pull to get your buddy up the hill and then spool it back out to get the guy behind him? Crickets

We all already knew that was just bullshit and the fact that not long after they started offering a synthetic line for other than the 8274 external brake winches showed we were right.