Lewmar ELS project finished

Both the dual speed ELS units were in great shape electrically, with their reference voltage set at about 220A gear-switch and cutoff current (50mV reference voltage) which is correct for the 12V Ocean 66 winches. I removed the deteriorated and ugly rubber plugs for wiring them and closed the large openings with 3D printed plugs. Next to those I installed the waterproof connectors for the winch control switch wiring. Apart from that it was just a matter of cleaning these units.

The single speed controller got its new polycarbonate housing and the DC-DC controller. It takes the 21-31V input and is set to cutoff the 24V Ocean 58 winch at 200A (14mV reference voltage).

These are ready to be installed. A great future project would be to redesign these controllers for an ESP32 microcontroller with INA226 power monitor, allowing reporting to a SignalK server and wireless winch control.

Winch motor brushes

These big 12V motors have brushes with two wires attached and the spring engages in between the two, making it impossible to “park” the spring in the side. Probably with two people there’s enough hands and finger to pull all four brushes aside to get the commutator in but

Norseman mechanical fitting

Back in 2005 we replaced our rigging in Trinidad. As part of the deal with Trinidad Rigging, I asked Jonas to be involved with everything like an apprenticeship to learn everything about our rig. He took it quite seriously, even had me buy and study the “Sail and Rig tuning”

Lewmar ELS part two

In the picture above the modifications that I decided on for modifying my Lewmar 58 single speed ELS control box from 12V to 24V. The important difference is that I went back to the original 12V contactor and added a LM2596 DC-DC buck converter that outputs 12V to power

Lewmar ELS system

The Lewmar winches size 55 and up must have this Electric Load Sensing module while it is available as an option for smaller models. For Jedi it means we have these on our model 58 and the two 66’s. The ELS monitors the current to the winch and interrupts

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Winch motor brushes

Norseman mechanical fitting

Lewmar ELS part two

Lewmar ELS system