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 it’s sheer impossible. So I took some measurements and returned with these 3D printed clips and it was quick and simple. The commutator pushed the clips out as it finds its position.

This finished the rebuild, now it’s just final checks, mating the motors with the gearboxes and maybe some paint. Progress. Below the picture with the armature installed.

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Norseman mechanical fitting

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 project finished

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

Lewmar ELS part two

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

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