Description
Maxtrax Winch Ring 120
By using a pulley, the pulling force of a winch is doubled, or the winch only needs to provide half the power to recover a vehicle. In return, the recovery is done at half the speed.
The use of a snatch block is always useful when significant pulling force is required to recover a vehicle, e.g. if it is stuck on its underbody and all wheels are spinning freely.
Because the winch only has to pull with half the force when using a snatch block, it also consumes significantly less power. With a pulling force of 8,000 pounds, a winch with a maximum of 12,500 pounds pulling force requires 246 amperes, while at 4,000 pounds it only needs 154 amperes. A conventional alternator cannot provide such currents; a significant portion of them comes, especially at idle, from the battery. In addition, the higher the current flowing through the cable from the battery to the winch, the higher the voltage drop in the cable. This results in lower motor performance. For example, with a 3-meter long cable (thus 6 meters back and forth) with a 25 mm² cross-section, the voltage drop at 245 amperes is 1.03 volts.
A snatch block is used as follows: The winch rope is unwound to twice its length, placed around the snatch block, led back to the vehicle, and hooked to it. The snatch block is attached to a tree or other secure anchor point, for example, using a shackle and a tree anchor strap.
Another advantage: The stated maximum pulling force of the winch is only achieved on the last layer of the winch rope, i.e., the more rope length used, the higher the actual pulling force.
I only recommend steel snatch blocks for winches with steel rope. If a synthetic rope is used, there is a risk that the rope will get jammed between the side plate and the pulley and be damaged (except for the ARB 9000).
With synthetic rope, I would always only use a so-called pulley like NMP, the Nakatanenga pulley, or the Factor55 with a Rope Retention System.
Steel snatch blocks can be attached to the tree strap with steel or soft shackles; pulleys for synthetic ropes only with soft shackles.
