Following a resent trip away that involved some pretty continuously steady winch use over a four hour period I decided to remove my Chinese Albright style solenoids/contactor as the winch had started to become a little intermittent towards the end and the solenoid box required a good tap on top to get the winch winching in, winching out was fine.
Interestingly another vehicle with an almost brand new Superwinch had in the end complete failure of the winch that again was traced to some thing to do with the Chinese Albright style solenoids/contactor!!!
So took mine off and stripped it apart
Here's some photos;
The first thing to note was that the baker-lite style top housing started to fall apart once I'd removed the lower half! A bit baffling and no idea why these parts where coming away?! Maybe due to a previouse attempt to get it apart by someone (winch was second hand to me), vibration, dropped or maybe just poor quality material and construction.
First signs of an issue, some discoloration of the copper!
Then this! Heavy discoloration due to heat and a very pitted contact. Pulled out of the 'WINCH IN' side of the solenoid!
You can also see in this photo some green discoloration due to water ingress down one of the connection posts!
If you look hard enough you can also see signs of water ingress down each of the connection posts.
Top 'WINCH OUT' contacts, bottom 'WINCH IN' contacts.
Left 'WINCH OUT' contacts with some corrosion due to moisture! Right 'WINCH IN' contacts burnt and pitted, maybe as a result of corrosion caused by water ingress!
On the 'WINCH IN' contacts some of the plastic component has also suffered (melted) due to heat!
Anyway, gave it all a good clean up and popped it all back together
No longer as good looking as it once was and I fear that its IP rating is no longer as high either, but it's back on the truck and working fine for now
All things considered though I think it's time for a new one, so was about to hit the place order for a brand new genuine Albright one from Devon 4x4 when I stumbled over these.
It's a TG Thompson extra heavy duty 500Amp winch solenoid as used by Tigerz11 being sold as the best winch upgrade available!
The TG Thompson solenoid is THE NEW solenoid to take over from the Allbright /Durite style solenoids.
During the last few years winches have been developed using Allbright / Durite style solenoids, they have performed well with few faults in the search for better electrical reliability.
But there is always room for improvement
The TG Thompson solenoid is the new updated solenoid to replace the Allbright / Durite style.
With a higher quality of internal components and a much larger surface area for the contacts, to allow better conductivity so the amps required can do their job, this can be seen by the external wiring points.
These are even more suited to 6hp motors and the like, can be used on any 3 post winch. TG THOMPSON solenoids are fitted as standard to Tigerz11 (the leading Australian winch), and are suitable to upgrade all leading winches such as Warn, Superwinch, Warrior, Champion, TMax etc
Already there are some copies coming so make sure it’s a
TG THOMPSON
DON'T GET STRANDED THIS YEAR
I'm liking the sound of these Has anyone seen inside one or used one that could comment
You see the Albright solenoid would be fine I'm sure, but at the end of the day it's going to be the same inside as the Chinese copy ones. Just made to better tolerances and maybe with slightly better material. This though looks like a whole new beast with a much higher Amperage capacity than the 100Amp Albright's.