Mini skid winch

southsoundtree · May 25, 2019

Jehinten said:
Yea I prefer to load by backing up the ramps, that's how I load into my pickup, with my chip box it will only fit if I go up the ramps in forward. At a 42" deck height I haven't quite mastered getting up the ramps without a weight. Its possible it's more prone to wheelies since it's a tire unit? I'm running a Vermeer s600

I'm guessing you're stretching out your boom.

Are you walking behind, pushing up on the machine, walking, or riding up?

You can block up the bottom of the ramp with boards to raise your bottom height easily, lowing your ramp-angle. Starting 6" higher would make a huge difference, I think. You can also park your front tires on blocks of wood to lift it a bit, and lift your dump bed a bit.

Try to load and unload with the truck pointed downhill, bed slightly raised.

GreenstoneVT · May 25, 2019

southsoundtree said:
You can block up the bottom of the ramp with boards to raise your bottom height easily, lowing your ramp-angle. Starting 6" higher would make a huge difference, I think. You can also park your front tires on blocks of wood to lift it a bit, and lift your dump bed a bit.

Those little ramps they make for working on your car in the driveway would work great there. 6-8” of lift and a smooth entrance. Backup use as spare chocks.

Jehinten · May 25, 2019

southsoundtree said:
I'm guessing you're stretching out your boom.

Are you walking behind, pushing up on the machine, walking, or riding up?

You can block up the bottom of the ramp with boards to raise your bottom height easily, lowing your ramp-angle. Starting 6" higher would make a huge difference, I think. You can also park your front tires on blocks of wood to lift it a bit, and lift your dump bed a bit.

Try to load and unload with the truck pointed downhill, bed slightly raised.

Typically when loading I have my truck facing downhill, a piece of oak about 30" diameter and 4 feet long in the grapple to prevent wheelies and I keep it as low and close to the machine as I can without dragging on the ramps. I've only tried to load with the bed raised once, it didn't go well and I was working by myself which created quite the issue. Had to call for help, luckily I was at home and my wife ran out to give me a hand. Long story short, that's before I fixed my parking break on the mini and it was rolling out of my chip box and one ramp fell out from under me. I hung onto the machine and kept driving forward as it rolled back until she could lower the bed. Thank goodness for the sena so that I could call her inside the house.

southsoundtree · May 26, 2019

Let's see pics.

I stretch the boom out for leverage.
As well, I can ride the BMG cleat just below the ceiling of the box, as a safety.

I have hook-end ramps.

For my market, and for my personal use of chips at my property and for friends, when I do haul, I often use my mini hauling trailer as my 5 yard chip box, using my chip truck for logs. Easy loading to 12".

Mini moves the trailer and chipper to the brush, and feeds the chipper. Deep backyard jobs and mulching areas across septic drainfields (protected as necessary), down hills, etc...mini and chip-trailer for a lot of my jobs. As well, people often need the mulch, but don't want to move thousands of pounds of chips from where your truck can dump.

The trailer will lift up to 45*.
I just realized, I can maybe put a two rounds under the rear of the frame of the trailer, and probably lift is higher, so it will dump, instead of rake out very easily, so long as you are moving chips downhill.

I have support legs at the rear of the trailer (5,000 axle) for loading the mini, but they aren't oriented to take the load of dumping by dropping the legs farther. I don't want to bend it.

burtonbc1400 · Jan 2, 2021

CanaryBoss said:
I have winches mounted on all three of my minis. I’ll send pics soon. Cost me about $75 each to buy the winch and install. They are permanently mounted 3500# I believe

Would love to see the pics

evo · Jan 2, 2021

Jehinten said:
Almost there on this project. My winch has sat in a shed since I bought it about 2 months ago. Today I got the brackets welded to an attachment plate as well as an anchor to tie the mini back to an anchor tree. I still need to replace the couplers to match the mini, and splice up a sling to run from the attachment plate back to the anchor tree. I'll be using 1/2" amsteel for that and 4" webbing for around the tree. Once it's all completed I'll be switching out the steel cable for 3/8" notch medusa winch line.

View attachment 59921 View attachment 59922 View attachment 59923

How are you liking the winch? I’m loving mine, except for one point. That is it doesn’t freespool when in neutral between winching in and winching out. When pulling trees over you have to be damn sure the line won’t cross anything.

Jehinten · Jan 2, 2021

evo said:
How are you liking the winch? I’m loving mine, except for one point. That is it doesn’t freespool when in neutral between winching in and winching out. When pulling trees over you have to be damn sure the line won’t cross anything.

Its certainly not a tool that I use every day but it has earned a spot on the truck to every job, just in case its needed. I've used it several times on storm damage jobs and for pulling over anything with backlean.

The only thing I dislike is the cable speed, which is only an issue when your spooling 150' back on the drum when your finished. I'm grateful that mine does freespool, as dragging the cable while powering out at this speed would be terrible.

I've had two malfunctions with the winch since I've been using it. The first was skidding a large pile of brush, and the capstan bollard snapped off. Luckily it did not cause any injuries and since it was just skidding it caused no property damage. Turns out the drum was cast aluminum and had a defect, I've decided to just leave it off and to only use the standard winch. The second was a more critical moment, pulling over a larger storm damaged backleaner. The lovejoy coupler separated mid pull, separating the hydraulic drive motor from the gear box. To my surprise the winch held the weight even without the hydro motor. We were able to slide the coupler back together and tightened the set screws to finish the pull.

evo · Jan 2, 2021

Jehinten said:
Its certainly not a tool that I use every day but it has earned a spot on the truck to every job, just in case its needed. I've used it several times on storm damage jobs and for pulling over anything with backlean.

The only thing I dislike is the cable speed, which is only an issue when your spooling 150' back on the drum when your finished. I'm grateful that mine does freespool, as dragging the cable while powering out at this speed would be terrible.

I've had two malfunctions with the winch since I've been using it. The first was skidding a large pile of brush, and the capstan bollard snapped off. Luckily it did not cause any injuries and since it was just skidding it caused no property damage. Turns out the drum was cast aluminum and had a defect, I've decided to just leave it off and to only use the standard winch. The second was a more critical moment, pulling over a larger storm damaged backleaner. The lovejoy coupler separated mid pull, separating the hydraulic drive motor from the gear box. To my surprise the winch held the weight even without the hydro motor. We were able to slide the coupler back together and tightened the set screws to finish the pull.

Those both sound like pucker moments.

Mine is a hdp-4000 made by Ramsey. It’s exactly the same as their hdp-8000, infect it came with the the 8k user manual and badge. It’s my understanding someone slipped up, and sold me the 4000. Morbark has a proprietary rights to the hydro motor that runs the 4000, which is weaker but spins much faster.

Maybe you can find a motor that can give you increased speeds?

Jehinten · Jan 3, 2021

evo said:
Those both sound like pucker moments.

The capstan failing was the bigger of the two issues. It popped off and spun across the ground for a moment leaving me holding the rope that had a couple thousand pounds of pull just a moment before. Luckily I had a real gentle grip on it and it just slid right out of my hand as the stretch in the rope retracted. Had I done something like wrap the rope around my hand, I'll bet it could have dislocated a shoulder.

As for the backleaner, it wasn't so much of a pucker as it was a "well this tree is still leaning backwards, how are we going to get it pulled over back here with no truck access?" That was more or less my reaction down by the stump when they said the winch was running but not pulling. Luckily we were able to get the coupler lined back up and finished the pull.

I could possibly change out the drive motor, but really the only time its an issue is when we are storing the winch line. I don't mind a slow pull for most of what I do.

treesap · Jan 7, 2021

great deal you got there imho, what is the line pull speed on it? its a hydraulic winch, so I dont expect to win any races, but it should last you a very, very long time, im kinda jealous right now ngl

DupreeLLT · Feb 8, 2021

i was thinking something like this would work well mounted to weight bracket on back of my tractor

Gopokes0914 · Mar 25, 2021

climbhightree said:
I put my warn 10,000 lbs winch on my mini quite often for pulling over trees, especially in a wooded area. Most times it does not slide, but if the ground is soft or the tree has a heavy back lean i will just strap the mini to another tree etc
View attachment 53793
It it just a receiver hitch plate for the mini. I used go have a small winch I designed to go in the bmg, but I prefer this method.

Ps it is especially nice with a wireless remote for the winch

This idea, sir, is a game changer.

Gopokes0914 · Mar 25, 2021

skew said:
I have a Ryan's grapple with a winch. It was a feature that doubled the price of the implement so I wasn't too sure about it. Also it added quite a bit of weight to the implement thereby reducing it's lifting capacity. I don't use the winch every day but when I do it's the bomb. Pulling spars, tightening speedlines, choke and drag piles that I can't quite reach or just skidding huge piles that would be multiple grabs with grapple. My mini is a vermeer 725 with dual hero circuit.
Another feature I debated was the full power rotation feature- having that I would never go any other wa

skew said:

I have a Ryan's grapple with a winch. It was a feature that doubled the price of the implement so I wasn't too sure about it. Also it added quite a bit of weight to the implement thereby reducing it's lifting capacity. I don't use the winch every day but when I do it's the bomb. Pulling spars, tightening speedlines, choke and drag piles that I can't quite reach or just skidding huge piles that would be multiple grabs with grapple. My mini is a vermeer 725 with dual hero circuit.
Another feature I debated was the full power rotation feature- having that I would never go any other way

Click to expand...

This entire thread is exactly what I'm looking for, especially after a long day yesterday. I have the vermeer 925 and am putting a game plan together to mount a DC winch on my machine. What do you mean by the "dual hero circuit?" Is this feature a mod to address the high electrical pull of the winch on the 12V system?

evo · Mar 25, 2021

treesap said:
great deal you got there imho, what is the line pull speed on it? its a hydraulic winch, so I dont expect to win any races, but it should last you a very, very long time, im kinda jealous right now ngl

Call up Ramsey directly and ask for a hdp 4000. It is plenty strong, and is super fast for a hydraulic winch.