Tile Plow

There are few winch applications in the world that tax a winch harder than a tile plow job. Tile plow machines along are extremely heavy, but when you add a giant steel anchor getting purposefully drug deep through hard solid the forces involved are immense.

Whether the tile plow job is drainage pipe, fiber optic cable, or communications, winches are often used to keep the plow going. Like most of these blog entries there are 2 general choices between winches, Hydraulic or PTO designs. If your work is often short pulls or rescue type recovery pulls then considering a hydraulic winch is a good idea. The high control a hydraulic winch needs on a steep slope for Yo-yo work is often not needed when working on a tile plow job. Tile Plow or Plow Train jobs often require high cycle times, high line pull, and slow speeds which is ideal for a PTO winch. PTO winches don’t share hydraulic fluid with the tractor meaning there is little risk of overheating. PTO winches have more access to HP from the PTO shaft and are designed to be on/off which is perfect for a plow work engaging the winch for full drum pull. Most slow speed PTO winches can pull more than the rated breaking strength of the wire rope spec for the drum. Since the winch has more line pull power than the wire rope the key to avoid costly breakdowns is a good operator. Shock loading the line, lots of start/stop, and absurdly high pull attempts can cause failures to winch components since the only limiter is engine HP and the winch won’t tell you the load is beyond capacity until you break something. Luckily the rated loads are often much greater than the weight of the tractor so you’ll normally get a high load warning when your tractor starts getting drug across the ground. Many operators will find a way to increase capacity by anchoring the winch tractor, but this should be done with caution. Operator error on heavy loads can be costly, so if you don’t constantly for long periods, don’t need high line pulls, and would like a little insurance from breakdowns maybe you should consider a hydraulic winch.

Recommendation

Slow Speed PTO winch with a well-trained operator under high loads.