Maximum angle for a cardan joint?

[Satamax]

Hi everybody. 

If i were to link my winch and Pto with a cardan jointed shaft, what would ne the max angle from the axis of the Pto ? 30° or more? 

Thanks guys. 

[mike_belben]

You can prob get 30* but you must ensure that the other joint is exactly the same angle in negative plane.   Itll probably have a pretty short lifespan on joints since the needle bearings will be very active.   

 Consider a double cardan off the PTO shaft and tilting the winch so that the single joint at the winch end is at zero angle, inline with the winch input.  Tilting down will reduce the overall angle required, say maybe to 20* or so.. And the double cardan will share it across two joints so only 10* each.  Toyota 4wd truck front driveshafts are a good source.  They can be modified to bend quite far. 

[thecfarm]

Now I know what a carden joint is.

[Satamax]

Thanks a lot guys. 

Well, on wikipedia, they say 45 absolute maximum. 

But i don't think i'll bother with cardan.