Capstan winch problems

[Cruiser_79]

I have a small petrol powered capstan winch. I tried several types of rope but the rope keeps climbing on itself, even with the roller guards on it. What am I doing wrong and what type of rope do you use? Now I have 13 mm climbing rope. I will take some pictures and post them!

[Cruiser_79]

 

 
This is the capstan winch and the rope I want to use. 

[Crusarius]

How are you wrapping it? Is it really a big deal?  (this is an honest question please do not misunderstand my tone) The reason I ask is we used the same setup for high angle rope rescue in the fire department and never had any issues using 5/8" static rope. Yes the rope would climb over itself but that made it grab better.

In a typical rescue we where lifting roughly 600 pounds straight up. If you add in the friction to whatever the ropes was dragging on on the way up it could have been quite a bit more.

The only time we really had issues with the rope was when it was coated in sand or frozen. Then we just put another guy on the end of it to tension it on the pulley.

[Cruiser_79]

Hi thanks for your reply.  actually it is annoying.  The rope gets stuck in between the rollers and you can hardly remove it. Tried to pull my Alu Jon boat on shore but when I got angry just drove down the slope to drag it directly by car...  Tomorrow I can try to make some pictures while pulling something, maybe you will recognise what the problem is. 

[btulloh]

I'm not an expert on these but have used one a few times. I'm not used to seeing that single pulley on there next to the capstan. Curious. 

Looks like nice unit. No doubt you'll get it sorted out. 

[Crusarius]

I don't remember the secondary pulley on our capstan.

[Crusarius]

With the direction of that picture I can see what your talking about. If you ever use that secondary pulley there is no way the rope will not walk over itself. I think I would just not use the secondary pulley.

[Ed_K]

 On threading? Over the first pulley under the capstan an around 3 times in a clockwise motion?

[Crusarius]

ahh. I thought it was rotating the other direction.

So your rope is feeding towards the metal loop?

I picture that setup with the load coming from the hook side, then wrapping the drive pulley 3 times then up and over the secondary / idler pulley. 

I would not be overly fond of using the secondary pulley to guide my rope over the drive pulley. It would be far to easy for it to jump off the little pulley.

[Cruiser_79]

Maybe the picture is not really clear. The rope comes in from the other side, in between the two pulleys. Those are kind of guide rollers, but till now they've only caused problems. I  already removed the pulleys, but still same problems. I wound the rope 2-3 times round the spool and tried pulling. In my opinion it should be better if there were a few grooves or a kind of thread in the spool to guide the rope, but maybe that isn't necessary. 

I found this short video of the capstan, and the manufacturer says a maximum of 10 mm, could that be the problem, even without the rollers? 

https://youtu.be/gcHGhcfe1-A

[Crusarius]

That is running totally opposite of what I would expect.

maybe I am not remembering our setup correctly. It has been a while.

[lxskllr]

the manufacturer says a maximum of 10 mm, could that be the problem, even without the rollers?

I've never used these, but max is max. Perhaps larger rope causes problems like you're seeing. Maybe try to borrow a smaller rope, and see if it behaves better.

[PineNut]

I have never used a  capstan so I am making a guess as to what the problem may be. If you pull hard on the rope so that the rope is not slipping on the capstan, that would make it hard for the rope to slide over on the capstan. Try not pulling quite as hard and let the rope slip on the capstan a little. Then there would not be as much friction and maybe the rope would slip over and not pile up.

[Crusarius]

Just have to be careful doing that. the drum gets hot and the little bit of friction or slippage will actually cause the rope to smoke.

For logging rope its not that bad but for life safety rope when hanging off the side of a cliff trying to pull 3 ppl back up its not a good thing  Heat in the rope should be minimized. I actually put a gibs on a strap right at the capstan. This way if we needed to stop we could hang from the gibs and release the rope completely. Also helped alot of we got hung under a ledge. had just enough strap on the gibs we could back it off without rerigging the entire setup.

[LeeB]

I don't see why the rope would be climbing over itself unless as you say, it it to large in diameter. It should tend to want to walk away from itself it you are pulling in the direction pictured in the video,

[Don P]

I've used a capstan but not with the roller, no issues. I'm wondering if your rope has a memory, does it lay easy or is it kind of curly?

[Cruiser_79]

I've used a capstan but not with the roller, no issues. I'm wondering if your rope has a memory, does it lay easy or is it kind of curly?

It's quite straight of you lay it out. But it is new, so maybe it will get more flexible when using it a lot. Tomorrow I will need the capstan so we can use some more types of ropes.