Tag Archives: Stinger

Beginner’s Guide to Winches and Drums

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I was going to start a fresh item on Winches and Drums, but have lacked the time to get on with it.

Instead, take a look at this page (link below) on Lester Gilbert’s fabulous IOM website. It;s possibly a little dated now, but I found it very good for :-

1/ Understanding more about how the basics of how the transmitter joystick is actually talking to the winch.

2/ Get the basics of a plain drum, spiral drum designs and drum sizes versus winch power

3/ The spiral drum is really clever in its intent, but realise that electronics might have taken over this role. Now we have Throttle-curve on our transmitters plus the latest Stinger winches have this function onboard in their software.

4/ Good simple explanation, with diagrams, of Open Loop and Closed Loop sheeting systems – which I found great.

Take a look here:-

https://www.onemetre.net/Build/Drums/Drums.htm

Does Your Winch seem to Run Slowly at First When You Switch It On..??

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Most of the winches we have display a phenomenon of initially running slowly or gently when you power them up, then a few seconds later run at more normal speeds.

This is a design feature and normal – intended to give the owner a few seconds in hand to untangle sheets etc when powering up – instead of immediately sheeting in quickly straight away! You can shorten the cycle by moving your joystick momentarily to the two extremes then normal winch speeds should start.

The winch should enter the same routine if it overheats, so watch out for that… it could happen mid-race, of course.

We hope to shortly publish a download along the lines of “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Winches and Drums” – look out for that!

A Winch is a Winch…??

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I have both Stinger and RMG Winches here. The mounts are interchangeable, I believe. When you are starting out with radio sailing, it seems to naive me that a winch is a winch. Not so!! It’s not easy for the learner to understand what the finer points are about!! I didn’t even realise that there were 5 models of RMG for example. The differing drum sizes merit thinking about.

Then I found this RMG webpage via the SailboatRC website. Take a look at the things that one has to think about !!

https://www.rmgsailwinch.com.au/rmg/pages/Features.html#dru

Really, if you need any specific information about the Stinger, we have a huge centre of competence on Stingers at Datchet (k7yachts ltd) who can easily help with sales, specification, service etc on Stinger winches. You can get in touch with them via the contact-us page of this website.Here are some page entries about the Stinger (note Class specific options and a wide range of drum sizes)

https://sailrc.com.au/home/45-stinger-winch.html

At the time of writing (March 2025), the Red Ant News page has some good information, including drum size consideration…

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