EZ Anchor Puller is now out of business - plus seeking advice

[json]

I have been having some issues with my rode and chain fouling due to the drum overrunning on free fall on my EZ Rebel 5, so I went to reach out to EZ Anchor's support this morning and lo and behold they are now out of business as of August 2024. Does anyone else run into this issue and have a solution? If I could just adjust the tension on the spool just a hair I think that the issue would be resolved no problem. I could solve it by disabling the free fall mode, which I might do down the road, but if I could just add a hair of tension to the spool I think it would work great. I looked at the manual and could not find any information for adjusting the tension on the spool.

[Dan Boccia]

They are now Savwinch. Go to savwinch.com, you can likely contact someone there for help.

Unsure what you mean by the drum overspooling.....you mean the anchor hits bottom and your chain piles up on top of it and the spool keeps spooling out? Or does it foul some other way? From experience you need to be diligent about seeing when the rode slows down, and then hit the UP button to engage the spool lock. At least that's what I do.

[json]

Thanks for the info Dan! By overspooling I mean the spool starts going too fast or over spins while the anchor is dropping probably due to the initial torque of the anchor as it accelerates, which results in the equivalent of a birds nest on a conventional fishing reel, where there is a loose loop of chain banging around as it spins around the spool, which then either throws the rode over and off of the guide which then sometimes jams in the roller, or, as what happened yesterday while I was in Mexico, a link of chain gets jammed between the drum and the base and the whole unit slams to a stop. Luckily I was able to get that one back out but I could see that situation actually damaging the winch if it continues. The jam yesterday left a chain link shaped dent in the base of my winch. In the past I have stopped it from happening if the situation allows by just putting my hand or foot on the back of the spool as it drops to slightly slow it down, but there are times where I don't feel comfortable leaving the helm to do that, and it's just kind of a pain, as well as a bit sketchy to put hands or feet nearby an outgoing weighted line sinking to the bottom of the ocean. Fishing reels often come with a knob that allows you to put a slight bit of tension on the spool to stop this from happening or minimize it, but I wasn't able to find an equivalent feature on these winches when I looked around for it. I will try reaching out to savwinch and see what they say, but definitely curious to hear if anyone else is seeing this happen and if so if they have any solutions for it.

[Dan Boccia]

Interesting, I have never had that problem and I'm set up similar to you. Lots of these winches up here in AK and never heard of that.
I went back and eyeballed your photos, and note that you installed the roller EZ supplies. I have the same, and when dropping it DID rattle the rode off the roller occasionally, so I put a piece of UHMW across the top of that roller, bolting it to the small ears that are bent inward, so it's now totally enclosed, and impossible to throw the rode off that roller. It helps a great deal.

[json]

I have thought about doing something like that mod with the UHMW, it would definitely help. I wonder if my anchor weight + chain weight is the issue here, I have a 22lb claw and 50' of 1/4" chain, so maybe the weight is excessive and causing my issue. The rode spools on the drum tightly when I pull it up, but every time without fail if the winch is free falling that loop of chain is up there banging around causing problems, to which I have actually contemplated putting the winch in powered down mode to avoid. Either way, I am going to get some UHMW and bolt it onto the guide like you say to start, that's a simple mod that should at least help the rode from fouling in the roller if it gets that far. I will try to get a video of it happening next time I am on the water and post it here as well.

[Dan Boccia]

I'm running a 20 lb Rocna Vulcan with 40 ft of 5/16 G4 chain
The height relationship of my drum to EZ roller is such that even at full spool, the EZ roller is the highest point in the system.
I think this helps calm down the erratic action of the rode when it's free-spooling - there's always contact with the EZ roller and rode
I hope you get it figured out! I love the free fall - lots faster than powering down.

[json]

Thanks Dan. Another thing that popped into my mind right now is that my winch is feeding line out from the bottom of the winch, due to how I wanted the motor oriented and to save myself some work when I initially received the winch. If I get a wild hair I may try to flip it around so that it feeds line off the top, which would involve me having to shift the orientation of the motor to the opposite way, perhaps a straighter run would allow it to do less stop and starting... Kind of grasping at hairs though at that point. I will try the UHMW trick first and see how that goes.

[Dan Boccia]

You're aware that by switching the wires on the solenoid from the up/down switch, you reverse the direction the drum spins, and you can spin the motor around on its shaft in 12 different positions, right? This allows an enormous amount of flexibility in mounting it and running the big cables to it. I always mount the drum as far back against the aft anchor well bulkhead as possible, with the motor oriented horizontally forward. The further from the anchor roller the drum is, the shallower the angle to port/SB, and the rode winds on better.

I also think it's possible to have TOO MUCH friction on the rode if it's paying out from the bottom of the spool, and thus can imagine the line whiplashing because it's unable to feed out as fast as the drum gets spinning. To that end, I've yet to see an anchor drum up here that pays out from the bottom - they all pay out from the top, and I have a strong feeling that may be your silver bullet to fix this.

[json]

Yep, I am aware of the motor position, just didn't want to put in the work when I received the winch because I was antsy to get my boat on the water and good seemed good enough. I did call their support at the time and ask them, specifically about the roller guide and the angle the rode was going to go across it, if it was ok to mount in that configuration, to which they said 'absolutely'. I think you could be right, I am going to add the project to my winter list of todos (growing by the day) and even if it doesn't solve the problem I think it will still be a win to reduce that angle and have a straighter run from the roller to the drum.

As for switching the wires, I don't think it's that simple for the rebel winches. Since the clutch for the free fall is integrated, unless that is disabled I don't think you can switch the motor polarity at will, as it would just free fall any time you wanted to pick it up and would be strictly power down. That trick would work on any of the non-free fall ones tho.

[Dan Boccia]

You're right! You cannot switch the wires, you have to either put the motor on the port side to wind from bottom, or SB side to wind from top.