wasn't sure where to put this, but I recently recieved a winch for x-mas, and was wondering, its not the highest qualtiy or the best out there, but i'm still gonna use it for whatever i need it for(mostly pulling myself out of stuff i shouldn't be going through in a 2wd atv...but yea). was curious what size fuse to put on the wire, its a 10 awg wire and i have a 30 amp fuse in there right now, but i was wondering if i should possibly upgrade?

its a chicago electric 3,000 lb winch from harbor freight, already have it mounted up through a custom made mount on my 03 warrior....it didn't say anything about fuse sizes in the manual.

 

I would use a bit heavier wire, maybe 6 or 8.

I would also buy a Warn Contactor and wire it into the system...they are about $70, but they make for a flawless wiring harness, even if it is homebuilt

 

can any atv shop order this "contactor"? if so i'll head over to a local one soon for one, for now i'm working with 2 40 amp 5 pin relays....cheap i know, but they work for now, and i've already used the winch several times and no issues at all.
I do eventually want to upgrade to 8 awg wire, which should be more than enough, i have some 4 awg, 2 awg and 1/0 awg laying around in my garage...but that'd be overkill imho(i do alot of large scale stereo installs on the side)