When I mounted mine, there were no polarities as such marked on the terminals. So I just did it, dropped onto the mountings and ran it. It was running  anti-clockwise, looking at it from the top, which was wrong for my use. Which was good because it sounded terrible running that way. Reversed connections, much better. But I now notice he said "new" Anchormax? May have a different gearbox design.

As to running the rope onto the capstan, any capstan requires that the rope feeds on at 90 degrees to axis of rotation. If the rope is coming on from a roller set higher than the lower third of the drum, there is a real risk of the dreaded overwrap, where the rope at the load end wraps over the rope already on the drum, and you immediately lose control, because you cannnot slacken off pressure and allow the rope to just slip loose. Your only option then it to quickly shut it off and untangle. This is  a real problem with direct drive winches--my first crayboat had a winch driven direct off one of the mains and an overwrap was catastrophic if it happened as the pot was coming over the tipper, as you can imagine. You were simultaneously ducking a flying pot and diving for the wheelhouse to shut the port main engine down. Needless to say, I got very good at NOT overwrapping it.  But it can also happen on pleasure boats--a mate has one driven off an old Kirby mounted on the transom, with a horizontal capstan, it is is just a bastard, very easy to overwrap. And, when the motor doesn't respond to the kill switch, what a mess. I think I have posted video of it, and you can hear me saying..." and this is why I will be getting an electric winch."  

I spent a lot of time getting my heights set between the tipper roller and capstan, and have no problems at all. Just how much is the height difference between the top of the roller and , say, just under the middle of the capstan? You can get away with a bit, but not too much. Surely it would be a better option top

raise the capstan slightly, than to frig around with re-directing it trhough an idler--I think you have an ally boat? Get an ally box fabbed up to act as a spacer under it, and, if necessary, buy some s/s threaded rod to replace your standard studs. Size id M8 x 1.25, from memory.

 Tow hook in front of the capstan and the rope just pops under that so the rope is always feed to the bottom of the capstan no matter what angle is on the rope

 Cheers.  All my winching experiences are on yachts where the lead in angle is slightly lower than horizontal and hence my reason for asking.  Overwinds during a yachtrace can really fuck up a potentially good result, particularly match racing.

Our alternnative boat this year  (ericl's) has the anchormax going anticlockwise which i am not use to, hence the rotation direction.

I only have about 1.8 m between the roller and the winch and the roller is significantly higher than the winch so i think raising the winch will be too high.

When i install it (next year's job) i may look at different ways of lowering the rope, even a heavy guage open ended bar across the inside off the combing, that i can run the rope underneath then around the winch.  This will need some thought, as poor design and manufacture could pose injury risks.