"nestork" wrote in message ...

Nightcrawler®;3153115 Wrote:

Some places up there they never turn off their engines unless they can
get the vehicle/equipment inside.


I know that semi-trailers will idle their engines all night long while
the driver is sleeping, but often that's because the engine is operating
the heating or air conditioning system in the sleeper behind the cab.
So, the truck is locked and the driver is right on site, albeit fast
asleep.

But, I'd say it's kinda pushing your luck to leave heavy equipment
idling and unattended all night long, even in the bush. Those big
diesel engines make a lot of noise, and out in the bush where you don't
have any other noise, sound carries for miles. The sound of a
continuously idling diesel engine is going to attract the attention of
people inclined to steal equipment like that. It might still be there
in the morning, but if you make a habit of leaving it idling and
unattended at night, it's not going to be there in the morning for very
long.




--
nestork

I imagine that the heavy equipment has some heavy duty engine heaters
that require an APU to fire up. I cannot fathom trying to fire up
an engine that was left overnight in sub-zero temps. I hear that any
equipment left for an amount of time out there needs to be towed and
heated up before they can be re-started.

Down here in the states some of the small internal combustion gen-sets
have heaters in their filter housings (1.5ft dia x 4.5ft) and circulate
the oil until a block temperature switch enables the start sequence.
They all have a pre-lube cycle, anyway, this is just another level of
protection in the event the grid kicks the plant offline for an extended
period of time, or if there is a step-up transformer/re-closure problem.