Unheated shops

[COMachineist]

I was thinking about the effects of real cold temp's(below 20 F) on the computer and control electronics. I know the disk drives have problems with temps below 20 F The ferofluid seal and bearing in the spindles could cause problems, as well as the read/write heads may stick to the disk and crash the drive. I been thinking of moving everything into the basement from the shop so the temps could be managed better. Any thoughts? I do have a heater in the shop but it is a gas, always on type of thing.
Thanks CH

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[diyengineer]

Buy yourself some PVC tube, fittings and glue and make a faux room around your mill and controller. Use 2 sheets of painters plastic and make a door way too. Throw a shall heater inside and it does wonders!

[diyengineer]

*small. I just did this to my cubicle area and it works great !

[COMachineist]

Hi DIYEngineer
That sound like a great idea. It is so simple I just never thought of it. Kind of like "can't see the forest for the trees". Do you wrap the machine and electric controls in the blanket? I was worried about a heater or anything that could start a fire. I already had a chimney fire in the wood stove in the shop so I never use it with out being in the shop to watch it. The gas heater get's real expensive when it runs all night. I'm going to build a chip pan/enclosure on the order of what Hoss built. and figured it would be OK for the basement.
Thanks again
CH

[diyengineer]

When I didn't have a heated shop and was stuck in a frozen rental warehouse I built an 8'x8'x8' cube out of 1" PVC pipe. You don't even have to glue it together for easily break down. Buy painters plastic and wrap the whole cube. Alternatively, an even better way is to get a large roll of packing shrink wrap ( available at Home Depot, or Office Depot in the packing area) and wrap the entire cube like a package really tight. Make sure you already have all your large objects inside. Use a razor to cut a door slit, and use some duct tape or plastic drape to keep it shut. Drop a small electric space heater inside. Any cracks between the bottom and side use duct tape all around to seal it up. You'll be able to keep a heated space easy.

[wwendorf]

I recently moved from a 10.5' x 11.5' shop to a 25' x 40' shop. I have too many cast iron machines, so I have made it a habit to keep everything heated to at least 45 degrees when I'm not in the shop. In my small shop, I had a 5000 watt 220v heater that worked great. Cost about $50/mth to heat the shop in the winter. My new shop is a different story. Here in the midwest we got a real cold snap over the last 2 months. Last months electric bill was $125. Ouch! Of course, that wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact that my mini-split heater/air conditioner froze up on me so was working extra hard. The month before, the cost was $56. I finally got the propane furnace running. When I'm working in the shop, I set the heat to 60 degrees, 45 when I'm not in the shop. I haven't been using much propane either, so I'm hoping that will be my most cost effective heating option in really cold winter. The mini-split generates heat up to -5 degrees.

Wade

[Kommanu]

Hm, what do you think about to put more gas in the shop ? It would be better or ?

[diyengineer]

Like add gas to run a heater, or add a larger furnace?