[Smokey911]

I have mine in my shed with no heating and it had no problem last winter. I live in Georgia so its not that cold. But yours will be in your garage so it may be comparable. Last winter it froze a few times and it did not seem to hurt the 770 in anyway.
Christian

Did you use it while it was cold? In Ohio, it can be in the 20's for weeks or even lower. If I was to use it I would turn on a heater and the door would be closed keeping the brunt of the chill off of it.

[TXFred]

Cold is not a big deal. Electronics like cold. Cast iron doesn't seem to care one way or another.

Here in Texas, I have the opposite problem. Heat and humidity. The garage is air conditioned, so the Tormach is at 78 degrees. If it's 100 and humid outside, and I need to open the garage door to bring something in, there is potential for condensation to build up on the machine.

If I know I'll have the door open for a while, I have to shut off the garage AC ahead of time. This lets the contents of the garage come up to temperature before I let the hot, humid air in.

Frederic

[Smokey911]

Thanks for the feedback, I guess the ice cold unbearable 5 months of ice and snow in Ohio has at least 1 advantage.

[philbur]

The manual says the operating temperature range is 7 to 38 degrees C. Electronic components can also be sensative to storage temperature and often have a specified storage temperature range.

If you are concerned contact Tormach. I'm a little surprise that a storage temperature range is not included in the specification. At least I can't find it.

The same issues will also apply to your PC. So if you can find a storage temperature range for it it will probably be a good guide for the mill also.

Phil

[aarggh]

The issue you have here is that metal and most certainly electronics in general, don't care too much about cold, but can't take the moisture associated with cold. That's what wreaks havoc with electros, exposed tracks, components, etc. There's cold, and then there's cold with draughts forcing moisture laden air into and over every part of the machine. This is what you need to avoid, even if you have to cover things with a blanket when not in use. This is what I actually do myself in Melbourne here, as it doesn't get that cold generally, but there's a lot of humidity and condensation/moisture in the air with wild temparature swings at times.

Another thing to watch out for is that some greases get quite hard in cold, and can be a bit of an issue for acme/trapezoidal threads, especially with cheaper nylon/delrin nuts. On one of my smaller units this was enough one winter to cause heaps of missed steps, which really threw me until I figured it was the grease used, cleaned it off and sprayed with WD40 and it was fine.

cheers,
Ian