Doing some work for an agency, so if im lucky enough to be given a ‘posh’ motor, ie one with the new fangled digi doo dah thingy.
What do I do??
a/ At start of shift, just stick card in an go, or■■?
b/ At end of shift, cos I might not see that firm again for a month, do I do a print out for my records? Or just leave it on the digi card and agency downloads em every now and then, or do I have to buy the gubbins for my PC…
Help!!!
I wanna go back to logbooks!!! 
This help ? - viewtopic.php?f=10&t=20451#p206696
Or this? - viewtopic.php?f=10&t=76
Coddy:
I wanna go back to logbooks!!!
I used to like drawing castle walls with the slits for the bowmen 
“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!”
I have had my digi card for two years,unused up till two weeks ago.
I was given a demo motor with a digital tacho,asked if I had a card,oh yes,I said but I don’t know how to use it.Another driver gave me a 2 minute course,stick the card in and press,“OK” a couple of times,easy.
I’ve related on another thread about this,going one mile an hour over the speed limiter on the over run comes up as a speed warning.
I did the same run as I have been doing for the last 4 years on an analogue tacho,no problems,dead legal.
After the same run with a digi,I had several over speed warnings,and the warning that I had driven eight and a half hours with no break! Funny that,I had the same breaks I always have on that run,I don’t have to run anything other than legal.Also,while having to queue up to leave the yard,takes maybe 5 minutes,but every time the motor moves forward the stops,thats 2 minutes on the tacho,which means that a 5 minute shunting in a queue shows up as 15 minutes driving!
The good news is,I’m taking a PROPER digi tacho course this week,so I MAY be a bit more impressed,but on present experience I’ll take some convincing!.
I got my card a year ago, ain’t used it yet though and I don’t know if it will work when the day comes. I’ve heard that digi cards get wipped easily, especially when they come into contact with bank cards and the like, any truth in this?
When you stick the card in it will ask you if the last time you ejected your card it was the end of your last shift, the correct thing to do as i understand it would be to say no then manually enter everything you have done since that comes under the WTD. However if your work is irregular and your jumping between analogue and digi tacos I would be tempted to say yes. Do your days driving then when you’ve finished take a print and make a manual entry on the back of the printout and keep it. Not sure its strictly correct but its got to be easiest? Don’t know what others think?
After you’ve done above it will ask end country for that shift, i’m guessing uk? Then it’ll ask if this is the start of your shift, say yes if it is or if you’ve been doing other work put the time you started. Do your drive, my taco always defaults to other work when i stop, make sure you put it on rest when you rest. At the end of the shift ask it to eject, it will ask for your end country and if you want a 24h print, this is where i would say yes to get your print.
I always make sure putting the card in is the first thing i do so it records a bit of other work at the start - daily checks etc.
I hate it as its a real pain making manual entries, would be much better if you could do it in a computer or just keep a time sheet imo.
Coddy:
Doing some work for an agency, so if im lucky enough to be given a ‘posh’ motor, ie one with the new fangled digi doo dah thingy.What do I do??
a/ At start of shift, just stick card in an go, or■■?b/ At end of shift, cos I might not see that firm again for a month, do I do a print out for my records? Or just leave it on the digi card and agency downloads em every now and then, or do I have to buy the gubbins for my PC…
Help!!!
I wanna go back to logbooks!!!
Hi dude, Just read your post and thought Id offer my advice to you based upon my experience.
At the start of your shift, slide your card (chip facing up and away) into slot 1 of the machine. If it’s the first time you’ve used your card the machine will say something…all you need to do is press “OK” to activate your card.
Your card will then start loading up. It’ll ask you what country you’re starting in and if you want to do a manual entry. When it asks if you want to do a manual entry, select no, then press “OK”. Once you’ve pressed OK the next thing that will happen is that in the bottom left hand of the display, you’ll see a black square. This means your card is loading and you can’t drive just yet. After about 30 seconds, directly above the black square, a white square will appear…this indicates your card is loaded and you can now start driving.
When you come to end your shift its pretty much the reverse. When you press the eject button it will ask you if you are ending your shift or not, as an example it’ll say something like “End Shift 11/03/09 15:30 No?” If it says NO next to the time and date, then to end your shift you must select YES and then prss OK. If you press OK whilst NO is selected then the machine will eject your card, but it will think that you’re changing vehicle and so wont print a receipt.
Downloading - What I always do is everytime I finish a shift, I’ll go to the company and download my card straight away…you have to let them download the data within 28 days or the data will start to overwrite itself, its no good you downloading it at home because they won’t have the information. If they ask you to do it another time then say that you cant (unless you’ll be working for them again in a few days), otherwise it’ll mean you’ll have to drive back there just to download it!
If you need any more help drop me your phone number in a private message and I’ll call you up and go through it with you. The first couple of times are strange but once you’ve done it then its easy.
Regards,
Adam
Top Tip
Make sure the ignition is turned on when you start and finish, it will not eject or print with it turned off.
Part Timer:
Top Tip
Make sure the ignition is turned on when you start and finish, it will not eject or print with it turned off.
Thats a good point, than amount of times I’ve had to turn the ignition back on just print and eject my card 
Adam_Mc:
At the start of your shift, slide your card (chip facing up and away) into slot 1 of the machine. If it’s the first time you’ve used your card the machine will say something…all you need to do is press “OK” to activate your card.Your card will then start loading up. It’ll ask you what country you’re starting in and if you want to do a manual entry. When it asks if you want to do a manual entry, select no, then press “OK”. Once you’ve pressed OK the next thing that will happen is that in the bottom left hand of the display, you’ll see a black square. This means your card is loading and you can’t drive just yet. After about 30 seconds, directly above the black square, a white square will appear…this indicates your card is loaded and you can now start driving.
Incorrect you should make a manual entry by using the buttons to show the start of your shift ie if you started at 16:00 and didnt put your card in till 16:15 you need to show what you did from 16:00 till 16:15When you come to end your shift its pretty much the reverse. When you press the eject button it will ask you if you are ending your shift or not, as an example it’ll say something like “End Shift 11/03/09 15:30 No?” If it says NO next to the time and date, then to end your shift you must select YES and then prss OK. If you press OK whilst NO is selected then the machine will eject your card, but it will think that you’re changing vehicle and so wont print a receipt.
Wrong it dont ask if it the end of your shift untill the next time you put your card in when you again have to do a manual entryDownloading - What I always do is everytime I finish a shift, I’ll go to the company and download my card straight away…you have to let them download the data within 28 days or the data will start to overwrite itself, its no good you downloading it at home because they won’t have the information. If they ask you to do it another time then say that you cant (unless you’ll be working for them again in a few days), otherwise it’ll mean you’ll have to drive back there just to download it!
The company your working for have a duty to down load your card the other way is like said do a print out of your card from the tacho and keep this as a record incase their reader is not working that way you can hand this in with your anolog charts as you would normly do. although the card is said to hold 28days worth of info it can hold more as its the amount of data being stored that it holds ie if you were just driving and doing not much else it could hold more than 28daysIf you need any more help drop me your phone number in a private message and I’ll call you up and go through it with you. The first couple of times are strange but once you’ve done it then its easy.
Regards,
Adam
All the manual enteries is dependent on the tacho unit used but most are preety much the same ( siemans)
To make the pictures larger click on the bottom right of the window where it says 100% it might make it easier to read
I admit on a couple of things I am clearly wrong, however so are you. You don’t always have to do a manual entry…the first thing I do when i go to my regular work is put my card in. If you had to always do a manual entry then it wouldnt ever give you the option. And it does ask if you’re ending your shift when you press the eject button,but it is automatically set t no just incase your only changing vehicles. Why would you have to always enter your rest in when you can just tell it you’re ending your shift? Thiis how iv done it and it’s not flagged me up for anything.
What I want to know is if I do a day on yard duties then go back to driving the next day would I have to make a manual entry for the day before saying I’d done other work or just fill in a tacho chart with start and finish times on it like I do now?
Adam_Mc:
I admit on a couple of things I am clearly wrong, however so are you. You don’t always have to do a manual entry…the first thing I do when i go to my regular work is put my card in. If you had to always do a manual entry then it wouldnt ever give you the option. And it does ask if you’re ending your shift when you press the eject button,but it is automatically set t no just incase your only changing vehicles. Why would you have to always enter your rest in when you can just tell it you’re ending your shift? Thiis how iv done it and it’s not flagged me up for anything.
if you have the keys with you and you dont go to an office ie O/O yes thats fine but the guy is working agency
So go to office get keys paperwork walk to unit your doing work open up get in ok posable 5 mins but you still put a man entry into to show the 5 or so min as for end of shift if your locking up and going home again fine but if your going in to an office handing in keys paperwork etc again your not finished till you have been booked out thats why you have a yes no option
What I hope to find out when I do my course,is how to avoid the problems I had on my first day out when as I said earlier,my tacho recorded about 15 minutes work for a 5 minute queuing to leave the depot.Then as I pulled into my usual laybye after less than four and a half hours,I got the warning,“Excess driving time 4 hours 31 minutes”,The tacho then locked up the mode button would not change the duty.When I got back to the yard and removed my card,I got the message,“Excess driving time,8 hours 30 minutes”.
Question:Can they still shoot you■■?
nick2008:
Adam_Mc:
I admit on a couple of things I am clearly wrong, however so are you. You don’t always have to do a manual entry…the first thing I do when i go to my regular work is put my card in. If you had to always do a manual entry then it wouldnt ever give you the option. And it does ask if you’re ending your shift when you press the eject button,but it is automatically set t no just incase your only changing vehicles. Why would you have to always enter your rest in when you can just tell it you’re ending your shift? Thiis how iv done it and it’s not flagged me up for anything.if you have the keys with you and you dont go to an office ie O/O yes thats fine but the guy is working agency
So go to office get keys paperwork walk to unit your doing work open up get in ok posable 5 mins but you still put a man entry into to show the 5 or so min as for end of shift if your locking up and going home again fine but if your going in to an office handing in keys paperwork etc again your not finished till you have been booked out thats why you have a yes no option
I understand what you’re saying…but the differences between our two posts are simply down to procedure, its not that either of us are wrong. The place that I worked, which was agency also, the keys were placed next to the truck, took less than a minute to get them and put your card in…you cant book yoursef for less than a minute, so I never had to do a manual entry.
Likewise, when we got back and unloaded, we’d take the cards out after everything else was done…that way all that was left to do, was put the keys back, again, less than a minute…so there was never any need for me to do manual entries. I’d give my card to the TM whilst I went for toilets and a coffee. It just depends on the procedure for the company you work for…If i came to your work then I’d have to adopt your procedure, but if you worked at the same place as me then you’d do it the way I done it…unless you wanted to book yourself an extra minute either side
"Adam_Mc I understand what you’re saying…but the differences between our two posts are simply down to procedure, its not that either of us are wrong. The place that I worked, which was agency also, the keys were placed next to the truck, took less than a minute to get them and put your card in…you cant book yoursef for less than a minute, so I never had to do a manual entry.
Likewise, when we got back and unloaded, we’d take the cards out after everything else was done…that way all that was left to do, was put the keys back, again, less than a minute…so there was never any need for me to do manual entries. I’d give my card to the TM whilst I went for toilets and a coffee. It just depends on the procedure for the company you work for…If i came to your work then I’d have to adopt your procedure, but if you worked at the same place as me then you’d do it the way I done it…unless you wanted to book yourself an extra minute either side
I agree with what your saying in the job your in, not many are like that though as for the original posting though he needed to know what to do . oh happy days like he said bring back logbooks lol.
bestbooties:
What I hope to find out when I do my course,is how to avoid the problems I had on my first day out when as I said earlier,my tacho recorded about 15 minutes work for a 5 minute queuing to leave the depot.Then as I pulled into my usual laybye after less than four and a half hours,I got the warning,“Excess driving time 4 hours 31 minutes”,The tacho then locked up the mode button would not change the duty.When I got back to the yard and removed my card,I got the message,“Excess driving time,8 hours 30 minutes”.
Question:Can they still shoot you■■?
I’ve never heard of a head locking the mode switch. Did you take a printout and put an explanation on it that the equipment malfunctioned and you couldn’t change the duty mode? As for the queueing thing thats a problem wiith Digital tachos, they record a full minute of driving for moving a short distance. Best bet is to use the timer on the tacho itself to see how much driving time has been recorded or start your timer when you join the queue so you know you’ve definately got your break in. I don’t think you’ll get shot in your instance because you can explain it was your first time in a digital vehicle and they might go lightly on you as long as it’s only an isolated incident. Does your company provide training on tachos or are you having to self finance your course?
Siemans Digi tacho
If you push the arrow up or down button it will show how much driving you have done … its a good thing to check when you reach 4hrs that YOU think you have been driving so you have a better view on what the tacho has said you have driven. it will also tell you how much break you have had. but be warned IT WILL THINK THAT AFTER AN AMOUNT OF POA IT WIPES THE SLATE CLEAN AND ALLOWS DRIVING AGAIN … KEEP TABS ON YOUR REST BREAKS,ALWAYS ALLOW THAT EXTRA 2 MINS
bestbooties:
What I hope to find out when I do my course,is how to avoid the problems I had on my first day out when as I said earlier,my tacho recorded about 15 minutes work for a 5 minute queuing to leave the depot.Then as I pulled into my usual laybye after less than four and a half hours,I got the warning,“Excess driving time 4 hours 31 minutes”,The tacho then locked up the mode button would not change the duty.When I got back to the yard and removed my card,I got the message,“Excess driving time,8 hours 30 minutes”.
Question:Can they still shoot you■■?
I had this you may have gone into a nother part of the system and locke out your card into out of scope movements. what we had to do was remove card wait a few mins and reinsert the card this took the lock out off. dont take my word for that as being right or leagel but it worked and off my merry way
I’ve never heard of these Log Books…were these the thing before analogue tachos? As for the digi tachos…I was driving in London once and found somewhere to stop at 4 hours 29 and i started my break (■■■■ red routes!!), but on the 14th minute a guy came out and asked me to move so he could get his car out…booked me 3 miutes for a shunt forward of about 20ft!!! I was not a happy bunny!