Having nearly been caught out in the bad weather this weekend and not making it home, a few questions for the guys that weekend out in therir wagons.
I have a PC running off my inverter and regularly do 3 - 4 hours on it a night without any problems. When not on the PC I watch my telly and digibox for the same amount of time. I also have a 12v fridge which runs all the time. If I were to get stuck out all weekend would my batteries last the weekend?
Do the guys that weekend out run their engines for a while each day to top up, or is the discharge from the equipment not enough to flatten them? I do 1500 to 2000 km per week so there is plenty of charge going into the battery each day.
Whilst on the subject of battery life - how does the use of the cab heater affect the battery? Again I use mine for fairly short periods if I am overnighting in cold weather, but how long would it last if I were out all weekend.
I am dreading the morning when I have got myself ready to face the day only to find that my battery is not up to it. Advice please folks.
I used to run the engine when weekended for @ 30 minutes or so every three or four hours, it may not have been needed but better to run it than take the risk of the batteries going flat , and I wasnt paying the diesel 
I use the laptop a lot when weekended, watching DVDs and TV programmes stored on it. I don’t have a TV or digi box but I do use the microwave a fair bit as well.
I don’t use the night heater very often but I have had to give jump starts when I have been weekended with someone who has ran the night heater a lot. Most night heaters will cut out if the voltage drops below a certain level. The idea being that you should still be able to start the engine, but often it is too late by the time the heater cuts out and there isn’t enough left in the batteries to start. Cab fridges often have the same cut out built into them, the Volvo fridges do.
Last weekend I was parked from Saturday morning until Tuesday morning and I only ran the engine once for an hour, on Monday afternoon when the voltage was down to 23.5 volts. If it had been summer I wouldn’t have bothered running it at all but as the temperature was getting down into the minus figures, -5 on Tuesday morning, I decided to run it because it draws more current to start when it is cold.
Constantly starting the engine over the weekend can do more harm than good, it can take a fair amount out of the batteries each time you start it.
As Coffee said, it should cut the night heater out leaving you enough power to start the engine, also, it uses more power to run the engine up occasionally than to let it stand.
I used to abuse the local hostelry because they normally have free power and heat 
I had an occasion where I was weekended for 4 days in Germany 
and as soon as I started my engine to build the batteries up, I had a visit from the Polizei.
A battery in good condition will stand a week of abuse unless you start trying to watch 2 ■■■■ videos 
Wheel Nut:
A battery in good condition will stand a week of abuse unless you start trying to watch 2 ■■■■ videos
Which is a whole different kind of abuse.
last weekend there was a Hamburg registered truck parked near me, with a satellite dish set up on the mirror arm, and he ran the engine virtually non-stop, apart from during the night. Several times the police came through and didn’t bother him but I have seen them tell drivers to turn them off in the past.
Bilgepump:
Whilst on the subject of battery life - how does the use of the cab heater affect the battery? Again I use mine for fairly short periods if I am overnighting in cold weather, but how long would it last if I were out all weekend.
I don’t know about weekending but when sleeping overnight at low temps (-20 C to -30C) so that 12/24V fridge and cab/engine heater are running at full power whole night there usually isn’t any problem starting engine at morning (at least if you don’t do something stupid, like forget to switch lights off from the cargo box 
). After that engine have to run quite long, maybe two to even four hours before batteries are full again becouse of low temperature. I suppose that you have only a cab heater but I think there isn’t any significant difference between them when looking battery consumption.
If I remember correct “starter engine” requires battery voltage to be something between 19 to 20 volts for it to work and I guess that you’ll start engine way before voltage is even close to that. I repeat what Coffee said about starting engine often during weekends as it bites batteries quite much and charger doesn’t charge very well at idle rpm’s.
Our last batch of motors have got a device called battery guard.
So when the power drops it cuts all power to the cab except the tacho.
We do a hell of alot of tail lift work and i’m still on the same pair of batteries from new.
And its not often any of our motors wont start in a morning.and that includes the ones without the battery guard device
Tony b
The answer as wheelnut mentioned… get in a routiers… get mucho vino collapso. No telly or night heater needed 
funnily enough im weekended this weekend but am in a 4star hotel on firday i started at 4 am ran to poole after an hour or so in the dock then to poole and another 4 or so hours stood so ran the night heater for an hour or so then ran to basingstoke and parked up for around 4 ish and left the fridge in its an absorbttion fridge on for 5 or six hours then took it out of the cab to the hotel room on saturday moring the truck wouldnt start id left a map light on but managed to recover myself buy borrowing 2 battries and and second pair of starter leads to bridge the car batts to create 24v and it worked great ran it for a while and this morning it started no problem so i ran for a little while just to make sure it was ok and hopefully itll start at midnight when i set off to dartford and then bristol for 8 am
If my boss EVER wanted me to spend the weekend in a truck i would get the train home and tell him his truck is pretty ■■■■ close to where i left it.
Are you for real spending a weekend in a truck?,do you get paid for it?.
■■■■ that, sorry but ihave a home i like to be in at the weekend.
jammy if your talking to me no i dont get paid for weekending as when i do it Im atending pocketgpsworld event whch is on my own time and enables me to get to the event free of charge and means i a properly rested for the week ahead
Not just you Alix it was aimed at anyone who does it especially within the U.K., i can understand people doing it on the continent but not over here.
jammymutt:
Not just you Alix it was aimed at anyone who does it especially within the U.K., i can understand people doing it on the continent but not over here.
Its part of transport Jammy, I have never had a 5 day week in office hours
jammymutt:
Not just you Alix it was aimed at anyone who does it especially within the U.K., i can understand people doing it on the continent but not over here.
My dad is currently weekended in Kent as is the norm when he ships out to Switzerland on a Wednesday and has to tip around London on a Monday, he gets paid for it, the same as any other day. Like most continental jobs, its a standard daily salery regardless of hours (which works out at very little if you do a 15 hour day!) and then you ofcourse get your nights out too. I know some companies didn’t used to pay drivers when they were weekended or having a night out onboard a ferry etc. Another good one is that some companies who do daily saleries, put that sum at a fairly low rate, and your wage then gets boosted up with milleage money, which can be very good if you’ve got a good run to Italy or Spain for example, but once you get weekended, you’re stuck on the low daily rate, same for when you’re on holiday too.
Weekended out 
No way. Our firm only pays night out money £21 as we are on salary. A few of our firm’s foreign drivers do get weekended out but not for me. I agree with Jammy, I prefer my weekends at home.
I love my weekends at home… but have just come off the phone to wifey who has asked if I will be able to go Xmas shopping with her BEFORE Xmas. I have NOT had a weekend at home since the 10th September!!! I have just got back from Spain where I was supposed to have a 24 down in Benidorm only that never happened thanx to the atrocious weather in Northern France last Friday and Northern Spain on Sunday morning. So now as I am on my 6th card today (coming in from Rennes), the Boss is going to deliver the load in the morning, and reload me for delivery in Benidorm Monday morning :o((((
Another chance of a weekend at home gone. If I had gone and delivered the load myself, then I would have got my weekend at home :o(((((((((((((((((((
i couldnt be weekended myself i would get to bored i woul;d have a potter and clean the lorry and have alook around but would be bored senseless in 2 hours to be fair it suits some people but not me also some people enjoy it mixing with other cultures and having time to themseleves but not me. each to there own.
its like everything else in this job its alright seeing all off europe and fancy places in this job but its no good on your own i know my missues i would tell her i’d been to so and so and her face would glaze over and go " oh ok anyway now your back…"
TheBear:
. I have NOT had a weekend at home since the 10th September!!!
I would have to be getting paid a SERIOUS amount of money to be away for that long .
He hasn’t been away that long, just not at the weekends 
Salut, David.
I was regularly “weekended” away in the UK when on the road planers, was away for as long as six weeks at a time… most weekly rest periods were taken during the week as a lot of work for the machines happened at the weekend.
Some weeks the truck didnt actually move at all but had to be on site incase a machiine broke down in the road, I spent a week in the central reservation on the Colchester to Harwich road. other weeks it was a matter of moving the machine a few 100 yards every shift waiting until it finsihed, then reloading it and moving a few 100 yards off the road again
Boring work at times but the money was good, and the kit top notch