...is what you can say if you're well prepared (or singing along with Elsa). Read on below for some ideas on what to do to prepare and prevent your robots and other equipment from freezing during this cold weather spell.
Cold weather is here, let’s help the robots not freeze up!
A3 – Best tip specifically for the A3 is making sure the scale floor is clean, on top and around the scale itself. Manure can freeze and cause the scale to not compress properly which in turn affects the robot arm position. Therefore you could end up with more failures and/or more connection attempts. If you're already running on low free time, this certainly won't help.
A4 & A5 – Keeping the jetter end of the robot above freezing helps icicles to not form at the jetter caps. Use portable heaters and direct the hot air at the jetter end (home position) of the frame. Make sure the robot can still move freely from the home to milking position without knocking your heater over!
General tips include:
-Using Vaseline or a Silicone lube spray on your cords. This will help with flexibility and prevents water from soaking the ropes.
-Also keeping your robot room above freezing with extra heaters is recommended.
-Spraying hot water on frozen parts can work momentarily but without hot air there's high possibility for it to freeze again.
-Making sure the underside of the mothership is clean, the image shows how it should not look.
For those of you with Jamesway scraper systems, make sure to enable the 'defrost' mode on your Scraper Boss and Scraper Boss PRO control boxes. The scrapers will move back and forth about 10 feet every 45 minutes. If you want them to run more often, just change the defrost interval. If you have another manure equipment that doesn't have a built-in frost protection mode, give us a shout! We may be able to add one to your existing control box. For detailed information, call our service line and press '3'.
Here's a picture of a camp fire to help you stay warm!
