I've gotten in the habit of keeping my equipment in my car overnight when I have a job scheduled the following day. It's locked up in an atached garage, so I'm not worried about theft, but now that cold weather is approaching (in Ohio), I'm wondering about cold temperature effect on my equipment. Any knowledge or experience on this?

Hello GlennT,
I think that the biggest problem would be condensation from moving it from the cold outside to a warm room. Electronics, for some reason, just don't like moisture on their circut boards ;-) And the plastic parts on most keyboards don't like to freeze, they become pretty brittle and could crack on you. I found that out the hard way!

Brings to mind...my bass player, and the '65 Fender Precision he had stolen from a locked vehicle, in a locked garage. If someone wants your stuff bad enough, and they've staked you out...they'll find a way of parting you with your goodies. Just a heads up.
As for the temperature aspect. I try to avoid that scenerio at all times, only because as Smurf stated, the temperature fluctuations and condensation can really do a number on your equipment, and you don't want to find that out as you're setting up for a gig...do you??

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...L

Hi Glenn.

I don't really know the facts on this but I can share some from my experience.

In Chicagoland, we get both hot and cold extremes. I have left the stuff out all night in vehicles that were parked on the street, and have never had a problem with the equipment. Items that I can remember that passed the freeze test were a Kustom 88 keyboard, Korg BX3 or CX3 (whatever model was out around '76 or'77) a small Peavey PA, Leslie 760, Peavey 18" cabinet, Peavey amp head, Electro Voice (EV15's?? 15"with horns)

Many times, I left out a synthesized accordion rig (Iorio H) containing both electronics and reeds in it, and no problems were ever encountered. Even the reeds stayed in tune.

Al Iorio, sir, my swarn testimony is available to you

Seriously though, when I look back at the mix of components that were in these items, I now feel that I was probably lucky and blessed that I did not have problems, and leaving gear out in those extremes should probably be avoided.

Ed

I have a dreadful time with my LCD displays with this practice. If I leave my Tyros or Korg in the cold for a very long period, they get stodgy and turn different colors. It takes them a good hour or two to get back to normal. If you do this practice, you may want to get to the gig early to let them reach room temperature.

Since it only gets cold here once or twice a year, it isn't a factor, but the heat is. I think it's very importnat to not leave your gear exposed to 100-degree-plus temperatures.
DonM

I leave a back-up PA head in the car year round. It's a 20 year old Peavey which is a tank. This is just in case my mai PA dies, which it has several times over the years. This old thing has outlasted probably 8 other PA units.

The biggest problem I have with equipment is damage from inclement weather (humidity, rain, etc.) at my summer patio job. I guess it all comes with the territory.

russ

Backup!! Very important, and one of the reasons I opted to go back to self-powered speakers. If one goes out, you can still finish the job with the other.
DonM

Dear Glenn,

I have been leaving my keyboards in the trunk of my car for the last 6 years. Here are the problems I encounter and have encountered.

1. In cold weather it is impossible to read the LCD display until the keyboard warms up.

2. Cables are stiff in cold weather.

3. I had an internal smart media hard drive fail on me during the winter. It had no moving parts, and might have failed due to temperature fluctuations.

4. The external adapter for my ex-PSR740 failed on me. The cable got too brittle and broke.

You might want to lay out a new electric blanket on the bottom of your trunk. You can hook up a timer to start an hour before your performance and plug it in overnight. I am thinking of trying this.

Sometimes, I bring my keyboard in from the cold if my next day's gig isn't far enough away to warm up the keyboard.

Beakybird

"Back in the old days," in the '70's and '80's, during well below freezing temperatures in Wisconsin, I would leave my Hammond M3 and Fender Bassman 10 amp in our bass players van non-stop.

All I needed was to get to the job 15-20 minutes before we started. I had the back covered with pegboard which had a small hole cut into the top half of the organ where the tone wheels generator was. I would just pull out my trusty portable hair dryer and de-thaw it, and off we'd go. I remember the concerned look on the guys' faces.

God, those were the days. lol

Scott