If your purpose is just to charge the battery use a charger instead. Solar panel if no power in garage. Otherwise start it and get outside at 1,000 rpm til warm then dig away.
/ Warm up before driving mini excavator out of garage?
Is it harmful for a mini excavator to be driven carefully out of a garage immediately after startup without a 5 min warm up? Warm up will fill the garage with exhaust or should I use a hose on the exhaust to get the fumes outdoor?
My garage is far from the house, but it is deep with no doors close to the excavator parked rear end towards the rear wall. I may drill a hole in the wall and use a hose to get the exhaust out.
I avoid starting it in very cold weather. To charge the battery I have started it once this winter during a mild period with 2-3 degrees celcius.
My shop isn't deep but my tractor is in the middle of it. I have a fan on a bench that runs when I start it during the warm up time. That could be an option for you and hopefully eliminate putting a hole in your garage
/ Warm up before driving mini excavator out of garage?
Massey Ferguson 245, Massey Ferguson 14 Allis Chalmers G
You ay be doing more harm to the engine by leaving it "warm up" than applying a light load to it.
1 most wear occurs to the piston rings and bore due to the metal being cold. The longer until the are warmed up the more wear and oil dilution occurs.
2 rings seal poorly when cold allowing combustion gasses and unburned fuel to enter the crankcase.
3 it takes longer for an idling engine to warm up than a slightly loaded one. The longer warm up takes the longer it takes to properly burn the fuel.
I worked at a farm machinery dealership for over 20 years and no manufacturer recommended a warm up by idling the equipment. They all recommended starting the engine and starting work if you could do so slowly as it warmed the machine faster than just idling resulting in less wear.
Every vehicle I have ever owned I would start and slowly begin to drive/work until it was warmed up and ready to work.
I have even seen one farmer never touch the throttle, shut it down wide open and started it wide open.
Have seen another completely destroy an engine, after starting the engine and allowing it to warm up went to the milk house. His wife came running in asaid the combine is making som awful noise. When he went out the engine was completly destroyed--rod thru the block -- even the starter was broken as the rod hit it.
The only engine that I may give a slightly longer is a turboed engine then only a few seconds more after I see the oil pressure is up.
/ Warm up before driving mini excavator out of garage?
