Why are the bucket trucks left up?

[stuckmotor]

I've noticed that many of the companies that own bucket trucks 'cherry pickers' extend them to their maximum height when they park them for the night. I can only guess at why they do this. Will someone please satisfy my curiosity.

 

[mjcountrybumpkin]

To keep theifs from stealing valuable tools in the bucket. Also keeps the truck from being borrowed ( hard to drive down the road in something 30 foot tall and not be noticed.

 

[JD 4520]

Yep, he's right.

 

[stuckmotor]

Thanks guys. That was one of my theories, checking for drift down was another.

 

[jinman]

Lightning rods. Of course I'm joking, but I have to wonder about lightning when I see a rental place with all their buckets in the air and manlift sales places with theirs in the air. I know most of the vehicles have rubber tires, but I still think the buckets and booms make good lightning rods because they are far more conductive than the atmosphere.

 

[Dr Dave]

We had a bucket truck stolen, by a woman on drugs. Bad thing was the lineman was in the bucket working. It was a F550 ford with no outriggers, the park brake must be applied to operate the boom. When she released the brake he lost PTO hydraulics, I think he panicked and forgot about the emergency pump, or may have been to busy, ducking under power lines. The lineman tried climbing down, and feel, but lived to tell about it.

Dave

 

[stuckmotor]

Bad thing was the lineman was in the bucket working. It was a F550 ford with no outriggers, the park brake must be applied to operate the boom. When she released the brake he lost PTO hydraulics, I think he panicked and forgot about the emergency pump, or may have been to busy, ducking under power lines. The lineman tried climbing down, and feel, but lived to tell about it.

Dave[/QUOTE]

An experience like that could make a lineman consider a ground job.

 

[aczlan]

An experience like that could make a lineman consider a ground job.

Perhaps it should have also triggered the addition of a lockout in the bucket to prevent the truck from being taken out of park while the boom was in use... Would be fairly simple to do, just take the brake light switch (the one that also releases the park interlock) and run it through a normally closed relay so that when in the bucket, you flip a switch, it opens the relay which and you cannot take the truck out of park.


Aaron Z

 

[Dr Dave]

Good idea Aaron, the new trucks have a boom stow switch in the boom rest. It turns on a light in the dash, if the boom is not in the rest. I will have to check next time I work on the newer model, and see if this locks out the shift interlock. If not it would be easy to modify, with the addition of a relay.

Dave

 

[Zebrafive]

We would raise manlifts when parked to make them easier to find. This was inside a building. 40 acres under one roof.