I have a big old precor commercial treadmill that lives in my garage now due to issues of ceiling height and general unsightliness.
When the temperature gets below freezing or down into the 20s especially the electronics seem to get a bit balky. Sometimes I can start the belt but it trips the switch if I put weight on the belt and try to walk or run on it.
I was wondering if anyone had experience using something like an electric heater or one of those heated mats you would use in a horse stall and if so which part of the unit should I focus on?
Huh. Hadn’t crossed my mind but our treadmill is also in the cold garage, and while it’s never behaved perfectly (bought it super cheap used), it was having huge issues yesterday while we had single digit temps outside. I actually ended up ordering a new controller for almost $200. Just turned on a space heater near the treadmill and I’m going to fiddle with it again in a few hours once the space heats up more.
Not much of a surprise. Most indoor commercial electronics are designed to 0C, especially microprocessors, whose timing operation is more critical. Stuff designed for outdoor home use will usually get down to -20 (or -40 if its “rugged”).
Yes I would fully anything that keeps things above freezing would do just fine. Most treadmills I’ve looked at over the years have two processor boards: one in the motor compartment, and one in the console unit. Blanket and a small space heater should work just fine.
As a follow-up, it was 0 f this morning, I put a 1500 watt heater pointed toward the doghouse and threw a tarp over the front fir and hour of so. It worked fine for 30 mins then the display started acting up.
I think this should be easy to solve by putting one of those chicken coop heat lights facing the back of the console.
It’s kind of fun running outside but inside like that after about 20 minutes I was able to start removing layers