Electric Forklift Battery

It may be because of the unplanned & irregular maintainace of your battery.

Battery life will get less due to undercharging and overcharging. Charge the battery only up to the recommended hours. Don't allow the battery charge to be 100% empty.

You have to check the battery acid once in every weak. If water level is low top up it using distilled water.

Always put the insulation mat over the battery. It will block the chance for a short circuit.

Every weak clean the battery terminals.

Always close the battery cap except the time of charging. It will block the dust by entering into the battery acid.

Following this will help you to increase the battery life.

But now it is better to contact manufacturer.

justinanto1987 I don't want to be rude but you've just quoted basic battery care that could be from any Googled site. Get out in to the real world where practical and not theoretical is the order of the day.

Industrial chargers are designed to cope with being left on all night or all week if necessary. Once full charge has been reached they will go in the equalisation charge stage. A good charger won't over or under charge. The basic battery care still has to be done. But leave the charger to do it's job.

''justinanto1987 I don't want to be rude but you've just quoted basic battery care that could be from any Googled site. Get out in to the real world where practical and not theoretical is the order of the day.''

For what you should be rude?

Who told you that I googled for the answer. Without any proof why are you criticising me?

I used to do the battery maintenance.

As I said, "Get out in to the real world where practical and not theoretical is the order of the day".

Industrial forklifts are in the real world. They don't have the care they should but the manufacturers engineer this in to them. It's one reason batteries are fitted with vented caps, so they don't have to be removed. Electrolyte levels can usually be checked externally.

You most likely have a number of batteries in series/parallel connection. A single weak cell among all of them could cause the symptoms you described. After charging, let the batteries sit for two hours without load, then test the voltage on each battery in the bank. You should also check specific gravity for each cell, looking for any that diverge significantly from what the rest of them read (NOTE: the specific gravity of battery acid is temperature-dependent, and should be adjusted per your normal working environment. Any good battery manufacturer will provide you with proper SG readings adjusted for temperature, if you want to get really exact). Again, both of these tests must be done after the batteries have been off the charger for a minimum of two hours, and before any load has been put on them. It is a good idea to disconnect the batteries from each other as soon as you take them off the charger, so adjacent cells can not bleed off the good batteries.

If you find one bad battery, it is a good idea to replace all of the batteries in the bank at the same time. You can significantly reduce the effective age of batteries by mixing and matching batteries of different age (all batteries tend to lose capacity as they age, and mixing batteries of differing capacities will quickly wear out your good batteries).

1. <... battery voltage and it is a bit higher than requirement...>

Hw you test battery voltage?

With a good multimeter/ Voltmeter? HRDT Hi Rate Discharge Tester?

What type of Set of batteries it is? Sealed-Carefree or open ?

Ar some batteries connected in parallel-connected to achieve higher AH?

If full setup is detailed something can be looked into.

Could it be possible that you have refurbished batteries? Or possibly the batteries sat on a shelf for a long time before being used? Perhaps sulfer deposits or an imbalance with the electrolite might play a problem with it. Check the lead cell in the lead battery. If the cell the electricity is coming out of is bad, it will affect the performance of the whole battery. so you might try swapping out the order of the batteries, switching them around. Also, if the batteries are fully charged you might think they cannot hold any more, the charger shuts off automatically, right? Unplug the charger from the batteries and then plug it back in. The charger should come on for a short time on a low amperage setting, such as five to seven amps and put extra current into your lead battery, giving you a little extra boost. Lastly, it may be that there is an electical drain on the system during use, a problamatic solenoid, lights, etcetera. Good luck.

You being in Vietnam, you most likely have different laws concerning forklifts.

Here in the States, that forklift is supposed to be inspected daily before it is placed into operation by each shift. If the batteries aren't holding up in normal usage or something on the forklift is malfunctioning, I'd suggest you get a mechanic from the manufacturer to come out and service the machine.

I'm the Forklift Safety Trainor for my company. I don't have any electrical forklifts, we have one gas and three deisel forklifts, however I think I have a check off list for inspecting electrical forklifts in my materials. Give me an email address and I'll scan and send you a copy of that check off list if I can find it. It will be in PDF format.

Hi all:

Since many comments were posted so I just can give the general information to cover the situation.

1. It is liquid-type battery

2. The voltage is about 12VDC (normally, for those industrial batteries, we rarely can find the problem by using the voltage measurement method).

I was just down to the site for several days and the electric forklift is quite new to me. I guess that it does not have internal automation recharger mechanism for the battery. Is that correct?

Moreover, to be sure about the current provide by the battery. I am thinking of using the clamp-on meter which can measure the DC current. Is that possible way?

Regards,

Hien

If you suspect a faulty cell an on load volt drop test must be done across each cell. A fixed load is connected across each cell in turn and the voltage measured across its terminals. A "drop tester" can be purchased from you battery supplier.

I still hold that you should contact the vendor. Don't void the warranty (if you have one).

TonyS:

Yes, as a matter of fact that we will have to contact to the supplier. For convenience, we will study the condition first in order to win the vendor easily. Some good vendors will send us a form that we will fill out the condition like operation and situation of the machine before they come to site. Sure with you, I will do that TonyS.

Please ignore me for posting wrong information. Actually the output voltage was about 48 voltage. Meybe there is no any forklift will run with only 12V of the battery bank in the world.

Regards,

Thanks,

Hi all:

Will also report the checkign result for you after it is done.

Regards,

Hi All:

It is not done yet but the other thing come up is that the battery way of using. This battery is used for Diesel Forklifts. Thing happens like this:

We have one Diesel forklift working in the site and we have 02 spare batteries kept in warehouse. I am planning to have the rotational check for these 02 batteries to ensure they are in good condition at all time. We don't have the charger so the people will have to bring them out for recharging.

Questions are:

1. Should I rotate using these 03 batteries including the one inside the forklift for every 02 weeks?

2. Or I will use one at a time until it runs out while keeping these other two ready?

3. How long the battery can keep the "capacity" once they fully charged?

4. How long is the normal life of the normal battery?

5. The forklift is in 8-hour operation a day (all the time working).

Regards,

Hien