Everybody on this discussion has hit the nail square on the head. No matter what it is ,proper servicing will always get the most service life from it.

Got to take you to task there BrianH. A correctly maintained lead acid battery will last a minimum of 10years and we've had some go to 15 years with little drop off. The catch word here is properly maintained ie topped up to a schedule and cleaned to ensure a minimum of earth faults etc. Yes Lithium Ion might be the future but they are still way to expensive while looking after a battery costs very little. Most lead acid batteries come with a 5 year warranty any way so the warranty you claiming isn't any better. No way will a lithium Ion battery last 4 times longer than even a poor lead acid battery that would be a minimum of 20 years lol. Sorry what your saying just doesn't stack up

Have you looked at Lithium Ion batteries? No maintenance no overheating no changing and 5 year 3,000 cycle warranty. Price has always been the issue, but I have sourced the for about 2 times the cost of a lead acid battery and they last as long as 4 lead acid batteries. All come with battery monitors and can be diagnosed quickly if they have an issue.

Just a thought.

Batteries are obviously being overfilled. Level of fluid should only just cover the cell plates - sounds like they are being filled up near top of vent and when in use fluid expands and would leak out. A common fault is whats known as automatic fillers which almost always overfill all the cells.

I still stand by my prior comment.

Usually this happends because of when water is added to the battery. I usually recommend having only 1 person in charge of watering the batteries. Once a week is usually works in most environments. Monday mornings at the beginning of the shift after the lift has equalized over the weekend and cooled down. Unless your battery is bone dry you don't want to add water right before charging. If you have just 1 person in charge of watering all the batteries should help with over watering. Even with a watering string you can over water.

Hello!

Stock battery options , although life time is not ideal (18months) maintenance is not required. Acid Base batters depending on what truck you have can be an issue as you have encountered yourself. I would always recommend instead of the mid-range upgrade to acid batteries, rather look at Nexus industrial battery, depending on what fits.

any needs , do not hesitate to contact

Philadelphia Scientific has a 'Blinky' that alerts you when there is electrolyte in the tray, either from a boilover or over filling. If it's a major boilover it's fairly obvious because your racks are trashed but often you don't know that your battery tray has electrolyte in it until it's got a hole in. This 'Blinky' has a bright red/blue flash to tell you that you need to get the electrolyte out before any damage is done.

Welcome to the world of morons,now matter what you cannot hire one cheap enough. You tell them and tell them and tell them...........

Joe,
"Correct. But after it's charged, then watered you shouldn't charge the battery again until it's discharged atleast 70% indicated. That's where my problem lies. They don't discharge it enough before they put it back on an overnight charge it then boils over."

well that is a problem then, even if they charge it too early it still shouldn't boil over UNLESS they are adding water to it when they shouldn't be. OR... something is going on with the chargers and the opportunity charging cycles, maybe they are hitting the batteries too hard and causing the acid to bubble and gas alot. That high expansion rate can build up acid around the vent caps and actually blow it out and it will pool up and run down between the cells and out the bottom of the battery casing.
I think i would have the battery people come out and check the charging rates on these chargers and make sure they are not set too high.

As for the watering systems if you are not having them maintained on a regular basis they still could be over filling the cells, which would contribute to this problem alot. They do make it alot easier to water a battery but they are not full proof, acid still corrodes and builds up inside the caps causing the floats to stick or just not shut off when they are supposed to, they should be replaced if they ever start hanging up like that.

We have one guy that answers to the Maint Manager per shift that is the battery change guy. He is trained on battery change, fill, gravity checks, cell V checks, washing etc etc.... When not changing batts he does "light" maint jobs. When gone on vacation/sick etc... One of the entry level building maintenance guys will fill in for him. I also have no issue with covering the battery room from time to time... LAst boil over spill we had was 8+ years ago when dumb dumbs were still doing batteries.

As given in VDI 2198, I wanted to do energy consumption test of electric truck but unable to find energy meter for DC battery supply.
So any one can help me with the idea about how to do it or can suggest any instrument for such tests..

Regards,
Krunal

As given in VDI 2198, I wanted to do energy consumption test of electric truck but unable to find energy meter for DC battery supply.
So any one can help me with the idea about how to do it or can suggest any instrument for such tests..

Regards,
Krunal

LOL. No I think we need to have mandatory IQ tests for our operators!

Sounds like your so called smart chargers aint smart enough.

Correct. But after it's charged, then watered you shouldn't charge the battery again until it's discharged atleast 70% indicated. That's where my problem lies. They don't discharge it enough before they put it back on an overnight charge it then boils over.

I was always taught you watered the battery AFTER the charging cycle.

The batteries are 12-125-17s and 18-125-17s, essentially a 1000 A/H battery. The problem we have is the operators do not always discharge the battery enough before putting it on a long term charge after watering it. We use Flo-rite single point watering systems on all batteries.

Since I replaced the "blinkie" lights with "tattle-tale" LEDs the operators have been very dilligent on watering their batteries...especially when I threatened to hand out safety violations to anyone operating a lift with a red blinking LED.

The "tattle-tale" LEDs are green and can be seen, literally, across the warehouse. When the water get's low the LED turns red. After 10 days the red LED will start blinking. I can then disconnect the positive lead, count to 3 and re-connect and I can now count the blinks and it will tell me exactly how many days it has been low on water...then the write ups come out.

As for the problem you are facing with boiling, it is hard for even the dumb to overfill a battery with proper battery handeling trainig, and an auto water system. I would be curious to know a few things about your batts- what is the a/h rating but more inportanly the finish rate on the battery and charger? Are the smart chargers set at a 5 cycle equalize or has that been shuffled? I ran into this problem with a large fleet a few years ago and it ended up being the chargers were not finishing the charges at the rate specified.

I know of 1 huge grocery chain that, in at least 1 of their large distribution centers, decided to assign a battery per operator, and not a forklift per operator, they used and checked out the next forklift in the line for their shift/day, but always had the same battery. it meant that all the forklifts got looked over by different people every day (and at first generated too much work for the service department, but about 3 months to 2 years later, meant the service department had time for training the techs that they had never seen). it also (about 6 months to 5 years later) cut down on poor battery maintenance and resulting battery replacement, since they knew whose battery was not taken care of. they cut it out, because one of the requirements was the operators -had- to schedule a 1 week vacation while their battery got an annual acid adjust/load test/ maintenance.