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.

Going back to what bbforks was saying about cameras and the effects of knowing the employees are being watched. Some years ago i installed a shockwatch system on a unit and it had the lil keypad so the operator could enter their code. Just so happened on this paticular brand of shock watch there was a little circle that looked like a camera lens. After installing it i had to show all the operators how to use the system. Just joking with them i said the lil circle was a snapshot camera and it stored the picture of who was driving when the watch was tripped. Needless to say the operations manager never had to reset the system once.

Referring to what edward posted.........."for the meatballs that can not pay attention to what they are doing, a broom, rather than a forklift, for them to drive."
Now edward we can't have them tearing up a spanking new multi tasker Libman by using it other than a tapeball bat or hockey stick during lunch. Besides its the "meatballs" that keep our service trucks rolling. Personally my wallet loves the spaghetti that goes along with them.

We got a problem with some of our older trucks boiling due to being put on a too high amperage, from what we can digest anyway. I bleive we need to get a proper class in battery maintenance at any rate. we have sever chargers for 48 volts, including one 150A, and wehn we put a speciffic series of Sichelsmidts on that one, they always seem to boil over, even if we only top up the water after charging (first thing of the day, though not always every day for all trucks..) our latest M970's have had their batteries deteriorate far sooner, compared to our older M9xx's our oldest which is a 03 make, is just now starting to show seriious battery issues, after about 6000hrs, compared to about 2.5k on the newer 06/07 970's


We got a lot of new workers that drive the things as they were stolen, and I fear the fragile crap BT270's we have now, will not outlive our sichelsmidts.

Making one person responsible for battery maintenance & installing a camera system works wonders. Many of my customers have gone to this system & have seen impressive results.

I always give the cap of each cell's fill port a little tap on top before filling as the shut of valves / **** inside can jam as the battery & filling system attached to it starts to get older.

They have operators like that over here too !! No matter what you tell them they still trash the trucks.huge damage expense's sometimes make their bosses take notice LOL

I swear the operators at my one customer think that forklifts are actually bumpercars or they are in the local fair demolition derby,from bent forks and carriages to counterweights hanging by one thread...a broom wouldnt be good enough for them,thinking more like a toothbrush and scrub the floors with it...

for the floor, you might try any "high bituminous" paint. the higher the bituminous the better.
for the meatballs that can not pay attention to what they are doing, a broom, rather than a forklift, for them to drive.

if you have fill systems on the batteries then overfilling them should not be possible and even if you charge them they shouldnt spill during charging.
You may want to have the battery company that installed the fill systems to come out and check the caps, hoses and connections and make sure they are not leaking. Most fill systems i know of do need to be checked periodically. Floats in the caps can stick not shutting off the flow when filling and can overfill cells. Things such as this may be what you are experiencing.

Sounds like the cure is a Louisville Slugger - just kidding.
If you have battery fill system on all your batteries - I would think that over filling would be difficult. Often "boiling" over is caused by too large (amp capacity) of a charger being connected to the battery or incorrect volt charger being used (e.g.. 48 volt charger - 36 v battery) - either situation will cause excessive gassing will take place and force the electrolyte out. I've seen situations where the tabs on charger and or battery connector half have been broken out & allow a different voltage charger to be hooked up.
Just a thought or two from here at least 700 miles from your problem but only milliseconds via the internet.