Choosing Industrial Batteries for Optimal Uptime and ROI
Choosing the right battery can prevent costly equipment downtime, delays, and contract penalties. This article simplifies evaluating battery options – to ensure your operations are smooth and sustainable.
Batteries are the silent driving force behind a wide array of material handling equipment, ranging from forklifts to aerial work platforms and extending to boom lifts.
That’s why selecting the correct battery for your industrial application is crucial for maintaining productivity, efficiency, and profitability.
And today, you’ll learn some key factors to choosing industrial batteries – boosting long-term reliability, sustainability, and ROI.
Identifying battery requirements
First, assess your system’s specific needs. You’ll want to match the battery chemistry and capacity to your application.
Understanding the operating environment is key to optimizing battery performance and extending lifespan.
Batteries perform optimally at around 77°F (25°C). But in industrial settings, they often face extreme temperatures.
Extreme cold reduces performance and charge acceptance, while high temperatures shorten lifespan.
No battery is perfect. But some are designed for wider operating and charging ranges. Consult your manufacturer or distributor to help find batteries suited to your environmental conditions – for instance, cold-weather batteries designed for refrigerated rooms.
Evaluate battery types: FLA vs AGM
Choose long-life, low-maintenance batteries to avoid costly downtime and ensure reliable performance.
Flooded lead-acid (FLA) batteries are an excellent choice for many material handling applications due to their long life, high reliability, simple installation, and strong power density. They require routine maintenance.
Initially developed for military use, Absorbent Glass Mat (AGM) is a zero-maintenance, spill-proof design that allows rapid charging. They can be more expensive but often offset this with time and money saved on maintenance.
For detailed insights, refer to our comprehensive guide: AGM vs Flooded Batteries: What You Need to Know.
Compare Construction and Material Quality
A battery's construction and material quality significantly affects its longevity and performance.
For instance, Crown batteries feature:
- Advanced manufacturing processes like Cast-on-Strap (COS) and automated pasting to improve battery reliability and consistency
- Additional energy-storing active material – a mixture of recycled lead and performance-boosting additives – is crucial for capacity and reliability
- Gravity-cast, thicker plates (steel lattices that hold active material) for near-zero impurities and reduced corrosion.
- Quality control measures such as vision systems and a 200+ point quality checklist ensure that batteries last longer and perform better.
Establish a routine maintenance plan
Even the best, maintenance-free batteries need ongoing inspections.
Essential steps include cleaning terminals, checking electrolyte levels, and equalizing charges. Be sure to log maintenance sessions – to ensure batteries always operate correctly.
You can simplify and speed up maintenance with our ”Battery Maintenance Made Easy” guide.
BONUS: Reduce waste and boost sustainability
Some batteries leave a global trail of waste in their wake – starting with virgin mining and inefficient manufacturing and ending in landfills.
And unless and until you know what to look for, you’ll end up footing the bill… and we’ll all suffer the pollution.
However comparing battery manufacturers’ environmental practices and selecting batteries based on their carbon and waste footprints is hard.
That’s why we invested more than 500 hours of research laying out a practical framework – and distilled everything into our new Zero Battery Waste Guide. It’s your blueprint for financial and environmental efficiency.
Crown Battery’s Zero Battery Waste Guide shows you exactly how to reduce battery waste – and help your bottom line and the environment.
You can download your free copy here: ZERO BATTERY WASTE GUIDE
