"Ignoramus8579" wrote in message
...

Me and my employee could not agree on something. He said that for
forklift batteries, the charger has to exactly match the battery and
be special made to fit the battery.

I said, no, any proper voltage source with a timer, capable of proper
current to put the amps, should be enough.

We could not agree and I decided to ask here. Who is right?

Specifically, we bought a walkie stacker, older but fnuctionally
similar to this one: http://goo.gl/Lrrsz

We bought it for resale. It powers up and down, as well as forward and
back.

The stacker comes with a weakened battery, and without a battery
charger. The previous owner charger it with a "car charger". I am
wondering, what should one get to charge this one. It has a 12v
Deka battery that weights, perhaps, 300 lbs.

i

Is this a single 12V battery or multiple 12V batteries connected in series?

If it works with 12V then an automotive battery charger should be good, the
more amps, the faster it will be able to charge (to a point, I wouldn't
recommend trying to charge it in 15 minutes from your welder).

Notice for automotive batteries you can buy chargers from a couple of amps
to many amps. An automotive 15A charger should work but might take a couple
of days to fully charge, a 50 amp charger might charge it in less than 1/3rd
(15/50ths) of that time. The smart chargers with maintainers will charge up
to a higher voltage and then let the voltage drop to a maintenance level to
prevent overcharging.

A good source for information is the Battery Tender website. The charge to
voltage is temperature dependent too.

RogerN