On Sat, 12 May 2012 17:02:51 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 12 May 2012 10:39:03 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sat, 12 May 2012 10:34:48 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 12 May 2012 20:06:28 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Fri, 11 May 2012 20:29:57 -0500, Ignoramus8579
wrote:

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

If your battery charger supplies enough power to charge the battery to
about 14 volts then it will work providing it is manually controlled.
If it is one of these modern automatic chargers then it probably needs
to know the capacity of the battery in Amp/hours.

Have a look at the Trojan web site for charging instructions as, while
it is a 12 volt battery, 12.5 volts is only about 50% charged.
Depends on the chemistry of the battery. Calcium augmented batteries
like the crappy Delco Freedom 2 batteries require a higher charge
voltage,with GM cars of the '70s having regulators set to 14.8 volts,
while older antimony augmented batteries ran at 14.6, and the newer
"hybric" batteries with calcium negative plates and antimony positive
plates are happier with a 14.3 volt setting.

I'm sure this has some effect also on the voltave vs state of charge
curve.

Why are these huge prime-mover batteries 12 V? I'd think they would
use much higher voltage battery packs, like electric cars, and for the
same reasons.
Who's talking about "huge prime mover batteries"? I'm not talking
batteries for hybrid vehicles - just hybrid lead acid batteries.

I didn't read the thread carefully, not having a forklift, but I saw
Lloyd mention 2300-lb. batteries "for real forklifts." And the
discussion was about 12 V batteries. So I was curious.

--
Ed Huntress