Are Lithium-Ion Batteries Right For Your Motive Power Application?
Lithium-Ion Batteries
As a result of this year’s ongoing pandemic, the surge of demand for essential products has significantly affected the material handling industry. In hopes to preserve a strong successful future, businesses are reassessing their operational expenses, processes, resources, and equipment in efforts to deliver more cost-effective decisions.
One of the most beneficial adjustments that we’ve seen customers making is the switch to our Hawker Lithium-Ion Batteries and here’s a couple reasons why.
• They are one of the highest energy densities of any battery technology today.
• They’re guaranteed to last 40% longer than traditional lead-acid batteries.
• They offer a higher degree of charging intelligence for minimal-to-no downtime.
• They’re virtually maintenance free and environmentally friendly.
When deciding if Lithium-Ion Batteries are the right choice for you, it’s important to consider the following factors so that you can utilize their full benefits.
1. Equipment Compatibility
Deciding what is best for your fleet takes research, data, and knowledge. If you’re looking to make a change in your forklifts, electric pallet jacks, stackers, burden carriers or other material handling machinery, then you need to evaluate what motive power source will increase your productivity, and which is the most compatible with your current equipment. If your equipment would require conversion parts or CAN bus communication, it is important to assess those costs as well as the cost of the upgraded technology.
2. Charging and Maintenance
One advantage of lithium batteries is being able to opportunity charge at very high currents, or the ability to charge intermittently throughout the day. Additionally, there is little to no maintenance required for a lithium battery. “Lithium has a very high energy density and is essentially maintenance-free, which is very advantageous for customers,” says Marty Srog, Director of Operations for Hawker Batteries. “A consideration should be made for the required infrastructure to charge batteries at higher rates with chargers that have higher output.”
3. Battery Life and Safety
Lithium technology provides many advantages and is always improving. Two key factors that have specifically been a focus of development are battery life and safety.
To ensure that these batteries are kept in their safe operating limits, Hawker has incorporated advanced circuitry in the form of a battery management system (BMS). This modern integrated technology continuously monitors items such as the battery’s cells, state of charge (SoC), overall health, and thermal load to safely provide optimum power and efficiency. Additionally, the BMS is paired with a CAN bus controller which communicates all battery information to the battery charger, the lift truck, and external network monitoring systems. Multiple levels of safety have been employed into the development and operation of the Hawker lithium battery.
All of Hawker’s lithium-ion batteries are designed with the highest standards and safety redundancies using ISO 26262 ASIL C to be CE and UL 2580 and EN 1175 compliant. Hawker also uses the highest quality cells available to negate the need for active balancing, which is an indication of lower quality cells. These features combined provides an outstanding battery life.
Hawker’s FLEX Li3
Hawker has been hard at work, producing a premium lithium battery product. Our FLEX Li3 battery is ideal for heavy use applications; but specifically those customers with multi-shift operations and known maintenance issues. Its modular design enables scalability for future additional capacity making sure it will grow with your operation, not hinder it. Having this flexibility allows a customer to choose the required power without paying for more than they need.
Reach out to our battery experts today!
