Hey guys, like to introduce myself. I'm Stephen I own a relatively small scrapyard in Glasgow Scotland, without any mains power, all my electricity comes from small generator for powering grinders, drills and etc keeping costs minimal, I have the chance to buy a forklift (a small electric counterbalance) which would be ideal for stacking cars and decontamination procedures... the question I have is could I wire the 240/230 generator up to the supplied generator to charge the forklift? Thanks and any help will be appreciated
I have my doubts about a small electric stacking cars, but that may be a separate conversation. As to the wiring, you need to get hold of the output ratings of your genny and the input requirements of the charger for the forklift, post them up here. Typically these batteries need to charge all night to work all day, so keep in mind you may be running the generator every minute of the day to keep up with the demand, if in fact the power is compatible.
Yair . . . I reckon lantraxco sums it up pretty well. An electric is a specialised bit of kit for specific applications, low noise, low emissions and so on, hardly the requisites of a scrap yard. It might well be cheap but we had a little Crown that we scrapped when it was going to cost three grand for a battery. Cheers.
It kinda depends, do you plan to run this forklift 40 hours a week, or once or twice a day for 15 minutes at a time? Even in Glasgow you might be surprised at how well photovoltaic solar panels work for an application like this. What you get is sun to DC with only a charge controller in between , instead of diesel to AC to transformer to DC. Of course solar panels aren't going to work if you use this all day. Otherwise, I'd be tempted to rig up a small diesel DC generator to make your forklift a crude hybrid. You might get away with smaller replacement batteries if/when you need them, because of the constant recharging. That depends on how advanced the controls are, if they will shut you down if the battery doesn't "look right" to the controller.
Often the battery weight is needed as counterweight to enable a capacity lift, depends on the design. Heard of a young wrench that got fired once, he was checking out a new machine, raised the forks up and tilted ahead a bit... machine went over on it's nose, forks stuck into the concrete shop floor. Brand new battery was setting on a pallet next to the machine close enough for the cables to reach and plug in. No, it wasn't me, lol.
Hi folks... I.appreciate what you say but I wasn't even looking.for a forklift but I have been.offered one cheap... hence why.I'm not opting for diesel...only once or twice a week
I would suggest that the first question to ask is what input voltage the forklift charger requires in order to charge the battery. Once you have that information then you can look at your generator output to find out if it can be adapted to supply the required voltage.
Ideally you look at your generator rating tag and the charger rating tag and have a comfortable surplus on the generator side. What kind of generator are you using? I was assuming diesel was much more common there than here, just from seeing things like small diesel powered concrete mixers etc. online. Some chargers are 480 three phase=huge amps even if they can be rewired to single 220v, if the forklift is really cheap the batteries are probably near the end of their life, and it might not even come with a charger. Since we're talking once or twice a week (not all day right?), I would almost certainly go with solar panels. You don't need a 200 amp charger to charge it back up every night from each day's use. You need enough panels for the amount of use, and the self discharge of the batteries, which will be higher than with new batteries, but you might be able to deal with that.
Electric forklifts were not really meant for running around a scrap yard. Unless they are on a hard surface (pavement or concrete) , they will quickly sink out of sight. I think charging the battery would be the least of your worries.
Electric forklifts will need to be charged periodically with a charger designed for that battery. The forklift battery will be DC powered; your generator is most likely creating AC power. Maintaining a proper charge on your electric forklift battery is important. If the battery isn’t properly charged, it will run down much more quickly, and then you’ll end up spending more money on replacement batteries than you should. For maintaining batteries in electric forklifts check out forklift battery maintenance from Intella Liftparts
Elec lifts in scrap[ yards,,, Your largest problem would be the magnetic field created beneath the truck by it's drive motor. We once had some cushion tire electrics in a conveyor manufacturing operation. Lots of circular flame cuts leaving a large amount of slag shards on floor. Drive motor fields just sucked it up in to brushes and armature and just eat them up. Scrap of size would not get internal, but would likely be attracted underneath to become a problem. A good electric forklift with a bad battery would just add to the scrap inventory.