Hi, I have a small (manual) forklift (Hanselifter E-SDJ1030, up & down with a 1.5kW Motor & a 12V/150Ah Battery). Battery is too old now. I need this forklift only a few times/year, in winter, the room becomes cold (a few °C above 0). I don't want to spend the money for a new battery. I had the idea to use a Switching powersupply 12VDC/125A instead of a battery. Did anyone try this? Do any problems appear because the motor is an inductive load? I hope you can help me. I guess I'm not the 1st person in the world, who wants to try this. Tom
Most people would swap in a used battery for the few times you need to use it. I have no idea how reliable or expensive a power supply like that is.
A (standard) switching supply won't work with this kind of a load as it appears as a dead short until the motor produces sufficient cemf. The load demand would be greater than the power supply could produce. If you have access to a standard 12 volt deep cycle battery (marine), for the little usage you could swap it out when needed. Or if you had access to a standard heavy duty battery charger may work also although limited cycle time.
Thanks. I guess the starting current of the motor is not a problem. These Power Supplies are normally short circuit protected. The Problem I see is the RF that the motor produces and goes back into the power supply. Perhaps I can supprs that with a condensor in parallel to the motor. Such a power supply costs 350.- and a used battery: you never know what you gonna get. And in the winter when it becomes cold during a couple of months, I guess, the battery will not survive many years.
Group 31 battery is ~$85...
I just got charged $99 and I thought I was special... and 5 out of the 6 I replaced will last another five years on that few times a year use. But maybe I AM special?
If you wanna use a power supply, just connect it across a good battery, to act as a filter for both noise and current spikes. But, a switching power supply most likely costs more than the replacement batteries.
I would look for a used battery from a forklift supply company or a standby power service company. I am sure you can find someone in Switzerland that has used batteries that you can intercept before they get to the recycling centre. At work, we changed out batteries on standby power units every 3 yrs. That was a little before the point we started to see failures. There was still lots of life in them and the maintenance staff used them for non critical application. Good luck finding something local to you. Cam
thanks for all your answers. I will check that.