Why Lead-Acid Batteries Die Early
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Naveen: [00:00:00] Hey, welcome back everyone. It's fall season. The air is a little bit nippy. How are you doing, Eric?
Eric: Oh, I'm doing all right. I like this time of year.
Naveen: Yeah. Kids are at college.
Eric: Oh, yeah. One is. Okay. The other one is on her big girl life.
Naveen: Yeah.
Eric: My kids- And she likes being in the woods, so.
Naveen: My kids' school started, and then immediately after school started, they bring back something home, and then it, it...
That, that's going to fall. So since the latter, last episode, a lot happened. I was, as you know, I spent a few days at IMTS in Chicago. I mean, the breadth of vendors that are there, that's mind-boggling. So the m- manufacturing technology, if you see the number of robots there, it's mind-boggling. More robots than there are cars in a car lot.
Eric: Wow. That's-
Naveen: So one robot has to make way for the other robot. It's like, yeah. So, and then closer to home, we shipped our CH10 compact handler on Monday. That's, that's always a good sign. [00:01:00] Today's topic comes from the field. So we put lead-acid batteries in our equipment, and then those batteries are getting fried.
They don't wear out. They get run flat, charged halfway, and the water levels are at the wrong time until you have a serious issue, and then you have to replace the batteries, do something huge than regular maintenance. Lithium prices have dropped more than 90%, so people wanna know sometimes why we still use lead-acid batteries.
Eric and I will cover that in this episode. I'm Naveen Vinata, President and CEO of Bailey Cranes. I have Eric Niemi, our Vice President of Engineering, with us. Welcome to this episode of Engineered to Lift.
So let's dive right in, [00:02:00] Eric. So how, I'm sure there's multiple ways to skin a cat, but how would you kill a lead-acid battery? What's the most common form?
Eric: Number one, you could discharge it until it's no longer got any charge in it, or it's so low that it, it doesn't register That's the number one killer.
Uh, didn't take the time to plug it in, get it properly charged. And, uh, yeah, you could plug it in for a little bit. It might show a surface charge, but deep cycle means that it has a charge that will last over a number of hours.
Naveen: I see.
Eric: Usually a 20-hour rate.
Naveen: I guess it's equivalent to getting a deep sleep, REM sleep, whatever they call it.
Right. That's when you feel recharged. Yeah, I see.
Eric: Right. You could catch that quick cat nap- Yeah ... and it's good for a little bit, but-
Naveen: Yeah,
Eric: yeah ... it's gonna catch up with you again.
Naveen: Okay. Fair.
Eric: So if you leave it sitting discharged, that's no good either because, uh, if you've boiled the water off of it in running, getting warm, it leaves the plates in, the lead plates inside of the [00:03:00] battery open to oxygen, and they oxidize.
I see,
Naveen: oxidize.
Eric: And then they no longer charge properly or, in this case, discharge properly to give you the voltage that you're looking for. The other way is it never got a full charge. Yeah, you plugged it in for 20 minutes at lunch- Yeah ... but that is only a surface charge. It's not a true deep cycle. And, uh, you unplug it when the shift starts again.
Yeah, it runs for pretty good for a little bit, but it never finished, and the battery is left partially charged. So then you run it down again, and you're back down into the low voltage situation once more.
Naveen: I guess this happens gradually over time or because of neglect that nobody bothered to charge them-
Eric: Or real high-
Naveen: for a very long time ...
Eric: or real high use.
Naveen: I see.
Eric: Uh, if you're driving a long distance on a battery-powered machine,
Naveen: it, that's- That's not meant to drive. It's just, like, moving from one place to another place. It's not meant to drive.
Eric: Right. You're not meant to drive a quarter mile between [00:04:00] buildings or, or half mile carrying something from one building- I see
to another. That's, that's not the purpose of a battery-powered vehicle.
Naveen: So what I'm understanding, the battery doesn't die in just one day. Yeah. It dies one skipped charge, once not properly charged, water levels- Yeah. And another- ... one at a time ...
Eric: another way is to forget to water it.
Naveen: Yep.
Eric: And not using distilled water, and you can call it pure water, but that's got, still got trace minerals in it- Oh, yeah, yeah
that will ruin the battery chemistry. So you need to use distilled water. Can't emphasize that enough. Tap water does not cut it.
Naveen: Okay. Those are some of the ways, and then that shows up when they call us, "The battery's got fried." That's when we receive the call, and then we have to go back to go to our operating manual, see what it says.
A five-minute habit could have avoided this complete problem.
Eric: Right. Check your battery water level. That's key. Make sure that it gets a full charge [00:05:00] overnight or off shift, or use a separate battery pack. We offer that on most of our machines, where you can replace the battery pack. You can have a spare sitting on the charger One in the machine.
When you run it down to 20, 30%, 20% swap it. Swap it. It only takes-
Naveen: That's why you're not doing the math. But is there a battery charge indicator on these?
Eric: Yes, the battery- Okay ... charge indicator is on the machine, and it's part of the control system on the CH product line. I see. And there's a battery charge indicators on the EX product line as well.
Naveen: Okay.
Eric: And it'll tell you when it's getting low and you need to consider doing it in the next 15 minutes, half an hour if you're still operating a lot Swap 'em out.
Naveen: Yeah.
Eric: It's, it... That 15, 20 minutes to swap the batteries out is worth it. Okay. It'll save you money in the long run.
Naveen: So one of the suggestions I guess I made was let's put a decal on.
In the Army, they used to call it PMCS, preventive maintenance [00:06:00] checks and services. Every time you take out a vehicle, you just check a couple of things. Let's put a decal, but you mentioned this is already part of the daily checklist in the ops manual?
Eric: It is, and you're supposed to read the ops manual before operating the machine.
Naveen: Yeah.
Eric: Okay. You're supposed to be familiar with its operations and its maintenance.
Naveen: So in the ops manual as part of the daily things, what's some of the things that we touch on the battery? That watering?
Eric: Watering is one. Uh, state of charge.
Naveen: Okay.
Eric: Check your connections, make sure everything's tight and not corroded.
Naveen: I
Eric: see. Clean them if they're corroded. Make sure they're tight. Make sure that your batteries are in good condition, that there aren't cracks in the housing, that they're not, you're not melting the wiring and, and leading yourself down the path of wearing the battery out prematurely.
Naveen: So some of the machines have onboard chargers, and then there is an external charger.
Could you lay the groundwork for how to look at those?
Eric: Okay. For onboard charging, typically the charger is on the [00:07:00] machine, and you can do opportunity charging with that, provided you're, you're not moving around a lot. Some machines have interlocks because of hazardous environment. Sometimes they don't.
But if you're gonna be s- if it's gonna be idling for a few hours, plug it in.
Naveen: Okay. What is that-
Eric: It gives you the-
Naveen: Is that opportunity charging? What is that?
Eric: Yeah. That's an opportunity charge, where I have the, I'm, machine's going to be idle for a period of time, let's say half hour, a couple hours. Plug it in.
Naveen: When you say idle, they're not moving. They're
Eric: not moving. The boom is
Naveen: still operating.
Eric: Not, not operating.
Naveen: Oh, not operating
Eric: at all. Preferably not operating.
Naveen: But if they're operating and then it's gonna be standstill, it's just gonna be going up and down for, like, the next foreseeable four to six hours, can they plug it in and then use it?
Eric: We have developed systems that do that. Uh, it isn't true for all machines. I see, I see. Uh, obviously hazardous environment, you can't have- Sure ... AC power in the environment. Outside, yeah. So therefore you need to have it outside while charging.
Naveen: Okay.
Eric: Or out of that hazardous area [00:08:00] into a- another area that isn't hazardous classified for charging.
Naveen: So for EX line of products, obviously it's only off-board charging. There's no onboard charging per se, because you cannot connect... Even though there is onboard charging, you gotta take the machine out of the hazardous environment- Right ... and connect it. So-
Eric: And, and basically it's disable the s- the electrical control system and operation while you're charging.
Naveen: Sure. Okay.
Eric: Just to ensure that you get a, a good proper charging and you're not endangering the environment.
Naveen: You're making quite an investment on the custom equipment, not off-the-shelf equipment. It is engineered to order. But when does it make sense for them to definitely go with a additional battery versus just stick with one battery?
Where does the math go?
Eric: Multiple shifts per day.
Naveen: Okay.
Eric: That's where it makes the most sense. The, a battery will typically last you eight hours in normal operations But if you [00:09:00] wanna run two shifts per day or three shifts per day, you're gonna need that additional battery pack. The battery pack's gonna make about eight to 10 hours or so.
That's the
Naveen: ballpark, okay.
Eric: That's the ballpark that you shoot for. And if you need to go another shift, you're gonna need another battery pack. Just stands to reason. Even if it's lithium ion, you're not gonna get 16 hours- 16 hours, yeah ... of runtime. It's just not, the math doesn't math.
Naveen: Okay.
Eric: The battery would have to be much larger than the machine to allow for that type of operation.
Naveen: I mean, in some of these industrial settings where they're operating against deadlines, more than likely they might have more than one crew. One crew finishes, the next crew comes in, immediately starts using the machine. That's when you have the battery.
Eric: That's when you should swap.
Naveen: Okay.
Eric: The end of the last shift should be taking the battery out, putting, and the new sh- crew coming in, put the new battery in.
That's where it makes the most sense. Do it in between the shifts.
Naveen: So do it in between- Or right at [00:10:00] the end of the shift ... the shifts, uh, but also, like, split the responsibility so both of them are aware. Right. When they finish a shift, disconnect the battery, put it on charge. You're not worried about the new battery plugging it in.
Don't worry about it. You're done with your battery. The next person is gonna unplug the battery and then charge it. Make
Eric: sure that, make sure that their water level is correct when they go to put it in the machine.
Naveen: Yeah. Okay.
Eric: You check the water at the beginning of the shift. Yeah. You plug it in at the end of the shift.
Naveen: Okay. Okay. That, that's a good way to look at it. If the crew that's leaving puts it in, they might not have checked the water. The crew just came in, just operates like everything is good.
Eric: Right.
Naveen: They won't be able to, like, disconnect an existing battery- Yeah ... and then do all of this.
Eric: Falls under the trust but verify.
Naveen: Sure, sure.
Eric: Yeah, trust that they did it, but verify that they did it.
Naveen: Yeah. But if you can do it yourself because you, it's gonna upset your whole shift, it's better.
Eric: Right.
Naveen: So you touched upon, uh, lithium ion batteries. [00:11:00] So what's... Before we go into lithium ion batteries, I guess lithium ion is, why do we use lithium?
Why don't we use lithium ion versus lead-acid? But I guess let's first touch with EX. Lead-acid is the only thing that can be used in explosion-proof environments?
Eric: That is cor- correct, because it has to meet the UL standard for a battery in a, uh, industrial truck.
Naveen: I see.
Eric: A lot of the lithium ion batteries are not tested or approved for industrial truck use.
And I'm not talking about the big ones that you put into forklifts or potentially into a boom lift aerial work platform. A lot of those are tested and certified to the UL standard for industrial trucks. The issue is an aerial work platform isn't necessarily, uh, classified as an industrial truck-
Naveen: Okay
Eric: until you hit the hazardous environment location standards.
Naveen: Oh, I see. That's where,
Eric: where, yeah. Then it has to meet the industrial [00:12:00] truck standard. '
Naveen: Cause there's no separate-
Eric: There's- ...
Naveen: standard for aerial work platforms- That
Eric: is correct ...
Naveen: the hazardous environment. It gets lumped under the... Okay.
Eric: It gets lumped underneath it because there's the impact test.
Naveen: I see.
Eric: That in crushing tests that the battery has to withstand, and lead-acid typically are rated for industrial truck use.
Naveen: Okay.
Eric: Lithium ion, not necessarily, especially a lot of the ones that are available from mass market for golf carts and-
Naveen: Mm-hmm ...
Eric: and small kids' toys and that kind- Should be okay ... of stuff, those aren't crush tested or impact tested.
Naveen: So, but what about Elon developing this big semi-truck electric? Those batteries-
Eric: Those batteries are. They do meet the industrial truck standard for the most part. They've had to go through their own crushing and impact testing and, uh, runaway testing where lithium metal hits oxygen. It has to have its own fire suppression system [00:13:00] in it.
The, the other issue is there're specialized chargers for those batteries-
Naveen: I see. I see ...
Eric: because of the voltage that they're running. They're not running 24,
Naveen: 48. 72 maximum.
Eric: 72 volts. They're running 96, 100 and some volts, 200 some volts, and long run times. The batteries on those are huge. As you know, a Tesla car-
Naveen: Yeah, most of
Eric: the- The whole entire- Yeah
undercarriage is battery.
Naveen: Yep, yep.
Eric: That's the bulk of the car is battery.
Naveen: That's why the tires wear out because of how much weight it is to carry the battery.
Eric: Right.
Naveen: On EVs, the tires wear out quickly.
Eric: Yeah, they can.
Naveen: So in our products, why do we use lead-acid versus why haven't we switched over to lithium ion?
Eric: The lead-acid batteries are approved. They're proven. They've been around for decades. I mean, 1920s they had battery-powered cars and trucks. So lead-acid batteries have been around that long And [00:14:00] probably longer than I'm aware of. It's just a industry standard. They're readily available off the shelf or, uh, in short timeframe, whereas lithium ion has yet to catch up, and meeting that industrial truck standard is the, is the catch.
Naveen: Okay.
Eric: There is one more, that it's been cost prohibitive up until lately. Uh, lithium ion batteries are usually around, uh, five to 10 times the cost of a lead-acid battery equivalent, and that's because it has the fire suppression. It has its own battery control module. It has its own charger specific to that battery.
So it has been a bit cost prohibitive, whereas a lead-acid battery, there's... If you got a 48-volt system, there's, uh, probably 25, 50- Manufacturers, yeah ... 100 different manufacturers that their chargers will work with that lead-acid battery because the technology is the same.
Naveen: So-
Eric: It's lead-acid [00:15:00] plates- ... it's
Naveen: been maturing for a very long time,
Eric: I see.
It's been... And there's, the battery control module doesn't exist on lead-acid. It's part of the charger.
Naveen: Oh, okay. Okay.
Eric: That it recognizes how much voltage is in the battery and charges accordingly. Then it runs the deep cycle charge and the conditioning at the end. So the, the chargers have gotten a lot smarter, and you can still use an old farm and fleet- Char- yeah
available battery charger on a lead-acid battery. Yes, it still works.
Naveen: Okay. And then I guess there are a lot of Today's consumer goods with all the EVs, there's a lot of discussion about lithium ion, but even all the aerial work platform manufacturers, Genie, Skyjack, everybody, still le- I mean, lead acid is standard.
Eric: Lead acid is still the standard, the gold standard. That's what they've been offering for years. Yes, a lot of them have m- are moving on to lithium ion.
Naveen: Okay.
Eric: But again, for us, it's the hazardous [00:16:00] environment side that doesn't allow it yet. We have to get through that testing. Certification,
Naveen: yeah.
Eric: That certification for the industrial truck standard.
Naveen: But couple of them are trying to move, but there has not been a concerted effort to actually move to lithium ion. We haven't seen them in any other
Eric: OEMs. A-
Naveen: a-
Eric: actually, yes, there are, uh, I can name, name one in particular, Snorkel.
Naveen: Okay.
Eric: They have gone to lithium ion battery packs in their scissor lifts.
Across their...
Naveen: Okay.
Eric: Now, that hazardous environment- Sure ... obviously comes into play, but typically they're not in a hazardous environment with their lithium ion battery powered aerial work platforms.
Naveen: Okay.
Eric: So they have, they have moved on to lithium ion batteries.
Naveen: Oh, I see. That does give them more runtime?
Eric: It, it does within reason.
Naveen: I see.
Eric: But they still, be- cost being a concern, how do you keep the price of the overall machine-
Naveen: Sure ...
Eric: in check with industry standard? They still [00:17:00] usually get a 8 to 10 hour shift out of the battery- Okay ... and you have to charge it again.
Naveen: Okay. The number of life cycles, does that make any difference?
Eric: Uh, life cycles for a lithium ion battery, I believe it's a thousand or 10,000 cycles that you can charge it from zero to full charge.
Naveen: I see.
Eric: Whereas lead acid, you, it usually goes in years. I see. Usually about four or five years, and you need to consider replacement.
Naveen: Okay.
Eric: Just because of the, uh, degradation of the lead plates inside of the solution in the battery, the electrolyte solution.
It does get worn out with heat and time and number of cycles that you bring it from zero back to full charge.
Naveen: So one aspect I wanna touch on, lead acid versus lithium ion. Is there a consideration of weight? How does it add to the counterweight?
Eric: Yeah. Uh, lithium ion batteries are typically around a third of the weight of a lead acid [00:18:00] battery- Yeah
for the same amount of overall power So then you have to consider we have to add counterweight into the base machine to... The machine still has to be stable. So the l- typically lead acid batteries are held in the chassis and act as part of the counterweight system.
Naveen: Mm.
Eric: So if you take the lead acid out and you put a lithium ion in, you have to make up that extra weight somewhere in the chassis- Uh-huh
preferably right in the same battery tray. So to think that you can take a higher overall power rated lithium ion battery and replace a lead acid battery-
Naveen: One for one swap, yeah. It's not- ...
Eric: counterweight comes into play. Yeah, you could put a bigger lithium ion battery in, but you're still gonna have that weight differential-
Naveen: Yeah
Eric: and the size and the CG of that battery with respect to the overall machine that you have to compensate for.
Naveen: Yeah. What do you call the butterfly effect? You make this one change, and then there's- And it- These changes cascade throughout the machine, and then [00:19:00] it's an entirely new des- yeah, design. Exactly.
Suddenly you're, you're modifying
Eric: a whole lot to get that lithium ion battery in it.
Naveen: The cost prohibitive is not just because of the switch from lead acid to lithium ion. All these butterfly effect will make you go into a new design that has to be new everything, so that's extremely cost prohibitive.
Eric: Correct.
Naveen: So Eric, we have touched upon maintaining enough charge for the Lead acid and then looking at the water levels, what are the, some of the other things that they should be looking at?
Let's say if the customer has got a machine they're not gonna very occasionally use that's will only use once every quarter to do this one specific thing. How should they charge their batteries? What should they be aware of?
Eric: Okay. Uh, lead-acid batteries. If you're storing the machine outdoors, obviously water, snow, rain, everything comes into play.[00:20:00]
The elements, yeah. Uh, look for corrosion. The number one, uh, thing, "Hey, my battery's dead." Go, go look at the terminals. Are they clean? Connectors,
Naveen: yeah.
Eric: Make sure that you put a corrosion protectant on the terminals when you clean them and resecure them. Otherwise, you're just... The corrosion's going to come back within days.
Naveen: Sure.
Eric: If you put that protectant on, it could be weeks, months before that corrosion comes back.
Naveen: I see.
Eric: The other thing that you really should do is put it on charge. Put it on the charger. Chargers are smart. They know how to trickle charge over time- Yeah ... and maintain the battery charge.
Naveen: Talking about trick- trickle charge, the Jet Ski that I have, I put it on trickle charge in the winter just so it's ready for the summer.
I
Eric: see. Right, and it helps maintain your battery. It keeps it from getting too cold. The voltage will drop down, and the charger will kick on to maintain the battery charge, keep it a little bit warmer. Okay. Uh, cold climate is another, another issue. You don't want your [00:21:00] batteries to freeze. Yeah. We've seen that many times where they ran the battery low.
Now it doesn't have enough electrolyte in it to keep it from free- or free electrolyte in the solution to keep it from freezing. Freezing, yeah. The water freezes. It breaks the case. The battery's junk.
Naveen: It's gone, yeah. Yeah.
Eric: Y- you can't fix a broken case. You have to replace the battery, obviously. Okay.
Naveen: So any wrong charger, fire hazards, anything to touch there?
Eric: Yeah. Make sure that your overall voltage and your amperage draw Like your 48 volt at 750 amp hour, the charger has to be rated to charge that specific battery. Now there, there may be multiple manufacturers. You have to find the one that's right for you based on your building power availability and how you're going to charge the battery.
How quickly do you expect it to charge? How long it will take? And you need to stick with it.
Naveen: Okay.
Eric: Because if [00:22:00] you undercharge the battery, obviously the machine isn't gonna perform like you expect. The power draw is the power draw. You need so much horsepower to operate the machine. That comes down to volts times amps.
If your voltage isn't there, it's still gonna draw the amount of amps to get the power it needs. And it's gonna cook the wires. Gonna cook, yeah. It's gonna cook the terminals. It's going to overheat the battery.
Naveen: Wow.
Eric: That's ... Which leads to its demise over time.
Naveen: Right. That's all valuable information, Eric.
Thank you very much. So we wanna bring it to a close today. If you take one thing from today, for the audience, a lead-acid battery will give you a lot more life than most people get from it. It needs a full charge every night, and then the water after the charge, and it never sits completely dead. Those are the things you need to be generally aware of.
This is not a technology problem. It's a habitual problem. Make sure the crews who are using the machines get into the habit of getting [00:23:00] the, looking at the charge, watering the batteries. We know lithium is coming, and it, w- when it gets here, it'll fix some of those habits, but we are a long way from now.
As like, no matter how many new, like, gasoline cars, diesel has its place. We might always have lead-acid batteries around no matter how much lithium ion progresses.
Eric: This is true. The main takeaways are check your water.
Naveen: Yeah.
Eric: Plug it in.
Naveen: Yeah. Until then, the battery you own is the cheapest one you'll ever buy because you already bought it, as long as you keep it alive.
Thank you, folks, for tuning in. We'll catch you in the next one.
Eric: Thanks. See you later. Stay informed, stay protected
