Improve Efficiency During Battery Changes With One Simple Technology

If someone asked you to point to the most powerful innovation in your battery room, where would you look? Your battery chargers may be top-notch. A complete Operator Aboard Battery Extractor is an impressive piece of technology. But honestly, you could do worse than to pick the humble battery stand, provided it's equipped with one key technological breakthrough.

Electric forklifts that offer side-access to batteries would cause tremendous wear and tear on battery cases and trucks themselves if it weren't for this simple component. Of course, we're talking about the lowly roller bed.

Advantages of Roller Beds for Side-load Forklift Batteries

Before we get too far into our praise of roller beds, we should be clear that not just any roller will do the trick. Forklift batteries weigh thousands of pounds, and a lot of that weight comes from acidic electrolyte, which has a tendency to drip every now and then.

That's why only stands equipped with steel-core, poly-sleeved rollers (like Battery Roller Stands from Solus Group) provide strong benefits without unacceptable maintenance intervals. They're designed to resist sparks and corrosion for the safest possible battery changes, and they drastically reduce wear on battery cases and forklift battery handling equipment.

Battery Roller Stands also provide a range of further benefits, including:

• Compared to every other side-load battery stand technology, poly-sleeved rollers limit wear on battery extractor arms.

• Reduced friction during travel reduces the duration of every battery change without sacrificing safety.

• Roller beds improve access to battery Drip Pans, helping to ensure that they can be emptied when necessary.

• Poly-sleeved rollers resist the caustic buildup of electrolyte or acid caused by battery drips.

• These rollers are easy to remove for maintenance or replacement.

It's safe to say that without poly-sleeved roller beds, lateral battery access for forklifts would never have caught on like it has.

The Other Option for Forklift Battery Stands

There is one technology that competes with poly-sleeved rollers, although, in the end, it can't quite match up to the benefits of powerful rotating bars. They're called "slide strips," and some manufacturers use them in place of rollers.

It's hard to see why. Slide strips are permanent lengths of dense plastic. They have a very low coefficient of friction, which basically means that you could ice skate on them if you were small enough. But they still require more force than rollers, and when you're pushing and pulling 4,000 pound batteries all day, every extra effort contributes to wear on battery handling equipment — to say nothing for battery cases themselves.

They may seem simple. In fact, you might take them for granted. But the poly-sleeved rollers in your battery stands are a crucial piece of technology for side-extraction battery compartments. They may be small, but boy, are they mighty.

So next time someone marvels at your high-tech Wastewater Recycling System or compliments you on your next-generation fleet management software, pause for a moment to remember the unsung heroes of battery room technology: the poly-sleeved cylinders at the base of your Battery Roller Beds.

References:

Sobieraj, MC and CM Rimnac. "Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene: Mechanics, Morphology, and Clinical Behavior." NCBI. National U.S. Library Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, 18 March 2013. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.