Electric pallet jack charger problem

Basically brand new Jungheinrich EJE 120, still under warranty. Built in charger, just plug 'er in the wall outlet. When you plug it in, what is supposed to happen is green light flashes quickly if battery is low, then flashes slowly as charge builds up and then stops flashing when fully charged.

But mine is such that even at 25 volts (24 volt system) there is no light at all until it reaches about 26 volts, at which point light comes on slowing flashing. But hours later it is still slowly flashing. I checked voltage (with charger unplugged) and it was 27.25 volts. Shouldn't that be enough to be fully charged ?

My concern is that the flashing light will never stop flashing because the charger never stops charging and then ruins the battery (however even at that high voltage the battery was not warm to the touch) It is under warranty but the dealer's tech has to travel like 2 hours each way and I have this vision of the guy saying "what are you talking about...see, the light is flashing just fine" To which I would feel like saying...well, yeah, but come back in 5 hours and we'll see if the light is still flashing and the (very expensive) battery is cooked....

Thoughts ?

Regular "24v" flooded battery charging (absorption) voltage likely wants to be around 28.0-28.8v. Float voltage around 27.2v
Unless the battery was really low, I'd check it for bad cells, and also check the charger to see how many amps it's putting out.

gnorbury said:

Regular "24v" flooded battery charging (absorption) voltage likely wants to be around 28.0-28.8v. Float voltage around 27.2v
Unless the battery was really low, I'd check it for bad cells, and also check the charger to see how many amps it's putting out.

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Re bad cells, the battery is only 8 months old. And it's not a marine deep cycle but a true electric pallet jack Deka battery...weighs hundreds of pounds. Plus if it had a bad cell no way could it get to 27.25 volts.

thermite said:

Your open-circuit '27.25' measurement needs to be made with at least a modest load in parallel with the meter.

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What really matters is the comparison voltage of how it was before charge versus how it is after charge with the same meter. In years of experience with the same meter I've found the recorded battery voltages to be exactly what one would expect taking into account how the mechanism "acts" and comparing to the gauge in the mechanism (in my case electric forklifts, scissor lifts, man lifts and pallet jacks) I have an electric reach truck with a similar battery that is only slightly older battery and fully charged (via perfectly matching Douglas charger for the battery) it reads 26.5 volts with the same Fluke.

Re days vs hours, the same pallet jack used to fully charge in a few hours from a similar discharge state. At least I presume it was fully charged...the green light went continuous rather than blinking, indicating a full charge. And the fact remains that the light doesn't come on at all at first, which is definitely not the way it is supposed to be.

Be carefull with that charger...

Float current shold not excede 0.1 % C.

So if a 300 amp hour battery float current needs to be less than 300 ma.

Full charge is usually 2.25 VPC but check tge data sheet for your battery as it may be small differences.

The battery could take a long time to finish charging in absorbtion stage but the charger may be bad and not working correctly.

Also note that overcharging floaded batteries not as bad to them if water is maintained.

VRLA overcharging ooens the valve releasing gas that reduces effective water that cannot be replaced.

If service person is coming out for warranty repair have them bring a factory data sheet for the battery as well as the programming data for the charger if it has parameters to adjust, specific to the battery.

Consider tge battery and charger married and they need to match to get best performance.

If all under warranty the data will be there, do not allow the tech to just set a voltage without them peoducing a document supporting the setting.

I minor error too high will mean water consumption and short battery life while too low will lead to sulfation over time.