Forklift Battery Facts
OPPORTUNITY
CHARGING
Detrimental Effects
Opportunity charging is
the act of charging a battery during break time, lunch time, or any opportunity
that presents itself during the work day.
Opportunity charging does NOTHING FOR the
battery! Opportunity charging adds abnormal heat during the discharge cycle and
one more cycle to the battery, reducing its life without producing any
appreciable increase in run time.
Each time a battery is charged
for 1 minute or 8 hours, this constitutes a cycle. Since the battery has a built
in death, by design, of 1500 cycles, a battery charged twice a day, in less than
two years is exhausted. Opportunity charging not only increases the cycles on
the battery life, but the heat added while charging causes additional damage to
the plates further accelerating the battery death reducing the expected cycles
from 1500 to as low as 1100 or less.
Proper charging with one cycle per
24 hour period is all that is necessary. If the work can't get done with a
normal cycle you will have to consider purchasing a larger battery for the job
or purchasing additional batteries for change out.
