I hve a big shop where I need to charge/maintain multiple batteries of all types and sizes. Car, tractor, wheelchair, agm, lead acid, and gel. I need to test and recondition them as well. I’m thinking one unit to test and recondition and one or two more for charging. Any help with this setup would be appreciated. Thanks.
Recondition a battery?
I have no idea of anything specific to suggest for the OP. If I had that problem the first place I’d probably go is the local Grainger store and ask for suggestions. Then I’d use that info & google to see if I could get clues for other vendors.
Talk to your local Golf Course that has electric Golf Carts.
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Some battery chargers claim they can revive a bad battery- -I don’t buy the idea.
Long ago wet cell batteries could be disassembled and reassembled. That allowed shops to sort out good and bad cells and assemble good batteries from the pieces. That doesn’t happen with automotive batteries anymore but it is likely that some larger industrial batteries can be dismantled. A friend had a local automobile battery shop and he sold batteries rebuilt from cores. Many diesel trucks and tractors had 24 volt systems and the batteries were expensive and there was a good market for those and since all batteries had 2 volt cells a lot of swapping was possible.
As for charging that local shop had large industrial vacuum tube ‘ticklers’(rectifiers) that changed 110v AC into 110v DC which could be connected in series to an array of batteries to provide ~13 to each and from each in the series array batteries others could be wired in parallel. Every battery in the shop’s inventory new, old and rebuilt was wired up and taking a charge 24/7. A lot has changed in 50 years though.
Yes, I remember those times, I started in trucking in 1955 and by 1960 had a job at a Union class 1 common carrier. at that time the industry was just changing from 6 volt systems to 12 volt. All our tractors had four 6 volt batteried and had a vari-volt switch on the back of the tractor to supply 6 volts to the trailers with 6 volt bulbs and 12 volts to the newer trailers. There was no uniformity in the connecting light plugs for each companies equipment so each driver had to have a whole bag of adapter plugs. The first company I worked for used a 4 pin plug so all my adapters were from 4 pin to 6pin, 7pin or Connecticut or D shaped plug. There was also a flat wide plug with 2 rows of slots but I never pulled one of those or found out what they were called.
Truckers used to have to carry a lot of equipment. I had a friend from Western Express who was a road driver in the days before trailers had lights. He still had his 5 gallon kerosene can, 6 lanterns and about 80’ of steel cable and a padlock. The trailers had a steel hook on each corner of the trailer and one in the middle of each side. the cable was looped through all 6 lantern to stop theft. He had to fill the lanterns before he set out and refill them every 2 hours. It took 8 hours to get from Buffalo to Cleveland back then.
I expressed surprise because I had not heard of rebuilding batteries in 40 years until hybrids came along. Made me wonder if the OPs shop is in a third world country. These days the labor to rebuild a car or truck battery would cost as much as buying a new one. Much cheaper to just recycle the lead.
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You brought back memory’s I remember if you forgot he day’s when between the tractor & trailer if you forgot to switch from 12 volt to 6 volt it would burn the trailer light’s out in short order I was happy when all trailer’s went to 12 volt;s.
The good ol’ days sound a lot simpler. However, I’m not talking about rebuilding the batteries, but desulfating them and load testing. I know there are many ways to accomplish this without buying a fancy charger, but I’m trying to simplify my job so I can focus on other tasks. I was trying to locate a charger/maintainer that could charge any style of battery, 6v/12v/24v, and maintain them. I may have found the charger/maintainer though. I will be testing it this weekend.
-Did you ever see a trailer without a kingpin sticking down from it?
I went to hook to a trailer and my fifth wheel was going so far under the trailer that the glad hands on the front of the trailer. I pulled out from under the trailer and destroyed the dolly legs when the trailer fell on them when they were retracted rearward at about 45 degrees.
This trailer required an adapter plate for the 5th wheel that had a king pin that fit in a slot in the front center of the trailer that pushed a bar that folded the dolly legs up flat against the trailer and at that point another bar came across in front of the kingpin locking the tractor to the trailer.
When I backed under it without a kingpin to stop me my tractor wheels pushed the dolly legs up and when I pulled out there was no pin to stop me.
Since the trailer had a 55000 pound load of nickel on it the weight drove the large sturdy dolly leg assembly through the floor and the trailer walls buckled destroying itself and the banding on all the pallets of nickel had to be cut to hand unload it into another trailer.
I was amazed that I didn’t get blamed for it but neither the dispatcher who told me to hook to it or I had ever even heard of such a trailer.
Yes I saw that at a company in SW Colorado many year’s ago I never had to pull one though if you never saw one before you would do what you did I don’t know what the idea was behind it but it was definilty different.it made me check ror a trailer kingpin for quite a while after that when I backed under a trailer. I did drop one trailer when someone thought it was funny to yo unlock the fifth wheel while I was truck stop getting something to eat but it did not do any damage though all it needed to be was jacked up.
The Idea was, you didn’t have to crank up the dolly legs but it was a bad idea because if you dropped an empty trailer at a dock and a heavy load was put on it it would be very hard to put long blocks under the drive wheels to get clearance for the legs to fold up.
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That idea make’s sense but as you said about the long block’s make’s more work than just crankiing the landing gear up.