MEWP
durable and forgiving of misuse. But, says Eshleman, they won’t operate at peak performance unless you understand how to correct care, maintenance and monitoring will prevent common problems with on-the-job battery performance. “Batteries are usually viewed as an expensive wear item that needs to be replaced often,” he adds. “The fact that they need to be replaced is something that can’t be prevented, but battery life can be prolonged with proper care.” According to Eshleman, one of the simplest ways to help prolong battery life is to keep batteries over an 80% SoC.
5 Tips to Increase MEWP Battery Life
Imagine this: You plug in your machine overnight, expecting a full day’s performance the next day. Instead, the battery dies shortly into the start of the workday. The cause? Attempting to charge the machine with too long of an extension cord or too small of a generator. Likely you’ve been in this frustrating scenario before. It’s a common challenge on job sites that has a fairly simple solution — by checking the battery system’s condition at any stage of your machine’s operation and battery charging. Five Tips to Increase MEWP Battery Life Mobile elevated work platform (MEWP) batteries can be monitored for many different things, but none of these different things is as important as the State of Charge (SoC). Knowing how much charge is remaining in your machine battery pack and what can be done with it can drastically improve the MEWP’s efficiencies and performance on any job site. “What if you could be confident in your MEWP battery performance 40
Lifting Africa - Nov/Dec 2020
over a whole day,” asks Stefan Eshleman, JLG project engineer.
“And what if you could be sure your machine would be able to do the job you needed it to do? One major key to maximizing a MEWP’s productivity is knowing how much charge is remaining in your machine battery pack and what can be accomplished with it.” Preventing Battery Disasters Flooded Lead Acid (FLA) batteries have been powering equipment in the access industry for decades. Coupled with board chargers, today’s MEWP battery systems are designed to offer peak battery performance and life, to be inexpensive to maintain, to work in a vast temperature range and to be
“The fact that they need to be replaced is something that can’t be prevented, but battery life can be prolonged with proper care.”
This drastically reduces sulfation of the lead plates, keeping batteries performing at a higher level for a longer time. “Many people use opportunity charging — only recharging the machine after it has discharged completely,” he says, “and then only enough to move it for the immediate job at hand — which is detrimental to your battery life. To get optimum performance out of a FLA battery, you can’t treat your MEWP’s battery like you do your cell phone battery.” Another little-known issue of FLA batteries is freezing. If an FLA battery is deeply discharged and the temperature gets low enough, the battery will freeze into an ice cube, which can lead to potential damage, says Eshleman. During battery discharge, the sulfuric acid turns into water, making it possible to freeze. A battery with a 0% charge can freeze at 0°C. “When it’s cold, make sure batteries stay charged. Always plugin your MEWP when it’s not in use,” recommends Eshleman. It’s not unheard of for machine batteries to die during the workday, says Eshleman. Data shows that that the majority of rental machines are getting charged between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. nearly 65% of the time. This is in the middle of the workday