Step 2 - Check if the Overall Battery Voltage Equals The Operating/Rated Voltage

Next, take your multimeter and plug the black probe into COM and the red probe

into mAVΩ. Then set the multimeter dial to DC voltage mode. Additionally, most

multimeters are not auto-ranging so you will have to set the correct range for the

voltage you think you will get. In our example we expect to get 36 volts; however,

it’s possible for 2 volt cells to sometimes get up to 2.5 volts so we should set our

multimeter to at least 45v (because 2.5v x 18 cells = 45v).

Next, place the red probe on the positive terminal of the battery and the black probe on the negative terminal of the battery and record the voltage (see the

following example).

Description: Measuring the overall voltage of the forklift battery

This reading should be about equal to the operating/rated voltage of the battery.

It’s even possible for it to be a little higher if the battery was just charged and has

a surface charge that hasn’t gone away yet. But if the battery is charged and the

overall voltage is lower than the rated voltage, then the battery has some cells

that are weak.

In our previous example, our forklift battery is reading 32 volts, even though each

cell should be 2 to 2.5 volts. That means the battery should be reading at least 36

volts. Because of this, we will test the individual cells in the next steps to see if the

battery has any damaged cells. Most of the time we find that the forklift batteries we recondition don’t have a damaged/bad cell; instead, the battery has just been neglected and needs to be reconditioned (like we’ll show you how to do).