Repowering electric pallet jack

[blazemaster83]

I made a thread a few weeks ago (that must have been deleted for some reason, because it's no longer there) about repowering a 24v electric pallet jack with a power supply and cord. The battery is a large forklift style and is dead. I didn't pay anything for the machine and I don't need it to go long distances so a 50ft cord should work fine for my application. I did the same thing with a smaller pallet stacker, and also a patient lift (both useful for lifting small heavy things in a machine shop).

The smaller pallet stacker and patient lift have relatively light ratings and don't need a ton of power(2200lbs, and 1000lbs) but the big boy pallet jack is another story. It's rated at 3 tons of lift and all the electrical stuff is heavy duty. I kept my eye out for large 24v power supply and found 2 for a good deal about 40 miles away on craigslist. They weigh about 300lbs each and came on a rack.

I couldn't find anything on these, and wasn't even sure they were power supplies. The previous owner said her uncle used them for radio. I got them both for $100 so if they didn't work I wasn't out a ton of money. Took an hour to hook them up to test and it seems to work. Only time will tell if they hold up. Now that I know it works I will probably remove the old battery and mount the power supply in a more permanent way. I just strapped the thing to the pallet jack to test, and removed the covers to get some photos.

 

[blazemaster83]

Here is a few more pics. It needs a cleaning now, the machine sat unused in a private parking garage for about 15 yrs.

 

[930dreamer]

An update deleted posts.

 

[twistr71]

I work on lifts for a living
Don't remove battery
It acts as a counterweight and adds stability
If you really want to remove it make sure to replace it with metal plates or something else about the same weight
Also if using a power supply you might want to add some big capacitors like the loud car stereo people use to dampen the volt and amp spikes
Some electronics don't like that

 

[cvairwerks]

They are chargers for telecom battery banks. Don’t think you will get enough amperage to lift rated loads from them.



Just ran the current requirement for a newer Crown unit with a 2200 pound capacity. It takes over 60 amps just to make it move.....Lift motor needs at least 60 amps too. Older units are going to be less efficient, so those numbers are probably going to be higher for your unit.

Crown shows 16 hours for a full charge and cooling cycle with the stock 30 amp charger.

 

[Robbie B]

Is there a possibility of converting it over to 4-6v deep cycle batteries?

 

[blazemaster83]

I tried to get some pics, but there are a few large capacitors in there. About the size of a large jar of peanut butter. Interesting, I thought they may be chargers, but I could not find anything about them, even from Goodall themselves. I plan to do a little testing with it, I have a few milling machines in various weights up to about 5500lbs. Any way I could bridge 2 of them to get more amperage? This is a yale lift.

I tested this lift with 2 deep cycle 12v batteries from a pallet stacker I also have and it moved the big yale lift, but I doubt they would last long. I just wanted to make sure it did something before I invested any money into it. As it stands I only have about $20 into moving the lift to my house, and $100 for the 2 telecom chargers. How much is four 6v batteries?

 

[nadogail]

IMHO, battery chargers will not give you the current capacity to run a pallet stacker.

Lead acid batteries have the current density to do the job and can be obtained inexpensively, that is why they are used.

 

[blazemaster83]

"Inexpensively" is different from one person to another. Doing a quick search I came up with 6v golf cart batteries at $200 each. That's $800 if I need 4. A new battery for the lift is around $1500-$2000. This was more of an experiment to try the chargers since they didn't cost much. $800 of batteries is just too much for me atm, for something that gets used 3 times a year. I still have yet to test the lift under load, I will report back with some results. I feel like I could get my money back from the chargers if they don't happen to work.

 

[bsg]

You can get rid of the stock battery, not needed for counterbalance.......I would use two large truck batteries and a battery tender for the limited use it would get.

I have a couple of counterbalanced hand trucks and use a single battery, I have yet to kill the charge during a few hours use, you will have plenty of warning when the charge is getting low!

Kevin

 

[Worsedog]

The data plate says 75A @ 24v. I'm not sure if the regulator circuits would work right if you were to parallel the outputs.