How to pick a high-quality industrial battery charger? (Efficiency)

04 June 2018

Why choose a high-quality industrial battery charger

When working with batteries, it’s not unusual to experience a reduction in battery life. Over 50% of all battery issues are not related to the battery itself but rather to the inefficient charging methods or an incompatibility between the charger and batteries, you can read more about this in the blog post How do I correctly charge traction batteries?.

As the world is becoming more conscious about its carbon footprint and pollution, an increasing number of machines is equipped with electric motors instead of combustion engines. This phenomenon leads to an increasing demand for powerful batteries with long battery life expectancies. An efficient and compatible battery charger will considerably increase and prolong the expected battery life. A very welcome bonus is the mere fact that electric machines often turn out to be more cost-effective compared to their internal combustion engine counterparts. But how do you know how to pick the right charger to suit your specific needs? Keep on reading and you will find out!

As for the future

First off, the importance of selecting the right battery charger for your equipment should be stressed. There are many disadvantages linked to poor decisions in this process, which in turn lead to massive monetary repercussions. For instance, the wrong charger can significantly shorten battery life, resulting in a higher demand for replacement batteries. No need to further elaborate on how this will affect the amount of purchases in the long run. These poor decisions will result in an increasing budget needed for constant replacements. To shorten this narrative, choosing the right battery charger will decrease your annual budget for batteries, as well as prolong the operational lifespan of your batteries. For this reason, we encourage you not to blindly choose the cheapest option on the market, but to carefully consider your requirements as a wrong assumption could lead to detrimental consequences for years to come.

What to look out for

The decision process for the appropriate battery charger is twofold: it comes down to the battery and the available budget.

Battery

First and foremost, it’s crucial that you determine a few things related to the battery:

What batteries do you need to charge?
The charging frequency: how often will they need to be charged?
The amount of time available to fully charge them.

These elements will hugely affect your decision on what battery charger will best suit your specific needs.

Budget

We strongly encourage you to carefully consider all possibilities and to not let your budget influence your decision too much. Furthermore, examining the battery charger efficiency percentage can significantly influence the compatibility and performance. Do keep in mind, with a higher efficiency percentage comes a higher price but investing in a decent, albeit more expensive, charger will save you money in the long run.

Recommended battery chargers

After you have considered these 2 vital aspects, you will surely have a better idea of what kind of battery charger you should be looking for. However, we recommend a high-frequency or traction battery charger as these contain printed circuit boards that need to be programmed, thus allowing for a customised approach, as opposed to a conventional charger. We often come across customers who purchase a conventional charger solely because they can repair these themselves. However, TVH offers ample repair services in case a malfunction should arise. So we urge you not to let this small aspect influence your decision too much and encourage you to read the blog post Why a high-frequency charger is your best choice. The blog post will explain you all about the advantages of a high-frequency battery charger, as we believe a high-frequency or traction charger could benefit you greater than a conventional charger.

Interested in how much money you could save by choosing a high-frequency charger instead of a conventional battery charger? Make the calculation yourself with the Energic Plus efficiency calculator.

Want to know more?

When in doubt, feel free to contact us (link to contact page) with any questions you may have. We will do our best to answer them in a satisfactory way. We can also expertly guide you towards a battery charger suited to your specific situation. TVH offers many industrial battery chargers, such as the high-frequency chargers (12V up to 80V) and traction battery chargers (ranging to up to 96V).

Interested in more information related to industrial battery chargers? Have a look at these recent blog posts: