Industrial Battery charger info needed

[Hilltopgrange]

Is anyone familiar with a Hawker Oldham Lifeplus 2000 or 2002 HF forklift truck Battery charger!

I have just bought one of ebay and have been searching the net to try and get some info about it. The Hawker Oldham web site has the manuals etc but they are for the latest model (T3)and don't seem to cover this model. I have found out some info on it ie it is a high frequency intelligent(remains to be seen) charger up to70a @24v with many interesting features inc equalise and de-sulphate. There are some extras that can be fitted, easycontrol is a module that fits on the battery and monitors electrolyte level and battery temperature etc there is also a wireless logger device that communicates with a pc and logs battery and charging details. I think this gizmo is aimed at the fleet operators.

The following link gives some info on the charger.

http://www.unisourceproductwarehouse.com/Hawker_lifeplus.asp


From what I can gather it will work with 12, 24, 36 and 48v batteries, apparently the charger automatically detects the voltage of the battery and adjusts to suit! but on my charger it clearly states 24v. Why then does it clearly state 24v on the charger?
 It would be very useful if indeed it will auto adjust from 12v through to 48v and would save a lot of reconfiguring every time I need to equalise a battery.

I have tried it on my horribly abused and sulphated 24v bank and it seems to work very well my worry is if I connect it to the 48v bank that the charger would let the smoke out?
I suppose I could try it on a 12v battery first and see if it automatically detects the correct voltage.

Inside the charger it seems very well built and with it being a high frequency charger there's no huge heavy transformers to put your back out. There are 2 fuses and a breaker trip inside so I'm thinking they should go before it smokes but I would rather read the manual first just to be sure.

 The charger only arrived yesterday so I have not done a full charge yet as the turbines are flat out in 30mph winds and will be for a few more days. So far though I am impressed with it, the led display is very useful and shows most parameters IE: line volts, battery volts, cell volts, charge current, time on charge, capacity C, and some others that I haven't figured out yet. it is also very quite in comparison to the old style forklift chargers that buzz like a bee on steroids.

While searching the net looking for a manual I came across Hawker Oldhams battery service manual. It is a very worthwhile read for anyone with a battery bank, I seem to have lost the site but I did download the manual as a pdf file it is just under 7mb so if anyone wants it just drop me an email to hilltopgrange AT tesco DOT net and I will send it. It would be handy to be able to upload it here as it answers a lot of the regular questions from new comers.

Ideally I would like a copy of the user manual or the technical manual for this model, it was not exactly expensive at £75 but I would hate to cook it through ignorance.
I have emailed the UK agents but as yet haven't had a reply.
Any help would be much appreciated

Many thanks in advance Russell

Update just found the link for the battery service manual

http://industrialpowerproducts.com/brochures/Battery%20Service%20Manual.pdf

[dnix71]

Some of the forklift chargers at work have voltage taps for choosing the input voltage, but none we have can auto detect battery voltage. We had one unit ruin batteries because someone set the input to 480vac when we actually have 208. It would charge sort of, but never put out enough current to get the job done properly.

[Hilltopgrange]

Hi dnix, any of the others I ever seen had taps, but this is way different no big transformers just a couple of torroids and a small transformer and a whole lot of electronics. The battery I tried it on was in a desperate state and wouldnt charge at all from a lorry charger. Inside looks more like an inverter than a charger, all I know for sure is that it works by delivering high frequency pulses.

with a bit of luck somone may have had an encounter with them or Enersys UK will get back to me.

Regards

[Hilltopgrange]

Update....After much searching! I now have the manual for this charger (Hawker Lifeplus 2002) A very nice lady from Enersys UK very kindly emailed a pdf copy to me. Just shows that sometimes it pays to ask.

So if anyone is looking for this in the future just drop me a note to hilltopgrange  at  tesco  dot  net and I will gladly pass it on.