Quote:
Originally Posted by Cd
However, I notice that the electric forklifts that I drive at work seem to go strong, right to the last charge bar on the meter.
( I notice that I can lift a full load even right before the machine finally goes to red. I assume that this requires quite a bit of electricity, but I realize that it is mainly using the hydraulics. I'm confused about how much power the batteries use in a situation like that. )
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I've driven those types of forklifts before, and I have to say I noticed a performance dip if a battery was down to 2 green bars. (2 orange below green).
It may still lift a load, but compare it side-by-side with a fully charged machine. It's going to take longer to get that load up in the air, longer to get moving with that load, and so forth. Hydraulics just make the truck cheaper to build/more compact, they don't reduce the energy needed to lift a given load in a given time frame.
Conversely, I was the only one in my warehouse to discover that our lifts had regenerative braking. The trucks we used were very stable, (fixed mast), and starting a lift while decelerating from top speed forks trailing yielded an obvious increase in the hydraulic motor whine that would taper off when the truck came to a stop.
Man I drove crazy on them things.
