Discover Battery Blog

Don't Let Your Machine's Power Source Cost You.

Written by Matthew Campbell | Dec 30, 2019 8:11:34 PM

Your machine’s power source is often the barrier between you and improved productivity, reliability, and savings for your business.

 We’ve done our research, and, in this video, we will explain how the performance of even high-quality lead acid batteries are preventing you from maximising your businesses bottom line, what alternative power solutions are available to you today, and how those alternatives will ultimately benefit the productivity and costs of your business.

 Let’s identify some common issues with lead acid batteries that you can probably relate to as a BSC operator.

First, if you use flooded lead acid batteries, they will require daily or weekly servicing such as watering, cleaning, and charging, and they can cause damage to the area that they work in from the gasses and the potential for acid spills.

If they are sealed lead acid batteries, they don’t require the same level of service but do experience the predictable decline in capacity suffered by all lead acid battery technologies

All of these deficiencies mean that you won’t be able to do the same or optimum amount of work per shift.

After just a few early cycles all lead acid battery technology - even when perfectly charged and discharged in a controlled environment - experience steadily declining capacity

This is due to the fact that traditional motive power batteries experience diminished service life when operating in a partial state of charge (PSOC) and can take 10 hours to re-charge, that we are delivering the new energy economy of robots and autonomous work vehicles solutions that suffer no negative consequences from continuous PSOC operation, can fully charge in less than an hour, deliver peak capacity cycles for 100s of times longer than lead acid, and that can provide equipment owners with 400% productivity gains. However, the reality of how batteries are used when in service is much different. In the field batteries are repeatedly over-discharged, continually used in a partial state of charge (PSOC), or combined with chargers that are not able to fully charge the batteries before the equipment is put back into service

So, picture a typical shift where each charge cycle doesn’t fully charge the battery and will ultimately limit your usage of the equipment near the end of the shift.

And, if there is a second shift, they’ll find themselves stuck with equipment that has little to no charge performance left.

How do you think this common issue is affecting the efficiency of your crews and your bottom line?

The largest frustration we hear from BSC operators like you comes down to the same issue time and time again: Your return on investment, general productivity, energy savings, operating efficiency, dependability when it comes to warranty, and, of course, reliability needs help.

Let’s tackle each of these lead-acid issues with a comparison to a superior battery alternative such as our Discover Advanced Energy Lithium Ion Battery System.

When it comes to your return on assets, Discover AES can deliver peak capacity for 100s of times longer than lead acid batteries which means, for example, it can clean the same square feet for years which sustains the return on people and equipment investments.

Discover AES can increase productivity because it can be discharged and charged multiple times a day including to 100% DOD without consequence. This means you can increase daily productivity by 400% with fast chargers. Imagine that… a battery that likes to be operated in a partial state of charge!

When it comes to energy savings, lead acid batteries charge times average 10 to 16 hours at typically less than 87% charge efficiency which increases energy costs by 40% compared to Discover AES which dramatically reduces charge times over 95% charge efficiency. You can expect to save hundreds of dollars per year in energy savings. 

Speaking of efficiency, Discover AES batteries offer flat and stable voltage during discharge vs sagging during discharge like lead acid batteries do. Sagging causes electric motors to run hotter and shorten their life. AES improves equipment performance by reducing that motor fatigue.

For dependability, you can’t beat Discover AES batteries for their warranty. Average lead acid batteries come with a 1-year limited warranty, but, Discover AES batteries have an impressive 4 Year unlimited cycle warranty that can’t be beat. Now that’s dependable.

And, probably the biggest proof that AES batteries will save you money in the long run, is the reliability when it comes to the sustained high-performance life of the batteries. In short, one single AES battery can last the life of your equipment vs lead acid which requires multiple replacement batteries over the life of the equipment.

Have you ever heard of a smart battery?

Discover AES are equipped with Smart Technology that integrates with your equipment and can report on your system to help give insight into your businesses equipment productivity:

  • Do you really need two machines on site or can one do the job?
  • Do you really need more battery capacity or high output chargers to do the job?
  • Are your equipment operators following your procedures for maximum productivity?
  • Do you really have a battery problem or is there another component problem?

Our SMART batteries will tell you!

So, with all of these benefits to using Discover AES batteries, why do BSC operators still use lead acid batteries? Equipment owners continue to use them because, well, they always have! Or because the equipment OEM’s are reluctant to integrate AES options because, frankly, they think equipment buyers won’t pay the price. Or, simply put, equipment owners don’t know of an easily integrated option… until now.

To find out more about Discover AES batteries and how you can incorporate batteries that can last the life of your equipment..... go to https://discoverbattery.com/en/products/lifepo4-batteries-aes-1/.