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Published on: 8/1/2008
Last Visited: 8/18/2008
"A battery is a mysterious commodity," says Dennis Beame, president of IntelleFleet (Irvine, Calif.). IntelleFleet supplies wireless fleet management tools for electric lift trucks.
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"A base station mounted in or near the charging area wirelessly interrogates each DCM 24 hours a day, seven days a week," says Beame.
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"All data is transferred automatically to database servers, and a customer accesses it online with a user name and password," says Beame."When an operator changes a battery, he or she logs in with a user name and password.The system polls the batteries, and on a touch screen, certain batteries are marked green, meaning those are fully charged and rested and have no mechanical defects," Beame explains.
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Battery-monitoring systems can even save energy, according to Beame, by ensuring that batteries are charged at the right time."Batteries should operate at 40% to 80% of their rated capacity," he says.
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"Millions of dollars are spent in the U.S. annually on finding the source of problems," adds Beame.
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