July/August 1995
Not all heavy-equipment batteries are created equal. Here’s a look at what you should know when purchasing batteries for your equipment.
By Ron Sargeant, product manager, John Deere Industrial Equipment Co., (Davenport, Iowa)
When it comes to buying lead-acid batteries for your heavy equipment, comparing labels will tell you all you need to know, right?
Wrong.
While battery labels will tell you how many cold cranks a unit will provide, how much reserve power it has, and how long its warranty lasts, they typically don’t reveal how the battery is constructed. And that’s what really tells you how well it will withstand use in a severe application like scrap recycling.
What’s in a Name?
The problem is that just because a battery is labeled as a heavy-equipment battery, that doesn’t mean it’s really designed for heavy-duty use. In fact, some manufacturers market automotive batteries as heavy-equipment batteries.
There are big differences between automotive batteries sold as heavy-equipment batteries and batteries actually built to specifications required to power heavy equipment. Most importantly, automotive-quality batteries placed in heavy equipment do not last as long as heavy-equipment batteries because they are not built to take severe vibration inherent in heavy equipment applications.
Thus, battery buyers would be wise to ask distributors a few key construction questions that can determine how well a battery will endure use in scrap recycling equipment.
Probably the biggest question is whether the battery has epoxy bottom-anchored elements, which are designed to eliminate premature failure due to battery vibration. When making heavy-equipment batteries, manufacturers flood the inside bottom portion of the battery case with an epoxy material that binds the elements to the bottom of the battery so there is no movement. The elements therefore become an integral part of the battery’s structure.
Automotive battery elements, on the other hand, are typically applied using a hot, top-melt anchoring process, securing them from the top only. As a result, vibration dislodges the battery’s active material and it falls to the bottom in a process called “shedding.” The shredded materials eventually accumulate on the bottom of the battery, shorting it out and prematurely ending your workday.
Another important question is whether the battery has plastic envelope separators as opposed to the leaf-type, or paper separators used in ordinary automotive batteries. The three sided envelope keeps active material on the positive plate from touching the negative plate, virtually eliminating shorts. Other advantages of the envelope design include no misalignment of the of separators and no corrosion, which is common in other separator designs.
In addition to asking your battery dealer about the battery’s inner construction, make sure you consider the freshness and shelf life of the battery. The reason is simple: A battery’s life begins the moment electrolyte is added.
For most batteries—which are “wet charged” prior to leaving the manufacturers plant—this occurs weeks or even months before your purchase. As a result, your “new” battery may have already lost 10 to 80 percent of its cold-cranking amps (CCAs) by the time you install it.
With "dry charged" batteries, however, the dealer activates the unit the day you buy it, so the battery should be ready with maximum power the day you're ready to put it in your equipment--unless, of course, you store it first.
Other Buying Tips
There are a couple more things to think about when buying heavy-equipment batteries. For one, be sure to carefully check the warranty, especially the fine print. Some automotive battery manufacturers' heavy-equipment battery warranties state that the warranty period is cut in half if the battery is used in off-road equipment. A good heavy-equipment battery should have a 36-or 40-month warranty.
You should also resist the temptation to play the "CCA game." Many manufacturers promote high CCAs the way car manufacturers hawk horsepower, but you can only get as much power out of a battery as the original equipment battery was designed to handle. Thus, if you buy a battery with 850 CCAs and your crane's original equipment battery was only rated for 530 CCAs, you’ve wasted your money.
So pay attention to your owner’s manual and buy batteries to the specifications of your equipment—and be sure that those batteries are what they say they are.
Not all heavy-equipment batteries are created equal. Here’s a look at what you should know when purchasing batteries for your equipment.