Patent Application
20140133953
A battery case for an industrial lift truck battery and a method of providing charged batteries to a facility that are exchanged for discharged batteries.
Battery powered industrial trucks and industrial material handling machines that have a battery that supplies power to the industrial truck. The battery must be either recharged or provided with a replacement battery when insufficient reserve power is available for truck operation.
Facilities that have industrial trucks and material handling machines that have replaceable batteries generally have a battery replacement area that is staffed with a maintenance worker whose job it is to replace batteries. Replaceable batteries are generally lifted by a crane that is attached to the batteries by cables or a chain to remove and replace the batteries. With this approach, floor space is required to store, recharge, remove and replace the batteries. Truck operators generally stand by while their battery is exchanged for a charged battery by the maintenance worker who changes the battery. The maintenance worker may attend to charging the discharged batteries or other tasks when there are no batteries to change.
Applicant previously offered a charged battery delivery service in which a crane was used to remove and replace batteries that were charged in a remote battery charging building. The batteries were delivered on a conventional flatbed trailer that was unloaded and loaded from a truck well dock. While this approach reduced the floor space required for battery charging, a crane and truck well were required to load and unload the batteries. A crane operator was also required to load and unload the batteries.
This patent application was prepared with knowledge of the following patents and publications: U.S. Pat. No. 5,545,967; U.S. Pat. No. 6,094,028; U.S. Published Patent Application No. 2009/0139940; German patent application No. DE102006032733 A1; and Japanese Patent Application No. JP11228086 A2.
The above problems and challenges are addressed by this disclosure as summarized below.
According to one aspect of this disclosure, an industrial truck battery assembly is provided that includes a plurality of batteries and a case that houses the batteries. The battery case that defines an upper opening that is covered by a lid. The lid defines at least one lift truck fork pocket and is assembled to the housing to span the upper opening.
According to other aspects of this disclosure relating to the batter assembly, the lid may include a first part that defines a first lift truck fork pocket and a second part that defines a second lift truck fork pocket. The first part and the second part may be fixedly connected to each other. The lid may include a first pivot connector on a first side of the housing and a second pivot connector on a second side of the housing. The first pivot connector and the second pivot connector may be selectively removed from the first part and the second part to provide access to the batteries through the upper opening. The first pivot connector may be removed from the lid and the first side of the housing to pivot about the second pivot connector.
The lid may define a plurality of ventilation holes that provide air flow to the batteries. The lift truck fork pocket may define a plurality of visual observation openings in a top wall of the lid.
According to another aspect of this disclosure, a method is disclosed for providing a plurality of batteries on a trailer to a facility that uses batteries for a plurality of industrial trucks. The method comprises the steps of charging the plurality of batteries on the trailer at a remote charging location and delivering the trailer with the charged batteries to the facility. The charged batteries on the trailer are installed in the industrial trucks and the trailer is loaded with discharged batteries from the industrial trucks with a fork lift truck. The trailer with the discharged batteries is then transported to the remote charging location.
According to other aspects of this disclosure as it relates to a method of providing charged batteries, the remote location may be an outdoor charging facility where the trailer takes the batteries to be charged without removing the discharged batteries from the trailer. The trailer may include a plurality of charging connectors with one charging connector being provided for each of the plurality of discharged batteries and a plurality of charging receptacle adapters being provided to connect each of the discharged batteries to a battery charging system. According to the method, the battery charging system may provide electrical energy from a power grid or from a power generator.
According to other aspects of this disclosure as it relates to the method of providing charged batteries, during the installing step and the loading step the batteries may be loaded on to the trailer in a single row so the fork lift truck can perform the installing step and the loading step from the right side of the trailer or the left side of the trailer. The trailer may have a rack that is attached to the trailer for receiving the batteries. The width of the trailer and the width of the rack may be approximately the same as the width of the batteries. The rack may have an upper set of battery receiving areas that receive a top row of batteries and a lower set of battery receiving areas that receive a bottom row of batteries. The upper set of battery receiving areas and a lower set of battery receiving areas may define a recess that confines the batteries within the battery receiving areas.
The batteries may include a housing that defines a fork pocket that extends through the housing. The fork lift truck may have at least one tine that has a retainer lip on a distal end of the tine that is inserted fully through the fork pocket to facilitate retaining the battery on the tine.
According to another aspect of this disclosure, a battery charging facility is provided for charging a plurality of discharged battery assemblies for industrial trucks and material handling machines. The battery assemblies are retained on a trailer and the battery charging facility comprises a plurality of battery chargers disposed inside a van trailer that has a plurality of charger connectors. A plurality of docking stations may be spaced along the van trailer where the trailers used to transport the batteries are received for charging. A set of battery connectors are electrically connectable to the plurality of discharged batteries on the trailer. As an alternative, the battery chargers may be provided on a truck receiving doack.
According to other aspects of this disclosure relating to the battery charging facility, the dock may be located out-of-doors and the trailers when received at the docking station may remain out-of-doors. The source of electrical power may include either or both of a power grid and a power generator.
According to another aspect of this disclosure, a tine is provided for a fork lift truck that has a battery assembly defining a fork pocket. The fork lift truck has a mast and a tine support structure that receives a support end of the tine that is attached to the tine support structure. A distal end of the tine includes a stop that extends upwardly from a top surface of the tine for retaining a battery on the tine when the tine is inserted through the fork pocket of the battery. The stop may include a tapered end at the distal end of the tine. A vertical wall may be provided that extends upwardly from the top surface of the tine and faces the support end of the tine. The tine may have a general taper in a vertical direction with a greater thickness at the support end and a reduced thickness at the distal end.
These and other aspects of this disclosure will be described in greater detail in the following detailed description of the illustrated embodiments with reference to the attached drawings.
The illustrated embodiments are disclosed with reference to the drawings. However, it is to be understood that the disclosed embodiments are intended to be merely examples that may be embodied in various and alternative forms. The figures are not necessarily to scale and some features may be exaggerated or minimized to show details of particular components. The specific structural and functional details disclosed are not to be interpreted as limiting, but as a representative basis for teaching one skilled in the art how to practice the disclosed concepts.
Referring to
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The van trailer 26 houses the plurality of battery chargers 28 that may be aligned along the walls of the van trailer 26. The van trailer 26 also houses a main electrical panel 30 through with the van trailer 26 may be connected to the electrical power grid 32. Alternatively, if there is a failure in the electrical power grid 32, a generator 34 may be used to provide power to the battery charges 28. A charger power distribution interface 36 is used to connect the main electrical panel 30 with the battery chargers 28 through cables or bus connections. A battery cable connector 40 is used to connect the batteries 12, 18 to a charger network receptacle 42. A plurality of charger network receptacles 42 are provided on the van trailer 26 to permit a plurality of lowboy trailers 10 to be connected for charging at the same time.
The width of the lowboy trailer 10 in the lower height section 16 may be reduced to substantially the same width as the high capacity batteries 12 and the battery rack 14. As used herein, the term substantially the same width in this context means within a foot of the width of the battery pack 14.
Referring to
A plurality of observation slots 70, or openings, are provided in the top of the first fork pocket 60 and the second fork pocket 62 so that an industrial lift truck operator may observe the extent to which the industrial fork lift truck (not shown) extends through the length of the fork pocket 60, 62.
A first pivot connector 72 and a second pivot connector 74 connect the lid 58 to the side walls 56 of the battery case 50. Either or both of the pivot connectors 72, 74 may be removed. If a first pivot connector 72 is removed, the lid 58 may be pivoted about the second pivot connector 74 to provide access to the batteries contained within the battery case 50. Alternatively, the second pivot connector 74 may be removed and the lid 58 may be pivoted about the first pivot connector 72. If it is desired to remove the lid 58 completely, both the first pivot connector 72 and the second pivot connector 74 may be removed and the lid 58 may be lifted off of the battery case 50.
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While exemplary embodiments are described above, it is not intended that these embodiments describe all possible forms of the disclosed apparatus and method. Rather, the words used in the specification are words of description rather than limitation, and it is understood that various changes may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure as claimed. The features of various implementing embodiments may be combined to form further embodiments of the disclosed concepts.
