Lift Truck Basics
There is a wide variety of options and configurations available for the modern forklifts or lift trucks today. These options far exceed weight capacity and lift height. Make sure you do some homework before making an acquisition for your company so as to choose the best vehicles for your operation. These practices will lead to optimal use of your labor and space while ensuring a high safety factor.
Prior to selecting the right vehicle and making a decision for your application you must have a complete understanding of the properties of the materials or loads you would be handling. Additionally, it is vital to understand the storage methods you will use in order to store these items. What's more, it is also essential to know the methods you would need for receiving and shipping these items. After this is done, it is a wise idea to familiarize yourself with the array of available options and vehicles .
Fuel Types
Typically, the electric vehicles are intended for indoor application only. These models offer numerous advantages like being quiet to operate and having no fumes present. If you intend to mainly use your vehicles indoors than this is definitely the most ideal alternative. In multi-shift operations, you would require additional transfer and batteries and charging stations.
During single shift operations, the lift truck is not utilized 100% of the time, allowing the operators sufficient time to recharge the batteries while on off-duty hours. Remember that the chargers and the batteries for lift trucks are usually priced separately from the lift truck itself.
Forklifts also have alternating current or AC motors. These motors are offered by many lift truck manufacturers. Normally, AC powered lift trucks run off of DC batteries and convert the DC power back to AC so as to power the motor.
There are several benefits of AC motors. Several of the main factors include that these motors provide faster acceleration, higher efficiency overall and lower maintenance costs.