Battery Monitor for Use in Recharging and Cooling Batteries for Exchange in Vehicles, such as Fork Trucks

A rechargable lead-acid battery of the type suitable for use in a battery powered industrial material handling vehicle, the lead-acid battery comprising:

• a plurality of lead-acid battery cells serially connected to deliver an output voltage suitable for powering the battery powered industrial material handling vehicle;
• an autonomous charge state indicator mounted on the rechargeable lead acid battery to visually indicate separate charge states of the battery, so that an adequately recharged battery can selected from multiple batteries being recharged and can then be mounted in a battery powered industrial material handling vehicle, the indicator further comprising;
• a voltage level monitoring circuit connectable to selected multiple serially connected lead-acid battery cells, the magnitude of the resultant voltage difference applied to the voltage level monitoring circuit being representative of the charge status of the entire battery and sufficient to power the autonomous charge state indicator;
• the voltage level monitoring circuit outputting information indicative with the number of previous charge cycles of the battery, and
• a visible light source displaying differing patterns representative of different charge states of the battery in response to signals from the voltage level monitoring circuit, the visible light source also being powered by the voltage difference applied to the voltage level monitoring circuit, the visible light source being detectable from a distance;
• wherein the autonomous charge state indicator is attachable to only one battery and provides sufficient external communication through the visible light source to enable a user to determine if a specific battery is available to pick for installation in the battery powered industrial material handling vehicle without requiring reference to other information.

In a charging system for use in charging and circulating rechargeable lead-acid batteries in a fleet of battery powered industrial material handling vehicles, the system including:

• a charging station including at least one charger and a charging rack for in which lead-acid batteries in a discharged state are positioned and connected to a charger after removal an individual battery from a battery powered industrial material handling vehicle in which the individual battery is in a discharge state, the charging rack and the at least one charger having space to accommodate multiple batteries;
• the improvement comprising:
• an autonomous charge state indicator mounted on and associated with each of the rechargeable lead-acid batteries to visually indicate separate charge states of the associated battery, so that an adequately recharged battery can be selected from multiple batteries being recharged and can then be mounted in a battery powered industrial material handling vehicle, the indicator further comprising;
• a voltage level monitoring circuit connectable to selected multiple serially connected lead-acid battery cells in the associated lead-acid battery, the magnitude of the resultant voltage difference applied to the voltage level monitoring circuit being representative of the charge status of the entire associated battery and sufficient to power the autonomous charge state indicator;
• and
• a visible light source displaying differing patterns representative of different charge states of the associated battery in response to signals from the voltage level monitoring circuit, the visible light source also being powered by the voltage difference applied to the voltage level monitoring circuit, the visible light source being detectable from a distance;
• wherein the autonomous charge state indicator is attachable to only one associated battery and provides sufficient external communication through the visible light source and not through the charger so that a user can determine if a specific battery is available to pick for installation in the battery powered industrial material handling vehicle without requiring reference to other information.