A new battery monitoring system will pay dividends in the long run, claims John Bentley, Technical Sales Manager at Ecobat Battery.
Understanding battery life, behaviour and health is an ongoing science. That’s why we at Ecobat were delighted to hear about a new development that has the potential to revolutionise battery management in the heavy-duty sector.
This game-changing innovation has been made by our long-term partner Enersys, the company that pioneered the development of the absorbent glass mat (AGM) battery. Its latest innovation is a battery monitoring system built into its ODYSSEY Din B & C commercial vehicle (CV) batteries.
Using the embedded CONNECT monitor and the CONNECT app, the voltage, state of charge (SOC) and crucially, even the state of health (SOH) of the battery can be determined, so preventing a costly failure away from the depot, which would inevitably incur extra costs for repair or, in the worst case, vehicle recovery. Battery SOH is a particularly useful measure, as it provides a very good indication as to whether the battery is likely to have an issue in colder conditions, for example.
Remote control
What this development gives to fleet managers is a degree of proactive control that has previously not been possible. This can be achieved by either the engineer in the depot using a smartphone on the vehicles that are on site, or remotely as they instruct drivers to start the shift by hovering their device over each of the vehicle’s batteries and pressing ’send’. This will log the data, which can then be sent back to the company in various ways – WhatsApp or email for example – allowing the engineer to look at the individual SOC, SOH and voltage of each battery in every vehicle in the company’s fleet before it leaves the depot, or at any time, from any location.
The full history of each battery – the date fitted, time in service, average voltage – in fact everything that has occurred with the battery from day one, is then at their fingertips. As well as providing useful information that could substantiate any warranty claim, for example, it also allows fleet managers to plan any equalising charge requirements that might periodically be required and help them avoid the practice of renewing batteries based on time, in favour of basing it on the facts of the actual condition of the battery. This ensures their lifespan is optimised, saving the company money and helping to discover the ever-important TCO of their batteries.
Tick TOC
In short, this innovation will hopefully revolutionise battery care and maintenance, as engineers and workshop managers will no longer be ‘blind’ to how the batteries are behaving and are likely to perform. Although the cost of an ODYSSEY AGM2 battery with TPPL (thin plate pure lead) technology and the CONNECT monitor is a little more expensive that an enhanced flooded battery, the TCO saving over the life of the battery and the reduction in down time and related penalty costs means the return on investment is immediate, making the extra initial outlay easy to justify.
For those fleet managers still sceptical, it’s worth them taking note that a major European CV manufacturer has been trialling these ODYSSEY batteries and has now placed its first order, so the revolution is underway and we urge fleet operators to take action and get on board to start making savings!”
