AC Drives Lead the Technical Revolution of Electric Forklifts

Sept. 10, 2007
This paper shows how when it comes to forklifts, AC drives have emerged as a superior alternative than DC drives.

By Peter Taube, Danaher Motion

Forklifts can be divided into combustion forklifts and electric forklifts by drives. Electric forklifts are driven by storage batteries, are easy to operate, stable, make low noise and have zero emissions. Because of these features, users are increasing demand for electric forklifts and in developed countries electric forklifts have a much higher demand than fuel forklifts. This is closely related to environmental protection in those countries. Especially in ports, warehouses, the tobacco industry, food and textile sectors, electric forklifts are replacing fuel forklifts. Historically speaking, DC drives have been applied in such applications. However, as technology has developed AC drives have emerged as a superior alternative.