When you’re firing up gensets as many as 80 times a week, you want to be sure your starting system is a reliable workhorse, resilient to heavy use over time.

For Girtz Industries, a pioneering designer and manufacturer of power modules and packaged industrial systems, this kind of demanding use is all in a day’s work. A leader in turnkey power packaging solutions, Girtz rigorously tests its solutions, ensuring each custom-built, state-of-the-art design is ready to go the minute it’s installed.

In the company’s production stage, starting batteries are used intensively, each one seeing around 40 times typical real-world use. The facility tests 10 engines per day and start each one a minimum of two times per test. Batteries are moved between test cells and used both indoors and outdoors, in all kinds of Indiana weather.

Girtz works with a variety of engines, but all of them are big. The company needs to be sure its starting systems will fire up engines as large as 120L every time. For Girtz, starting up engines is central to operations. The reliability and ease of use of their starting system directly impact productivity and workflow.

Girtz’s existing setup was heavy, awkward, and difficult to maneuver. To achieve the cranking amp they needed in test cells, Girtz used heavy steel carts, each carrying four 8D batteries, together with 10-amp SENS NRG chargers. It took a forklift to shift the carts.

With hard-to-start prototype engines, the process was even more time-consuming. Employees used forklifts to position several battery carts, stringing multiple batteries together to get adequate cranking amp endurance.

Traditional lead-acid AC or 8D batteries struggled to keep pace with this intense workload, and Girtz was constantly having to replace them. The batteries were also sensitive to the real-world ambient conditions of the outdoor cells, where temperatures range between 100°F in the summer and -10°F in the winter. The batteries often failed in colder weather and when the charge dropped too low. If someone forgot to plug them in, the testing schedule suffered delays and setbacks.

The company needed a new starting system that was reliable, more efficient, and easier for employees to use.