Pick an industry, any industry.  Have it?  Good.  Now, imagine you work in that industry and are responsible for staying up to date with its changes.  Naturally, you would spend a significant amount of time reading and watching, attending conferences, conducting online searches, speaking with manufacturers and vendors, and conducting trials whenever possible, right?  Right?  Are you sure?

I mean, if you were an auto specialist, would you be of value if you stopped looking at new models in 2003?  A barber who could only provide 1980’s styling?  A heart surgeon who stopped studying after getting your initial degree?  A football coach who relied on a playbook that was decades old?  An historian who stopped reading the news after the Cold War ended?

This is fun and could go on for a while.  But, what I’m really asking is, if you are in the battery industry, do you know about the most current offerings for continuous battery monitoring?  Even more specific, if you have responsibility for your company’s battery backup power, and the enormous importance of making sure they succeed when needed, are you confident your perception of battery monitoring is not out of date?

In 2003, a white paper was written that yearned for a better battery monitoring solution.  A “Wish List”, so to speak, was created and put forth.  As Mr. Bruce Fountain opined in his piece, “To date, I have yet to see a cost effective device or system that is not over engineered and full of unneeded features that is fully and readily integratable into the Telco environment that functions as billed and delivers information over the communication channels to the right user. If such a system existed what would it be like? It would be small, contain minimal features to measure dv/dt, di/dt, and temperature, minimize wiring connections, be designed as a completely wired system for ease of network integration, with statistical analysis and historical data trending, and be able to pass data over the designated communication channels to the end user remote device(s).”

— Bruce Fountain, industry expert and frequent conference speaker, from his 2003 BATTCON paper titled “Battery Maintenance and Monitoring — What’s Real and What’s Not?” (More Reliability for the Dollar?)

These were very compelling points and still hold much value for comparing today’s manufacturers.  I’ll even expand on the defining criteria that has long been held up as a significant non-starter – It would need to be expense neutral, if not provide cost savings.

About a year ago, an article was published in OSP magazine that paid homage to this wish list and devoted itself to exploring how each item on this list has been conquered.

You can read it here: http://www.ospmag.com/print/issue/article/The-Battery-Holy-Grail

But, back to you.  You feel better that I expanded the criteria, correct?  Budgets are tight and you have no intention of spending more than you already do on business as usual.  You are pretty confident that position can still be defended in staff meetings.

Not anymore.

The fact is, battery monitoring has made significant advances in recent years and is now a best demonstrated practice.  Even more, by using Mr. Fountain’s vision as a measurement tool, BatteryDAQ systems meet and/or exceed every expectation on the wish list.

If you have responsibility for telecom, utility, UPS, or any other industry’s battery backup power, and have not looked at BatteryDAQ, you must.  It is as simple as that.

It is time to rethink battery monitoring.  It is time to gain control over your backup power.  It is time to know that your backup power will work when needed.  And, it is time to know that battery monitoring can actually lower operational expenses.

We want to learn about your applications and requirements.  We can help.