Electric Pallet Jack

Overview

The electric pallet jack is a pedestrian-controlled (walkie) powered pallet truck for moving palletised loads over short distances on flat warehouse floors. The operator walks behind the truck and steers with a tiller, using a butterfly throttle to drive and buttons to raise and lower the forks. Rated at 2000 kg, it replaces the manual hydraulic pallet truck wherever travel distances or repetition make hand-pumping impractical, while remaining compact enough for trailer loading and dock work.

Construction

The truck is assembled on the Chassis Body, a welded steel power-unit frame carrying the body covers and horn. Projecting forward is the Fork Assembly: a welded fork frame, two forged tines, and polyurethane load wheels at the fork tips, linked by a push-rod entry mechanism that lowers the load wheels as the forks rise.

Lifting is done by the Lift System, a self-contained hydraulic power pack of gear pump, DC pump motor, and single-acting cylinder with an integral lowering valve. Propulsion comes from the Drive Unit, a BLDC traction motor driving a reduction gearbox and the polyurethane drive wheel. Two sprung Stabilizer Castor stabiliser wheels keep the power unit stable through turns.

How it works

The operator commands the truck through the Steering System system: a spring-return tiller arm with a control head carrying the butterfly throttle and lift, lower, and horn buttons. Throttle position is read by a Hall sensor and passed to the Traction Controller, which switches the traction motor through a MOSFET bridge; a separate pump controller drives the lift motor on demand. Energy is stored in the Battery Pack, a 24 V Li-ion pack with battery management system and on-board charger. A spring-applied electromagnetic brake holds the truck whenever the tiller is released or raised to vertical, and an LCD display reports state of charge and fault codes.