Customised complete battery solutions

30 March 2007

Aktuelle Technik, a Swiss professional magazine on industrial electronics and electrical engineering, published in its edition March 2007 the article:

Kundenspezifische Batterie-Gesamtlösungen
(Customised complete battery solutions)

German .pdf (approx. 200 kByte)

Translation of this article:

Customised complete battery solutions

The battery-pack assembler SAT AG/EMB GmbH offers customised complete solutions with its own development department. SAT has been co-operating with famous big companies for decades. The group has now set its sights on the small and medium-sized industrial customer segment in Germany.

SAT AG/EMB GmbH, part of the Ristma Group, offers battery-pack and battery systems for mobile or other systems. The company group was founded 30 years ago and today assembles system solutions with over 600 employees. Although everyone is currently talking about China as a low-cost manufacturing country, the Ristma Group deliberately chose Poland as a production location in 1999. Why? What tipped the scales were the lower costs of transport and the in general better communication within Europe. Anyone who has ever needed a large quantity of batteries urgently will appreciate the close production location and other advantages.

Customers and applications for battery-pack and battery systems can be found in a wide variety of industries, such as medicine, metrology, the telecommunications sector, for heavy-duty hand tools, in the security segment or in highly sensitive measurement and toll systems.

What should battery users pay attention to

We all know that a technical system is only ever as good as its weakest link. And this should never be the battery or battery pack, otherwise things quickly grind to a halt and the customer quickly becomes disgruntled. It pays to invest in a professional solution. SAT AG/EMB GmbH is not a typical assembler, but is already involved in new systems from the development stage. Our own development engineers are available for customised applications and make sure that an optimum overall solution is found for the power supply. We generally make sure that only proven solutions are used in practice. The customer should not be the guinea pig. Advertising brochures often proclaim a «Super Solution», but only practice and time shows how good a battery system really is. Separating the wheat from the chaff is the job of experienced experts, an these include the employees of SAT AG/EMB GmbH. For example, SAT has developed a patented connection system for battery cells that guarantees greater strength and faster processing. What's more, the company has its own electronic development for Lithium-Ion packs. This means, for example, that the safety circuit enjoys the attention it deserves. Vibrations or an increased development of heat that may occur in later practical use thus have to be precisely analysed in advance. SAT takes appropriate measures during development to ensure that the battery systems later work perfectly, even in tough conditions. «Everything from one source» is the motto of SAT. This is why the company itself takes care of developing the enclosures for customised complete solutions o that the batteries are ideally packaged and protected.

Sights set on the battery and battery-pack trend

All of these are reasons why SAT AG/EMB GmbH has been on course for success from its very beginnings. The company has already been co-operating successfully with big international companies such as Panasonic, Duracell, Sanyo, GP Batteries and other famous cell manufacturers for many years, yet is completely independent.
The group of companies has now set its sights on the medium-sized and small industrial customers segment on the German market. Apart from its site in Switzerland, the company has already established a base in Germany for customised developments, namely, EMB GmbH in Bad Camberg (www.emb-akku.com), who are certified to ISO 9001:2000 standards.

Various battery-pack and battery technologies are on offer such as nickel-cadmium, nickel-metal-hydrides, lithium-ions, lithium-polymer, lithium-thionyl chloride, lithium-manganese, alkali-manganese as well as a variety of chargers. The environment-friendly and very powerful lithium-ion-nano-phosphate cells are just as much a topic as promising solutions in the automotive segment. So what are the trends in the battery sector? Werner Suter, Sales Director at SAT: «Many new applications are based on lithium-ion technology which is increasingly forcing the Ni-Cd systems off the market. One of the reasons for this is that environmental protection is being taken much more seriously today than before and as few heavy metals as possible are being used in the systems. Strict regulations were introduced in July 2006 as regards lead-free or pollutant-reduced components electronics (RoHS).» One of the core jobs of the Ristma group of companies it to keep an eye on general battery and battery-pack trends. Only a company that can ideally fulfil the high technological and quality requirements of its customers will be able to survive in future.

SAT Akkumulatoren Technik AG, www.sat-akku.ch

Fig. 1: Intelligent electronics ensue a perfect operation of the battery packs
Fig. 2: Around 600 employees assemble over 6 million products every year in Gliwice, Poland.
Fig. 3: «We are not interested in the fastest, but the best battery solution for the application », explains Werner Suter, Sales Director at SAT AG.

SAT AG

SAT AG belongs to the Ristma Holding AG and is the biggest independent supplier of batteries and battery-pack systems in Europe. The company sees itself as a professional fulfilment provider in this sector. 600 people are employed at the production site in Poland, the entire group employs a total of more than 650 people. Development locations can be found in Germany (Bad Camberg) and Visp/Eyholz in Switzerland. SAT AG develops and produces complete battery-pack systems with charge electronics including enclosures as well as complete modules including battery-packs. The tendential rise in the market potential though ever new innovative system solutions for various lines of industry means that the group of companies is facing the future with a positive outlook. Thanks to constant investments SAT will continue to be able to offer sophisticated complete systems.

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