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Portable battery jump pack

20K views 13 replies 9 participants last post by  Deathrend 
#1 · (Edited)
Any using a good portable battery jump pack they can recommend to start these large motors for the just in case?

Edit: was looking for the smaller style ones that you could put in a glove box or center console.
 
#2 ·
BUMP! I bought some Anker battery packs for my employees at Christmas, but I was just wondering whether it would jump a big truck as well.
 
#3 ·
I was considering one from harbor freight.com; I would be interested to hear from experts on what their recommendations for a 'jump pack' for these vehicles would need in terms of available amps, etc. Thanks in advance to anyone chiming in!
 
#4 ·
I've had this one for three years. Amazon Jump-N-Carry JNC660 1700 Peak Amp 12-Volt Jump Starter. I picked it up when it was around $110 due to my wife killing her card battery.. a lot..

I use it all the time, has nothing else in it to break, including a fuze/breakers so be mindful. Great large cables, great capacity, and holds it's charge for a long time. I leave it behind the seat in my truck, use it all the time. When I first got it, I tested it out by starting my truck with both batteries disconnected, figured it was a keeper.

I've since jumped 10-15 cars/trucks with it (including four or five 5500's here at work), my 2500 work truck, and I used it all the time to power my RV when I had the batteries out or found them dead in storage. Running the RV jacks was probably the hardest thing I've done to it, they're very finicky about power, they drain a lot of juice and won't operate if the battery drops to low.

They have lithium jumpers now that would give you the cranking amps possibly, but I don't know if they'd have the capacity to do much more.
 
#6 ·
They have lithium jumpers now that would give you the cranking amps possibly, but I don't know if they'd have the capacity to do much more.
So the problem with lithium that I fear is they don't like to be held fully charged. Meaning if you fully charge them and then "store" the battery it slowly ruins the battery.

I fly RC helicopters and we use batteries much larger then what is required to "jump" a vehicle. Lithium cells charge to a full capacity of 4.2v per cell. So you would need 3 cells in series to "start" a car. There is something called a "storage" charge which is 3.8v per cell but you don't have much capacity at "storage" levels. So I'd stay away from lithium jumpers unless you intend to use them often. At least until they prove the longevity of such a device.
 
#5 ·
Maybe I am just lucky, but the one time that I almost got stranded, my 07.5 cranked on the second try, then went to the parts house to replace the batteries the next morning. 1 battery was open, the other had a deformed case. I guess that if it did not start at work, I would bring my lift truck out and jump it off!
 
#9 ·
It's been a while since I've looked into the specifics but it used to be a huge issue in my industry (home automation) because people were buying $1,000+ remotes with proprietary lithium ion batteries in them for these high end home control systems, and since it was their 7th house or something they'd just sit in their chargers for months on end. Battery packs would swell so bad they would lodge themselves into the remote and were too dangerous to remove so you had to throw the whole remote out. People buying $1k remotes got tired of that really quick. After working with some engineers the solution ended up being some software/hardware that would cap a charge at 80% and kill the remote at 20%, so the actual operating range was only 20-80% but we scaled that so they saw 0-100%. But I guess in that situation you're not relying so much on batteries constantly running at peak voltage like a jump pack
 
#10 ·
Ahh remote batteries....that's probably a case of over charging. Something like that usually uses just a transformer and pumps that voltage in at a higher level and expects the battery draw to pull the voltage down. When it gets full it stops pulling current and the voltage starts to rise. So yea in that case the battery could over charge and "puff" because it will still "charge" just at a very slow rate. Which their hope is that its used enough not to overcharge. Their is no "smarts" to those chargers and I would argue the problem is the design of the charger. If you have an expensive remote it should have an expensive charger. If it detects the remote has sat on the charger base for days on end it should drop the voltage down to "storage" levels 3.8v.

I am assuming the charging circuit in the jump box shuts off after its "charged". Over charging something that large of a capacity could be really dangerous and explode like you mentioned. But leaving it sit at full charge for extended periods of time can kill the battery life.

I'll have to check to see what they charge at. I don't know as I assumed it was 12.6 (4.2v per cell). I've never purchased one because I was worried about storage life.
 
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