Car battery jumper packs

Been toying with the idea of getting one of these battery pack jumper thingies like this one on the Bay of Fleas:

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Any preferred brands? Does that one look like a good one? Are they worthwhile or just a 'toy' that doesn't work particularly well?

Reply to
Munch
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They are incorrectly described as a 'starter'. If you tried to use it as such the wires would melt.

Reply to
Graham T

Watch this, then decide ...

Reply to
Andy Burns

I have one of these:

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and it has started a diesel 2.0l VW Touran with a dead battery (lights on, no crank action left).

I was surprised... It seems to hold its charge well too.

Reply to
Tim Watts

I can't comment on any particular one, but my stepson, an ex VW master tech and AA patrol, got one from eBay. When he saw it 'in the flesh' he didn't think it would start a car, but when the battery on his Transit was failing, it started that three times in one day, re-charging it after the second use.

He has subsequently used it on other cars, and unless the non-starting vehicle's battery was completely dead (as in won't turn on the interior light) then it has worked every time.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Whelan

I have a couple of Floureon brand (not a typo) and they seem fine. The "bricks" which also do USB and laptop power up to 19 volt use lithium batteries. I would steer clear of the 12 volt only type with a handle, these use (small, low quality) lead acid batteries, at least in the cheaper versions.

Reply to
newshound

My Floureons look virtually identical to this. My main thought on the one you linked to was that it was at the bottom end of the price range, but seemed to claim unreasonably high capacity. So personally, I would go with something "branded", also Amazon's no quibble replacement of anything faulty is better and easier than eBay's. Now I come to think about it, one of mine suffered an obvious switch failure in the first month (lost its positive "click"), but sorted easily by Amazon.

Reply to
newshound

I have an unbranded one that was given to me and is about the same size as a big laptop power supply. The 1.4 Seat Ibiza was completely flat (I think it has the 'random radio coming on'), not even an ignition light and the portable battery started it at least 3 times over a few days without being re-charged in between.

I'm not sure if these have been mentioned before here or in this thread but a mate has something that was more expensive that sounds like some sort of supercapacitor that you can 'charge' from an otherwise almost dead battery that will then start most cars?

He gave his to his daughter to keep in her car and bought a slightly bigger one for his van. The 'advantage' of them over battery boosters is that they don't need regular recharging to stop them from dying.

This sorta covers it all in a cute way. ;-)

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Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

This video does not exist.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Munch wrote

Nope, havent tried enough to be able to say that.

Yep.

No, they do work very well indeed.

Reply to
Rod Speed

They all seem to lie about capacity. For example this one:

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is 8000mAh. They can't possibly have a DC-DC converter in there for 300A starting current, so the cells must be in series up to at least 12V. That means you'd think it would be 12V x 8000mAh = 96Wh, but the seller says lower down it's 30Wh.

8000mAh x 3.7V cell voltage = 29.6Wh so they're just adding up the capacity of the lithium cells, which isn't how watts, amps and volts work.

Theo

Reply to
Theo

Why not just buy the battery for $50?

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Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Because, at post-Brexit prices, $50 is GBP40.49 (+VAT+import fee). The Amazon pack is GBP29.99, and for that you get a charging circuit, battery manager and leads as well.

Theo

Reply to
Theo

And often an output fuse, torch, usb charging outlets, charge state indicator, carry case, output lead options (micro, mini and Apple connections), 240V and 12V charging solutions ...

Also / presumably it's guaranteed to be used for starting cars. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

Is Floureon a decent brand, or just a made-up name like all the others? Because I note there's:

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44Wh for 28 quid, looks decent value? Though the reviews are a bit mixed. Theo

Reply to
Theo

I have bought floureon replacement battery packs for dyson mini hoovers and they have worked just fine for the last two years.

Reply to
MrCheerful

Well, all I can say is I mentioned one earlier that has been consistently good in my use and IIRC the reviews were excellent.

"Mixed reviews" on Amazon is a red flag to me - it usually means:

1) The manufacturing quality is inconsistent;

2) Some users do not really *use* the product to its claimed limits.

Reply to
Tim Watts

Agreed and that's why I just took a chance on an 18V 3Ah NiMH battery for my Makita combi. I'd had it for a couple of weeks or so when there was an e-mail from Ebay re. a review. The battery charged well, has plenty of torque and has done some work, but not enough to be equivalent to 1 of the original 1.4Ah NiCads, so I don't yet know. When it's managed to go through a couple more recharges and use I'll post back here on how it's doing.

Reply to
PeterC

Something similar here:

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Reply to
RJH

Cheers Tim, I went on to buy this one because of your reply and it arrived yesterday. Now I just need a mate with a 'basic' car that we can disconnect the battery from and try it - I don't want to do that on my own car as it'll lose all sorts of settings :D

Reply to
Munch

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