Jumper cables vs jumper battery?

I would you recommend to put a jumper cable in your kit. This stored cable doesn't need any maintenance or attention and it's all times ready for use.

Regards,

Ralf

Jumper batteries should only be considered if you frequently are totally outside civilization. If there's any traffic, if you can make a cell phone or pay phone call, walk to the next exit, etc., then you'll find a car to get a jump.

Jumper batteries must be recharged periodically and take up a lot more space than jumper cables. Most likely, they'll be dead any time you need them or got left behind from a trip where you didn't have the room.

OK

Question tho...do they make any kind of GOOD but thin and flexible jumper cables that one could keep in travel bag if on business trip and need to keep for rental car use?

No. You *must* use very heavy wire and there's no getting around that. I suppose if the cables were only 2' long then you might get by with thinner wire, or you could accept having to sit there for an hour or two for your battery to charge, but most people won't tolerate such compromise. You can put it in a pretty bag, but you can't make it any smaller or lighter.

Don't bother with the junk that connects through a cigarette lighter jack. They're a waste of time. On a warm day with a nearly fully charged battery you might be lucky if you increase the charge within two hours enough to matter.

Not really. The one thing that makes cables good is that they have low resistance. Barring using silver wire or superconductors, they have to be heavy to do so.

HOWEVER, the real question is why you would need jumper cables with a rental car. I could see needing them to help out another driver on the road (which incidentally will invalidate most rental car contracts), but if you're running into rental cars with battery problems you might want to consider a different rental company....

--scott

snipped-for-privacy@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote in news:ehbi9c$4vq$ snipped-for-privacy@panix2.panix.com:

Or you're renting from Rent-A-Wreck. Some of their vehicles, I swear...

yep.....that's the reason for the question

snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Then in that case I'd recommend a battery pack. Might be hard to find a willing jump in Needles AZ at 4:00AM.

Oh, if you can, rent a manual tranny car, and make sure you park on a hill (facing downhill, of course). Even the dimmest battery will often power up an engine so long as it doesn't have to feed a starter motor,

I have a set of GOOD cables that fit in a round plastic flatpack. The cables are not thin, but they are very flexible because of the high quality (many strands of fine wire) cable used. They will fit in a very small space, and are easy to repack.

I dont remember where I bought them just now, but dont buy cheapo low quality battery cables.They will disappoint you.

I choose both. I keep a jumper box charging at home and whenever a long trip is planned it goes in. Often a good one will give you less hassles for a quick jump. While at home it's priceless for jumping lawn tractors. I bought my father one and father-in-law one.

I also like the idea that the jumper boxes can be used as portable power sources for laptops, etc.... and can be charged up via the car cig lighter or plugging into

At room temperature, pure silver has about 105% the conductance of pure copper. That's hardly enough to make difference. I'd be interested in a superconductor that doesn't need some sort of heavy cooling system. ;)