Now, with the new lithium battery technology, a very small battery packs a powerful punch.
So now, they're small, and also pretty inexpensive.
It's on sale right now for $59.99. When I received mine a couple of weeks ago, it was $76.99, so the price has dropped a bit.
I'm impressed with the carrying case that it comes in, and the overall quality of the entire unit is better than I expected.
This one is rated at 400 amps peak of cranking power, so it's easily enough to start any gas engine up to about 3.0 litres in size. It had absolutely no problem starting the little blue car with the car battery totally disconnected. Some users report being able to start V8's, and I wouldn't be surprised. One of these days I'm going to try it out on Sherman just to test it with Sherman's big 7.4 litre V8!
When you plug it in, it has four blue lights that tell you how charged it is.
Neat little carrying case with all the accessories.
Not very big...and very lightweight.
And so we'll toss it in the little blue car for the summer, and hopefully never need it. But, if I ever bump into someone with a dead battery, this will be a lot more convenient than those big old cables we used to carry!
Those are pretty cool a tow truck driver friend of ours showed us his a few years ago, does the job for him.
ReplyDeleteThat's always a good sign, when a tow truck driver has one and loves it. We are looking forward to getting rid of our big bulky one that we have been carrying around with us in the motorhome. This one takes up so much less room and is much lighter. :-)
DeleteApparently (I've never tried this personally) you can start an RV from the house battery(s) by holding the emergency start button and then using the ignition switch. Of course, the house battery would have to be charged for this to work.
ReplyDeleteYes, most motorhomes have such an option, but ours doesn't.
DeleteThanks for posting about this item. While we often camp without utilities, this will charge cells, readers and one review mentioned laptops. As a female I am sometimes uncomfortable asking a stranger for a jump start (I always carry cables and know how to jumpstart a vehicle, but have found men think I must be stupid and they know better-one almost blew up my vehicle battery last year). I hadn't needed a jump start in years but when I did -it could have gone very badly. Thank you, now when camping without utilities and my reader dies at night (when we aren't allowed to run our generator) I can charge my reader! Thanks so very much for the info about this item!
ReplyDeleteYou know, I didn't even mention about this unit's capability to charge any electronics vis USB port because I figured the main draw was the car battery boost. But you're right...it's a great spare battery pack for that kind of use.
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