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Any of you guys use this? Portable starters

hmm, I think I need one now!:cool1:
 
I have seen a different brand crank over a big John Deere tractor. I think it was 9 L. On a 0° day batteries were dead enough it wouldn't crank on its own
 
Happened to be in bass pro shops wandering around last night, saw the -20 and -40's in boxes. Light, as expected. Smaller than a set of good jumper cables to boot.
 
Wow,all the way up 4000 amps!...can you weld with that one too ?..:eek:..I've seen the salvage yards using those to jump their loaders and other yard equipment,my jaw dropped when I saw them use on on a loader for the first time..:ooo:...thing spun over like it had a brand new 4D battery in it and fired right up!..

I recently had a Snap-On 900 amp jump back given to me when a friend upgraded some shop equipment..(I inherited a decent floor jack also,it leaks slightly,but its a good "spare")..they had a new Interstate battery installed in the jump pack about 4 years ago,and it seems to charge up and jump dead batteries ok...good enough for my needs,mostly I just need to jump start my lawn tractors..

The thing is pretty heavy though,lugging it around is about equal to carrying a regular car battery...I like these smaller ones,but dont need one often enough to justify having one..
 
When will we start using these as our car batteries? The price is comparable, but much smaller and lighter. On something with no underhood space, like a new Cadillac, you could fit one of these and save running battery cables to the trunk. Charging may be the issue, for short running times. I think you can get Lithium cranking batteries now for your race car that are drop in replacements, but they are still kind of big. It would be kind of lame to have power, but be stranded because the electronics in your battery puked.
 
Lithium batteries can be scary--I live about half a mile from a manufacturer of them,that makes many batteries for the military ,etc,and at least twice in recent years,they have had some loud explosions and fires ,along with some injuries,when some of the batteries were being assembled or charged...

I heard the "BOOM" from my house very clearly!..then the sirens of the fire trucks..

The room where the batteries are assembled is like a sterile operating room--thick walls,everyone wears special suits,masks,and it has its own climate controlled air supply that regulates humidity,etc..I guess if any moisture gets in the batteries can blow up ?..:eek:.

They have banned air shipments of lithium batteries and many laptops and those electric skate boards have burned up from defective lithium batteries...not sure I'd trust one under my hood just yet..
 
Probably going to be awhile. The racing batteries are $1000+, so roughly 10 times what a lead-acid cost. As price comes down/demand increases, I suspect we'll see more of them.

Also, while I didn't see it mentioned as a factor, I'm pretty sure lithiums don't generally tolerate decreased voltage in terms of discharge. They have low voltage cutoffs to ensure there are no problems, but in an auto (even worse in deep cycle apps), I can see that being an issue if you listen to the radio for a bit, or leave headlights on, then try and start it, and voltage dips below the cutoff.

Edit: as to safety, lithiums have problems, but so do lead acid batteries. A few years back Boeing had issues with lithiums in their planes. Done correctly, they shouldn't be an issue IMO.
 
Lithium has a voltage threshhold, once below that they can become dangerous.. but for the intended use its awesome.. I need a few of these.
 
We have a "salt bath" tank at work for heat treating full sheets of aluminum and long parts. There's "no water" caution signs all around it. They tell me if it were hit with water there'd just be a smoking hole left. It's kept at a constant 900*F.
 
Lithium batteries have a problem if they're charged or discharged too quickly - such as when there's a short. Same thing that's caused the tesla cars to burn or laptop and phones.
 
Yeah, but they're advertising from several hundred to a few thousand Amps of cranking current. That's pretty much the definition of rapid discharge. 4000 Amps from a 12V cell is 3 milli-Ohm! That's like making a battery cable a foot long and connecting it directly across your car battery.

Does it say how long the re-charge time is? Because you expect your car battery to charge in like 10 minutes after starting. The lithium car batteries are probably so big so you have a lot of parallel cells charging at once. Can't have a 1hour charge time or you can't make short trips (or have time to recharge it in the pits).

Also, a lead-acid battery has a great stabilizing effect on the whole electrical system. If you have a charge controller between the alternator and the battery, that takes more care in designing the voltage regulator and some other stuff.
 
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