The car battery was dead because the lights were left on. I wanted to use the car in the morning. I took the battery charger and put it on the battery, the night before, intending to trickle charge it.
The next morning the car would not start and there was no juice in the charger.
I am guessing that the jump starters are not intended to trickle charge, although I don't see why.
Which says its output is 450A instant, 300A/5 sec. The latter translates to roughly 0.4 A-hr which is a spit in the breeze trying to recharge a fully discharged battery. You basically got one shot to start a vehicle w/ it -- which, often may be enough.
Terry wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@h11g2000prf.googlegroups.com:
it's garbage. all it is is a 12v,19 amp-hour gel cell in a fancy package. They sulfate if not kept float charged,and then will not accept or hold a charge.Keep it in your car,and it will degrade and not work when you need it. Can you even charge it when it's in your car? (BTW,I couldn't even view or DL the user manual from the B&D or DeWalt sites.)
You can buy a better 12v tire pump from Harbor Freight for $26,it plugs into your cig lighter. (a recently new product) 96068-1VGA ,the others are junk. It was on sale at my local HF store for $18.
The device makes a great jump starter but it isn't intended to be a battery charger. You can't store enough electricity in its little battery for a big ol' car battery. For the occasional recharge you can get a cheap charger and be fine.
I have one of these devices as well (but home depot's version). When I received it I thought it would be junk but I have used it for a couple of years now on all sorts of cars, mostly my '59 Imperial because it doesn't get out as often as it should, and it hasn't failed to start one yet. Of all the auto related things I have ever gotten it would have to be in the top three.
I've wondered about those. If you clamped the clamps to the car battery, and then plug in the internal charger (or plug in the charge plug to the jump pack) it seems like it should charge your car battery overnight.
Makes me wonder if the car battery froze overnight, thus killing it completely?
As many have already replied, these devices will not charge a battery.
In addition (in my experience) they will jump a weak battery, but may have trouble with a cold, completely dead battery. I've used my HF JumpStart numorous times to jump various vehicle where we at least got a click or 2 out of the starter solenoid, but when my son left the lights on overnight on a very cold night, the JumpStart device did not work. One shot with jumper cables and another vehicle and the dead car turned right over.
1) need to charge the booster pack between uses
2) Yeah, the smaller packs won't spin a vehicle with a dead battery. Last time my van was dead, I tried my smaller pack. 300 amp or something. No go. Got my Winchester, with the larger cell. That did the job. You may just have a jumper with a smaller amp rating.
If used like they are intended, I think they are a great thing to have in an emergency. I have used mine to prevent me from being stranded on the side of the road more than once.
The tire pump allowed me to add air to a tire and drive it to the shop. It saved me from changing a tire and only took 5 min to get going again.
I would rather have one and not need it, than to need one and not have it.
They will partially recharge a pretty flat battery.
I once left some lights on in my car. When I went to start it, it wouldn't turn over at all. I didn't have a commercial "jump start" battery pack, but I *did* have a charged 12 V 10 Ah gell cell sitting around. I took that out to the car, connected it to the car battery, and waited 10 minutes or so. At the end of that, the car started.
Now, there's no way the little 10 Ah battery could deliver enough starting current on its own, particularly since its connection to the car was via some rather wimpy cables. But over 10 minutes, it transferred enough energy to the car's own battery to start the car.
You're never going to transfer all the energy in the gell cell this way, because its voltage drops while the car battery voltage rises, and eventually they'll reach equilibrium with a substantial amount of energy still left in the gell cell. But what did transfer was enough.
(I have seen special charging cords that seem to contain a voltage booster for charging one 12 V battery from another. But I just used plain wires.)
Of course, this only works if the car's own battery will still take a charge. If it has died, not merely been discharged, you need a second battery big enough to start a car on its own, and jumper cables heavy enough to carry the current needed to do that.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.