Kings 1000A lithium Jumpstarter, Just get one... worth it.

[Blknight.aus]

Kings 1000A Lithium Jump Starter (https://www.4wdsupacentre.com.au/adventure-kings-1000a-lithium-jump-starter-value-pack.html)

Highly impressed with this thing, I normally carry it to use as a back up charger for my phone/tablet and as something thats usually quicker to use to help start someone in a car park than driving vehicles around and dragging jumper leads....
With the jump pack showing 80% 2 parallel N120 batteries showing~8V and having an old school mechanical 3.9l 4 pot diesel to crank I hooked up in the vein hope of maybe...
IT did, atfter about 3 seconds of not the most confident cranking I've ever had it started. Ending capacity ~45%.

The back ground, Arkies been having fuel issues for a few weeks and has required some abuse on the starter until it stopped dead mostly on the driveway on Tuesday, The culprit, sticky piston in the lift pump, between longer cranks getting it started and trying to get it started, lack of sun on the solar panels and foretting to turn the fridge off 8v in the panels when I went to start up, (that and the batteries are second hand, older than arkies time with me and finally dying)

[Tins]

If it starts Arkles, you reckon it would start my 4.0 Perky?

[loanrangie]

I thought the 1000A was a typo but no its correct, good value for $80.

[Graeme]

Better value last night on special at $75 including a torch.

[reid25]

These are highly recommended, I think I have the older one but I paid $90 and it's been going strong as a portable charger and jumpstarter for years now. Saved me and others many times, and way more convenient than jumper leads

[Blknight.aus]

If it starts Arkles, you reckon it would start my 4.0 Perky?

if it was fully charged and the battery had any life in it my guess is yes, I had to reset a couple of times because a pair of n120's can suck a lot of amps when they're flat, But from a not full state it got it done. I'm kinda curious to see how it goes from fully charged, my money says its got 2 short but aggressive cranks in it if I had the batteries off and was just straight onto the starter.

I know a vehicle thats getting jump posts in the near future.

[austastar]

Hi,
A bloke in an older Patrol was under the bonnet one morning, trying to get the engine to start on a flat battery. I offered a jump start if he was happy to wait till we had packed up and ready to move and save him trying to jury rig a jump from a dubious aux battery.
He had one of those nifty little starters but had been using it for other things and it was down to 3 of 5 charge indicator leds and wouldn't crank the diesel motor.
I still had 13.5 V in our Li house battery, so I plugged it into a cigarette socket while we finished breakfast and packed up.
It was at 4 leds when we were ready to move, so clipped it to his battery and tried the starter.
Bingo!
It was quite impressive and started easily.
There are some other types that are capacitor powered and don't store power long term, but will self charge from a battery with more than 8 Volts.
It beeps when ready and will hold that charge for some tens of seconds till discharged by starting.
I've only seen them on YouTube, and have been procrastinating which type to get.
Cheers

[oka374]

I've had one of those capacitor type jump starters for about 4 or 5 years now and it works well, I've jumped large tractors, small bulldozers and the Oka's 5.9 litre diesel plus a wide variety of smaller engines from mowers to 4wd utes.
It has a little inbuilt battery which will charge it up and can also charge itself from any battery with at least 9 volts available.
Mine is a Baintech Ultra Capacitor jump starter.

[BradC]

Mine is a Baintech Ultra Capacitor jump starter.

I'd never seen those, but I do have a much larger ultra-capacitor bank I use for a spot welder that I get a genuine 3.5kA from (I melted a 1000A shunt testing it), so I can imagine something like that starting a bus if they are real ultra-capacitors. The biggest limiter I see in devices like that is the connector and cables. I don't think the people that write the specs quite understand what 1000A over a couple of seconds will actually do to a wire that small. I think they rely on that 1000A being the instantaneous "get it moving" then it drops to a max of half that for the actual "rotate up to speed".

Having said that, my pack (the genuine 3.5kA unit) is slightly larger than a 6 pack of VB, so quite a bit bigger than those units.

I'd pick an ultra-cap unit over a lithium polymer any day though.

[Blknight.aus]

Hi,

There are some other types that are capacitor powered and don't store power long term, but will self charge from a battery with more than 8 Volts.
It beeps when ready and will hold that charge for some tens of seconds till discharged by starting.
I've only seen them on YouTube, and have been procrastinating which type to get.
Cheers

Im building one... IT might be slightly overkill.. :)

pulls 15 amps for about 4 minutes and charges to 15.5V.. without a battery it turns Arkies 3.9 over Very smartly.. Charging it burns through 25% of a kings 12AH battery bank. Although it might be more than that as the 4 leds indicate either all or no part of a quarter of the charge available in theory on the lights 51% shows up the same as 74%.

[Tins]

Without some form of bleeder resistor those caps should hold a charge for a while. I’m assuming you are using electrolytic?

[Ferret]

Are there any safety issues with these capacitor based jump starters?

Some years ago I remember getting a boot from a large capacitor in flash pack. Wasn't funny.

The stop / start 'battery' in my RRS is a super capacitor. There has been a fair amont of effort been put into stopping people from 'getting at it', I assume for safety reasons.

[BradC]

Some years ago I remember getting a boot from a large capacitor in flash pack. Wasn't funny.

That would have been about 400VDC and having had a boot from one of those I suspect it would have hurt (mine did). If you'd shorted it with a 14" crescent wrench you'd have seen a pair of "splat" marks on the wrench where you touched it with the capacitor.

If you touch a vehicle sized super capacitor you'll get the same tingle you get across a 12V battery if you are fat and sweaty enough. If you short it with a 14" crescent wrench you'll probably catch fire from the splatter and then have two halves of a wrench.

Short a 900CCA battery with something conductive and bad things happen. Short a super capacitor and that becomes exponentially worse. Like I said, I fused (melted) a 1000A shunt with a super-cap bank. So I suspect they've got it hidden away to prevent accidental "bad things" happening. Not electrocuting a human, but maybe not setting them on fire if they short a spanner across the terminals.

[austastar]

Hi,
I upped the power of a photographic studio flash head years ago. The capacitor in that was scary. I clipped a 40W 240V lamp across it for an anti zapp protection.
Cheers

[Tins]

Caps, the big ones, can kill. They can deliver all of their current instantly. Anyone who has mishandled an old CRT can attest to that. They can bite weeks after the thing was turned off.
A suitable light globe is a reasonable way to discharge them. A dedicated discharge tool with a big high wattage resistor is better. ( high ohms numbers are important but the high wattage means that the resistor won’t just burn out the first time you use it).
Capacitors are dangerous. But they’re amazing as well.