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

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.

Originally Posted by Ferret

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.

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