fasttech jump starter battery banks??

[phatfil]

is anyone clued up on these.. 




www.fasttech.com/products/0/10013442/2270200-sp-168a-8800mah-car-emergency-launcher-jump

I occasionally drive my 20 yr old rover 218 it stands on the drive for weeks at a time, and with the winter approaching its not uncommon for me to need/want to drive only to find the alarm has drained the battery over the previouse few weeks of inactivity..

as long as i have enough juice to preheat the glowplugs and crank the motor over once it should start, 

currently my option is to get out the didy trickle charger and give the battery a 24hour+ session  or hassle someone for a jump..  

if one of the above would provide the suplementry juice needed to heat up and turn over an OLD diesel it could be a wise investment as well as providing back up vape charging if needed

the last time i had to charge up the battery (Monday) I pulled the battery and took it up the road for a cell check and while the cells were all ok, the battery held just about 100amps (well thats what i was told??)  (pre chrage..) the 100a ? was enough for a heat up of the coils but not enough to crank the engine,,

fwiw after a good 24 hour tricle charge as usual as soon as the engine cranked the beast started up..  

thanks in advance,  i am out of my depth with these batteries and what they can and cannot accomplish..
 

[decoy]

i know that to older type ones were next to useless unless you spent around £70 on a 1.8tdi astra van
but that was the things with the handles

[drunkenbum]

You might be better off buying one of the booster packs from halfords and keep it charged ready for the day needed. Or you have the option of a mains charger with a boost mode.

[chrisjw]

If it sits for long periods of time without being used, I'd be tempted to disconnect the battery......or better still, remove it altogether & give it a quick charge the day before you want to take it for a spin......No-one's gonna nick it with no battery in it.



"Life...........is just a bowl of tricks!!!!!!"

[mart166]

I cannot see that being good enough to turn a dead engine. I'm in same position, my second car has V8 engine and stands for weeks with no use, even the commercial charger/starter I have refuses to provide enough power to spin it up and I find jump start the only way. It's annoying, the battery in my car is mounted in a stupid place and is hours of work to remove it, and the manufacturers have advised not jump starting it as the damage it could cause is more than the cars worth. Catch 22 situation !!

MP

[bonnieboy]

found this one as well which seems to have a bit more oomph
www.gearbest.com/mobile-power-bank/pp_193627.html

[phtumshk]

i looked at these to boost the start up on my old MC.
they have em on ebay uk from around £25
I ended up just buying a stock bike battery and using jump leads as they were the same price, but not as handy looking as the little black box jumper thing.

[phatfil]

Thanks for all the input folks.. and the links..
fwiw pulling the battery is a real knuckle skinning job with an awkward easy to drop retaining bolt embeded deep amongst fixed metal fuel/water? pipes. and pulling off the leads while a good idea, not something i think i would remember to do after a few weeks..
looking at the details of the GB box linked to by@bonnieboy there seems to be a built in battery level checker which indicates if the box + residual battery charge has the collective OOMPH needed ?? well on that model at least..

had another browse and came accross this solar trickle chargers

while im sure the lighter socket is turned off with the ignition switch turning off so the simple plug in the lighter socket approach suggested wouldnt work i could probably trace a length of wire through to the battery for a direct socket.. seems like a better approach, cheaper too

Thanks again for the advice..

[nanotm]

wit the solar unit, the best thing to do would be mount it on the dashboard or parcel shelf inside the vehicle so outside weather is not an issue, if your planning on hardwireing it direct to the battery then perhaps getting a secondary fag lighter socket and wiring it through to the rear of the vehicle would be better, then you can leave it in place all the time (strap it down) and completely forget its there, given that it has a revers circuit protection feature, just make sure to get the higher wattage unit at least that's what I would do, if my vehicle didn't have a clear sunroof I could glue it to the underside of

[dave]

When I had this problem I got a smart charger (about £30/£40 I think). You can leave it attached to the battery all the time as when the battery is charged up it goes into maintenance mode. Fully charged battery every time you want to use it

[anubis]

OH bought one of the kits at FOS this year, it's first use was starting someones car at Prestwick Airport after we'd been waiting for the Swedish Historic Air Force to arrive for the Scottish Airshow (they came early ). The blokes face was a picture when Chris walked across with this little box. Started his car first turn of the key though. My car is tethered with a trickle charge most of the time as it only gets used occasionally and like mart166 they don't recommend using jump leads (can fry the ECU)

At mart166 not a Tiv is it, the battery on ours was behind a kick panel in the passenger footwell.

anubis

[phatfil]

Im sold on the solar charger concept, gearbest have one for a tenner.. good to hear the battery boxes work though anubis, its certainly an impressive march forward in tech

a mains tethered option while dependable would be a pita crossing the path to the door guaranteed to trip someone, and i would be bound to eventually drive off with the car plugged into the mains.

[nanotm]

yeah and then need a new window or door when the lead snaps like an over tensioned winch rope and whip saws through it (or anything else unlucky enough to be in the way), I've done that once (broken a winch rope) and the whip back took out the truck it was attached to ..... still at least I was following safety procedures and stood way off to the side with the remote unit in my hand.

hopefully you can get your unit fitted without to much hastle, if you can some velco straps through the unit to hold it in place on either the dash or the parcel shelf are safest in case you forget its there and drive off, nothing worse than needing to buy a new bit of kit because you forgot about it and it slid around and broke, since most of these things are not designed to be outside in the elements they tend ot fail quite quickly if you leave them on the outside of the vehicle (which is a shame because you could mount a few on the roof and get a decent boost out of them even on overcast days, though I dare say some ingenuity with a sheet of Perspex and some sealant could overcome that shortfall)

[VapingBad]

Lots of good advice ^^ in this thread, I would add that car batteries really don't like being run flat and it ages them severely so either a permanently/usually connect maintenance charger or disconnect the battery when not using. It's getting colder and that is when they usually give up the ghost so better to do something now.

[phatfil]

looking closer at this subject, the £10 solar gearbest option makes no mention of containing a diode, (afaik a component to ensure 1 way electricity transfer) so if plugged in 24/7 could bleed off power when not supplying it. so have gone for an ebay kit with a bit more wattage and diode, Im still unsure if a charger controller would be necessary too, these are not expensive (£5-10), www.gearbest.com/home-gadgets/pp_166831.html for example and carry an amp rating, does this refer to the charge load or the battery?? Im sure the car battery can supply more than 10a ??