Battery booster / jump starter?

[AnthonyH]

I want to buy a battery booster or jump starter, what are the options?

I've seen separate batteries that you can buy, these are generally lithium ion rechargeable packs.

But I can also vaguely remember something along the lines of a pack that takes the last bit of charge out of the old battery and then gives one big boost. What are these called?

 

[ZaphodB]

I want to buy a battery booster or jump starter, what are the options?

Are you having issues with the car?

What is the reason to want one?

 

[AnthonyH]

The batery is healthy, its more that around 15 minutes of loud music with the engine off will drain it. I've done this twice now, so i'd like to carry a charge pack of some description.

 

[Greasytrucker]

The batery is healthy, its more that around 15 minutes of loud music with the engine off will drain it. I've done this twice now, so i'd like to carry a charge pack of some description.

If your battery is going flat within 15 minutes of using a stereo with the engine off then I doubt your battery is very healthy

 

[ZaphodB]

If your battery is going flat within 15 minutes of using a stereo with the engine off then I doubt your battery is very healthy

Yours is a 500x ?.... which has, say a 60 or 70AH battery... which roughly (on paper) equates to you pulling north of 200A (continuously) for 15 minutes on a fully charged battery before depleting it. (music obviously isn't a constant load and it won't be anywhere near 200A)

so I totally agree, your battery is not healthy. I'd spend your money on a new battery.

 

[AnthonyH]

Yours is a 500x ?.... which has, say a 60 or 70AH battery... which roughly (on paper) equates to you pulling north of 200A (continuously) for 15 minutes on a fully charged battery before depleting it. (music obviously isn't a constant load and it won't be anywhere near 200A)

so I totally agree, your battery is not healthy. I'd spend your money on a new battery.

I have a battery tester, which says the battery is 90% health. So it is fine.

Someone else was in the car listening to music, with lights on, and aircon i believe. While i mucked around with wheel arches outside etc.

 

[AnthonyH]

I'll ping @Pugglt Auld Jock , who i believe might know about the super capacitor item i'm trying to recall.

 

[ZaphodB]

What sound levels are you listening to ? and what size is the car audio system?

If you want to continue using the car like this , you need more storage (i.e. more batteries , and an alternator upgrade to be able to keep them at a good charge state)
The supercap route isn't a silver bullet, it's just another method of storage, it will equalise to the main battery voltage and more expensive than a 2nd battery and will need charging up just like a battery. (and the larger ones bloody dangerous in the wrong hands )

Still not a patch on a car battery for levels of storage though.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

If your battery is going flat within 15 minutes of using a stereo with the engine off then I doubt your battery is very healthy

Yours is a 500x ?.... which has, say a 60 or 70AH battery... which roughly (on paper) equates to you pulling north of 200A (continuously) for 15 minutes on a fully charged battery before depleting it. (music obviously isn't a constant load and it won't be anywhere near 200A)

so I totally agree, your battery is not healthy. I'd spend your money on a new battery.

I have a battery tester, which says the battery is 90% health. So it is fine.

Someone else was in the car listening to music, with lights on, and aircon i believe. While i mucked around with wheel arches outside etc.

Hmm? Listening to the music WITH LIGHTS ON and AIRCON? So, if headlights, that's going to pull quite a bit of current? But for aircon to be working the engine must be running or the compressor couldn't work? So the alternator must be charging to a greater or lesser extent? I'm confused.

Hi Anthony, I've just picked up on this thread - was working late getting a project in my garden finished off yesterday before the rain promised for today. And it's raining right now! Anyway, Can I ask what your battery tester is? I've been looking into buying one of these myself and have come across a number of reviews which seem to say that basically, there's a lot of cheap ones out there which don't give reliable results. Maybe it's telling you the battery is fine when it's actually not?

I'll ping @Pugglt Auld Jock , who i believe might know about the super capacitor item i'm trying to recall.

Consider me "pinged"!

This is the one I bought: https://www.argos.co.uk/product/4198774 It's one of the largest capacity ones you can buy at a reasonable price - claims to be able to start up to 8 litre engines - I've now used it three times "in anger" The first was to start a SEAT Ibiza which was only managing to "click" it's solenoid. The pack charged up quickly and fully from the partially depleted battery and started the car quickly. That was back in May, a month or so after I bought the Pack. Then, a bit later, My pal with the Jag asked for a jump, again! I've known this chap for many years, he worked in motor finance and is a handy guy to be friends with, so I humour him. He's retired, like me, and goes off on "adventures" abroad leaving the car standing for weeks at a time in his driveway, of course it then won't start when he wants it. I've had lengthy conversations with him about maintenance charging etc, but he just says, Yes, but you always get it going for me Jock! I really don't mind helping him out when needed, it usually takes all of half an hour out of my day and causes me no problems. Anyway, he was in a hurry, as usual, so I didn't check battery voltage, just clamped the packs leads to the battery, pushed the button and the display said it was charging up. I think the battery was pretty low because the solenoid wasn't clicking and the pack took about 7 or 8 minutes to charge. It charged fully so I pressed the button again and he twisted the ignition key and the engine cranked over enthusiastically and fired up almost immediately. Very impressive as it's got quite a biggish engine in it.

The only other one I've done was my friend's Ferris ride on mower. This is a large commercial rear steering three cutter mower _ with a V twin Briggs and Stratton petrol engine which I love because it sounds like a Harley when ticking over. It's actually a machine I know well because I had one for doing large areas when I had the squad of gardeners I've talked about elsewhere. Trouble with mowers is no body runs them through the winter so they end up with flat batteries. The battery on this one was managing to throw the pinion into mesh with the flywheel but then didn't have enough Oomph to turn the engine over. This one interested me because the battery is quite small and was obviously pretty flat - would it be able to charge the quite large capacitors in my jump pack? I didn't have my multimeter with me so couldn't check the actual battery voltage. I think the jump pack was still about 60% charged from the last time I used it - on the Jag. The instructions that come with the pack say to always allow the pack to fully recharge before disconnecting from the vehicle it's just started, so I did that after starting the Jag. Anyway, it charged up just fine from the small, motor cycle type, Ferris battery. Unsurprisingly it had no problem starting the mower at all.

So all is still going well with the capacitor based jump pack. I've been very surprised by how long it seems to hold a charge, being capacitor based I was expecting it to self discharge within just a few days but it seems to hold a useful charge for weeks!

So I'm very pleased with it. You need to bear in mind it's not a long term electricity storage solution like a battery based jump pack. It's likely you'll need to charge it from the vehicle battery before you use it so it's not something you'd buy if you want a powerbank to use with a computer or mobile phone. It's designed specifically to do jump staring and, in my experience so far, it does that very well indeed. So why did I buy this instead of a battery device? Well, I wanted something with considerable capacity - this claims to be able to start up to 8 litre engines. I also wanted to not have to remember to charge it up periodically - I often find myself going to use my cordless devices only to find their batteries are flat because I've forgotten to charge them from time to time - A capacitor based pack charges fully in a very short time, I'm averaging out with the Streetwize at around 4 to 5 minutes I'd guess. I also like that it's potential capacity does not diminish with time because it has no battery to sulphate or degrade. also it has a projected life time around twice that of a battery based device - they claim in excess of 10 years.

Having used it several times now, I'm delighted with it and it's doing exactly what I thought it would. The only reservation I would have, especially if you buy one of the smaller cheaper ones, would be regarding it's ability with diesels. A diesel presents it with a bit of a problem because it has heater plugs which draw a lot of electricity before you operate the starter motor. Larger devices, such as the one I bought here, should cope with smaller diesels but smaller devices may struggle because they just don't have the capacity to operate the plugs/manifold heater and then still have enough left to turn the engine over. Also, it requires the "flat" battery to still have some charge in it for it to work. In most circumstances this is not going to be a problem because few "flat" batteries are truely "flat" and will likely still have sufficient voltage in them to charge the pack (I've detailed how this works in a previous thread which I'll post a link to at the end of this). It's worth being aware that it's very unlikely any of the smaller "glovebox" type battery based jump packs would be able to start a vehicle with a deeply discharged battery either.

If you want to read more, here's a link to the thread I started back when I was first thinking of buying one: https://www.fiatforum.com/threads/jump-starters-and-jump-starting.515632/ I'm no "expert" on this subject but have researched them more than most, I would guess, and have many years experience of jump starting vehicles. So if you want to ask a question please do go ahead.

EDIT. In addition to the above. If you run into a situation where the vehicle's battery is really so flat it's below the threshold (5 volts) where the pack can charge from it then you can safely charge it from another donor vehicle - Say my pal's jag battery was down to just a couple of volts, then I could connect the pack leads to my own vehicle and charge it up from my vehicle's battery. The pack will hold it's charge for several days and the leads are not live after charging until you press the button to initiate discharging so the pack can then be safely disconnected from my own car and reconnected to the car with the flat battery. Press the button and you're good to go! Also there's a USB mains charger which comes with the pack in the box. So, as a last resort, the pack can be charged from the mains. It might take quite some time though, maybe an hour or so id the pack had no residual charge in it. I was interested to see, when I first unboxed mine, that it still had charge in it (I think it was about 40% charged?) and it must have been on a boat from China and then in a warehouse in UK for some time before I received it. So, in most situations, you're not going to be charging from zero.

 

[ZaphodB]

But for aircon to be working the engine must be running or the compressor couldn't work?

Good point lol

Your booster will no doubt have a DC to DC converter (on the 'output') that takes less than 12V back into the booster to bring those internal booster caps back up to 12V.. clever idea.

then once the caps are up at 12V , it'll indicate it's up to full charge and you can then select output mode to disconnect the DC-DC converter, and then switch the charged caps on to the output.

The super caps I was talking about in my previous post were the sort car audio fans add to the system to reduce the dips in car voltage on heavy bass transients.

 

[AnthonyH]

Hmm? Listening to the music WITH LIGHTS ON and AIRCON? So, if headlights, that's going to pull quite a bit of current? But for aircon to be working the engine must be running or the compressor couldn't work? So the alternator must be charging to a greater or lesser extent? I'm confused.

I meant the heater / blower was on, rather than the aircon. The aircon needs regassing, and doesn't actually cool anything.

Hi Anthony, I've just picked up on this thread - was working late getting a project in my garden finished off yesterday before the rain promised for today. And it's raining right now! Anyway, Can I ask what your battery tester is? I've been looking into buying one of these myself and have come across a number of reviews which seem to say that basically, there's a lot of cheap ones out there which don't give reliable results. Maybe it's telling you the battery is fine when it's actually not?

I have a Topdon BT100, there's a youtube review below, its excellent, i've used it many times and completely trust it.

Consider me "pinged"!

Better than Tangoed

This is the one I bought: https://www.argos.co.uk/product/4198774 It's one of the largest capacity ones you can buy at a reasonable price - claims to be able to start up to 8 litre engines - I've now used it three times "in anger" The first was to start a SEAT Ibiza which was only managing to "click" it's solenoid. The pack charged up quickly and fully from the partially depleted battery and started the car quickly. That was back in May, a month or so after I bought the Pack. Then, a bit later, My pal with the Jag asked for a jump, again! I've known this chap for many years, he worked in motor finance and is a handy guy to be friends with, so I humour him. He's retired, like me, and goes off on "adventures" abroad leaving the car standing for weeks at a time in his driveway, of course it then won't start when he wants it. I've had lengthy conversations with him about maintenance charging etc, but he just says, Yes, but you always get it going for me Jock! I really don't mind helping him out when needed, it usually takes all of half an hour out of my day and causes me no problems. Anyway, he was in a hurry, as usual, so I didn't check battery voltage, just clamped the packs leads to the battery, pushed the button and the display said it was charging up. I think the battery was pretty low because the solenoid wasn't clicking and the pack took about 7 or 8 minutes to charge. It charged fully so I pressed the button again and he twisted the ignition key and the engine cranked over enthusiastically and fired up almost immediately. Very impressive as it's got quite a biggish engine in it.

The only other one I've done was my friend's Ferris ride on mower. This is a large commercial rear steering three cutter mower _ with a V twin Briggs and Stratton petrol engine which I love because it sounds like a Harley when ticking over. It's actually a machine I know well because I had one for doing large areas when I had the squad of gardeners I've talked about elsewhere. Trouble with mowers is no body runs them through the winter so they end up with flat batteries. The battery on this one was managing to throw the pinion into mesh with the flywheel but then didn't have enough Oomph to turn the engine over. This one interested me because the battery is quite small and was obviously pretty flat - would it be able to charge the quite large capacitors in my jump pack? I didn't have my multimeter with me so couldn't check the actual battery voltage. I think the jump pack was still about 60% charged from the last time I used it - on the Jag. The instructions that come with the pack say to always allow the pack to fully recharge before disconnecting from the vehicle it's just started, so I did that after starting the Jag. Anyway, it charged up just fine from the small, motor cycle type, Ferris battery. Unsurprisingly it had no problem starting the mower at all.

So all is still going well with the capacitor based jump pack. I've been very surprised by how long it seems to hold a charge, being capacitor based I was expecting it to self discharge within just a few days but it seems to hold a useful charge for weeks!

So I'm very pleased with it. You need to bear in mind it's not a long term electricity storage solution like a battery based jump pack. It's likely you'll need to charge it from the vehicle battery before you use it so it's not something you'd buy if you want a powerbank to use with a computer or mobile phone. It's designed specifically to do jump staring and, in my experience so far, it does that very well indeed. So why did I buy this instead of a battery device? Well, I wanted something with considerable capacity - this claims to be able to start up to 8 litre engines. I also wanted to not have to remember to charge it up periodically - I often find myself going to use my cordless devices only to find their batteries are flat because I've forgotten to charge them from time to time - A capacitor based pack charges fully in a very short time, I'm averaging out with the Streetwize at around 4 to 5 minutes I'd guess. I also like that it's potential capacity does not diminish with time because it has no battery to sulphate or degrade. also it has a projected life time around twice that of a battery based device - they claim in excess of 10 years.

Having used it several times now, I'm delighted with it and it's doing exactly what I thought it would. The only reservation I would have, especially if you buy one of the smaller cheaper ones, would be regarding it's ability with diesels. A diesel presents it with a bit of a problem because it has heater plugs which draw a lot of electricity before you operate the starter motor. Larger devices, such as the one I bought here, should cope with smaller diesels but smaller devices may struggle because they just don't have the capacity to operate the plugs/manifold heater and then still have enough left to turn the engine over. Also, it requires the "flat" battery to still have some charge in it for it to work. In most circumstances this is not going to be a problem because few "flat" batteries are truely "flat" and will likely still have sufficient voltage in them to charge the pack (I've detailed how this works in a previous thread which I'll post a link to at the end of this). It's worth being aware that it's very unlikely any of the smaller "glovebox" type battery based jump packs would be able to start a vehicle with a deeply discharged battery either.

If you want to read more, here's a link to the thread I started back when I was first thinking of buying one: https://www.fiatforum.com/threads/jump-starters-and-jump-starting.515632/ I'm no "expert" on this subject but have researched them more than most, I would guess, and have many years experience of jump starting vehicles. So if you want to ask a question please do go ahead.

Thanks for that. Its a batteryless supercapacitor. I can see a few of them online now. I also found a similar product by Durite, but they seem to have discontinued their product.

I'm a bit surprised that the capacitors hold charge for as long as they do, they might have some special chemistry that we don't know about.

I have a 1.6L diesel 500X, the battery is a monster and very heavy to lift so i'd rather leave it in place and jump it rather than take it out. I've never owned a diesel either. Online it says bump starting them is fine, but I can imagine a time when i can't do that.

I'm going to investigate further.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Good point lol

Your booster will no doubt have a DC to DC converter (on the 'output') that takes less than 12V back into the booster to bring those internal booster caps back up to 12V.. clever idea.

then once the caps are up at 12V , it'll indicate it's up to full charge and you can then select output mode to disconnect the DC-DC converter, and then switch the charged caps on to the output.

The super caps I was talking about in my previous post were the sort car audio fans add to the system to reduce the dips in car voltage on heavy bass transients.

Not being an electronics sort of guy, I really have no idea about the tech involved. However, in simple terms, I think how it works is that there is, in mine, a bank of six pretty hefty supercapacitors. I've read that each capacitor can potentially be charged to 2.7 volts. It also states in the "bumph" that it needs a battery with 5 volts before it can charge. So I think that what the pack is doing is connecting the capacitors in parallel to charge (you can hear a relay click when you turn it on to charge) in this configuration each capacitor is connected to the power source of at least 5 volts so there must be sufficient potential difference to charge it. The electronics presumably monitors this and a red LED displays. It breaks the circuit when the capacitors are charged and shows that it's ready on the display and with a green LED. When you press the button again you hear that click again - obviously a relay - and it starts a short countdown until it displays "Discharging". I guess that what's going on is that the capacitors are being reconfigured to a series connection? so, when connected in parallel the sum of voltage available from the capacitor bank is the same as any individual capacitor ie 2.7 volts. However, connect them in series and it becomes the sum of them all - so 6 times 2.7 volts. The spec details that it's limited to 15 volts, presumably to avoid exceeding any electronic thresholds? I've read that modern vehicles with "intelligent" battery charging can charge at around 18 volts under certain circumstances - I'd guess when doing regenerative charging maybe? so limiting output to 15 volts is probably pretty safe even for older vehicles. Other designs of super capacitor jump starters use five capacitors of much the same design so will charge to around 13.5 volts? so will not require such sophisticated electronics to keep under control?

While messing about with it in my workshop I've observed that it seems to drop the donor battery by about 1.0 to 1.5 volts to achieve a full charge. I suppose this will depend on the charge still in the pack when you start to charge it and on the size/capacity of the donor battery and probably has bearing on the need for the donor battery to have not less than 5 volts in it when charging is initiated.

 

[ZaphodB]

I'm a bit surprised that the capacitors hold charge for as long as they do, they might have some special chemistry that we don't know about.

They're just MASSIVE value caps ** , with no load attached they will retain terminal voltage for a lonnng time.

** A reasonably common (considered) large value cap is usually say 10,000uF (that's 0.01F) , these supercaps are whole farads !

I've looked into the argos one, it's got 3000F worth of caps (rated at 2.7V) whether it series them up the make ~12V or outputs via another DC-DC converter is not known though.
You have to take extra special care to slowly discharge before removing any from the PCB.

Leakage current typically fractions of mA's (depending on value)

They don't last forever , they start to leak electrolyte and become useless.

 

[AnthonyH]

They're just MASSIVE value caps ** , with no load attached they will retain terminal voltage for a lonnng time.

** A reasonably common (considered) large value cap is usually say 10,000uF (that's 0.01F) , these supercaps are whole farads !

I've looked into the argos one, it's got 3000F worth of caps (rated at 2.7V) whether it series them up the make ~12V or outputs via another DC-DC converter is not known though.

I dug out the picture of the capacitors from the youtube video linked in the previous thread by Jock.

They look impressive!

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

I meant the heater / blower was on, rather than the aircon. The aircon needs regassing, and doesn't actually cool anything.



I have a Topdon BT100, there's a youtube review below, its excellent, i've used it many times and completely trust it.





Better than Tangoed



Thanks for that. Its a batteryless supercapacitor. I can see a few of them online now. I also found a similar product by Durite, but they seem to have discontinued their product.

I'm a bit surprised that the capacitors hold charge for as long as they do, they might have some special chemistry that we don't know about.

I have a 1.6L diesel 500X, the battery is a monster and very heavy to lift so i'd rather leave it in place and jump it rather than take it out. I've never owned a diesel either. Online it says bump starting them is fine, but I can imagine a time when i can't do that.

I'm going to investigate further.

That's one of the brands I've been looking at - they do seem to get a good review. I'll probably go with the BT200 if I go for that brand. I'm also interested in the Foxwell BT 715 which is a bit more pricy and I don't know much about yet - but Gendan sell it and I trust them to sell "good stuff"

Like you, I'm also surprised to find it holds it's charge for so long. Not my experience of capacitors at all. For instance, they say to disconnect air bags for maybe 10 minutes before working on them to allow capacitors to discharge?

At the end of the day, for diesels, I don't think you can beat a nice big old donor battery. I kept the 72 AH battery from my 1.9tdi SEAT Cordoba, which I'd just renewed before I scrapped her - as you do It starts pretty much anything I want to! Luckily there's only one diesel in the family and it's a relative "tiddler" (1,4 Kia) which I think the pack would cope with. When that one gets changed I doubt if there will; be another diesel replacing it and probably, by then, it'll be an electric vehicle and I'll be so old and decrepit i won't care!

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

I dug out the picture of the capacitors from the youtube video linked in the previous thread by Jock.

View attachment 470210

They look impressive!

Yeah! can you imagine the mayhem if you shorted a fully charged one of them! A change of underwear would be the least of your problems!

 

[ZaphodB]

Like you, I'm also surprised to find it holds it's charge for so long. Not my experience of capacitors at all. For instance, they say to disconnect air bags for maybe 10 minutes before working on them to allow capacitors to discharge?

Like I said the difference between capacitors used in general electronics (10,000uF is considered a large cap is, and there'll be nothing larger than 1000uF in a car if that), these super caps (as an ensemble in your pack are 3000 whole farads (3000F)

That's about 8000 Coloumbs of charge, a typical car battery (60AH) has just over 20,000 coloumbs of charge.

The difference is how long the output can last, the booster only needs to work for 30 seconds or so, if that.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

They're just MASSIVE value caps ** , with no load attached they will retain terminal voltage for a lonnng time.

** A reasonably common (considered) large value cap is usually say 10,000uF (that's 0.01F) , these supercaps are whole farads !

I've looked into the argos one, it's got 3000F worth of caps (rated at 2.7V) whether it series them up the make ~12V or outputs via another DC-DC converter is not known though.
You have to take extra special care to slowly discharge before removing any from the PCB.

Leakage current typically fractions of mA's (depending on value)

They don't last forever , they start to leak electrolyte and become useless.

Yes, eventually they will fail I know, and you can't predict if you've got a "bad" one. However, I think they'll last longer than I'm going to have need of them. I definitely will not be opening the case! I had a very unpleasant encounter with a large capacitor on a compressor electric motor which I won't forget in a hurry - and ruined my trusty old AVO minor as, in my youthful ignorance, I had it set to ohms at the time! Damn! I've never bought an expensive meter since!

 

[ZaphodB]

Yes, eventually they will fail I know, and you can't predict if you've got a "bad" one. However, I think they'll last longer than I'm going to have need of them. I definitely will not be opening the case! I had a very unpleasant encounter with a large capacitor on a compressor electric motor which I won't forget in a hurry - and ruined my trusty old AVO minor as, in my youthful ignorance, I had it set to ohms at the time! Damn! I've never bought an expensive meter since!

These are several orders of magnitude higher in terms of value, thankfully they don't do higher voltage than a handful of volts.

 

[AnthonyH]

That's one of the brands I've been looking at - they do seem to get a good review. I'll probably go with the BT200 if I go for that brand. I'm also interested in the Foxwell BT 715 which is a bit more pricy and I don't know much about yet - but Gendan sell it and I trust them to sell "good stuff"

Like you, I'm also surprised to find it holds it's charge for so long. Not my experience of capacitors at all. For instance, they say to disconnect air bags for maybe 10 minutes before working on them to allow capacitors to discharge?

At the end of the day, for diesels, I don't think you can beat a nice big old donor battery. I kept the 72 AH battery from my 1.9tdi SEAT Cordoba, which I'd just renewed before I scrapped her - as you do It starts pretty much anything I want to! Luckily there's only one diesel in the family and it's a relative "tiddler" (1,4 Kia) which I think the pack would cope with. When that one gets changed I doubt if there will; be another diesel replacing it and probably, by then, it'll be an electric vehicle and I'll be so old and decrepit i won't care!

I've just looked to see what the difference between the Topdon BT 100 and 200 is. But i can't see what it is, nothing obvious anyway.

I suppose I could carry a donor battery in the car, its an option.