Save up pocket money seems to be the approach to take . Ive just had a look at whats available on amazon the lidl offering is rather feeble for price and what is needed for a ducato 50psi versus 150 much larger engine size start capability. Thanks for your time.
A wee hobby horse of mine, but have you checked out capacitor type jump starters?
I first came across them quite some time ago and started looking into then seriously about a year ago. I look after "the Family Fleet" and help out others as well as being involved in vintage horticultural machinery so, from time to time I have need of a way to jump start "stuff". I have two workshop 12 volt batteries but, by their very nature, they live in the workshop so are often not handily with me in my car and I will not jump start vehicle to vehicle now a days because of all the potential electronics problems. At first I'd intended to get a heavy duty jump pack with a conventional battery - probably Li-ion these days. I was talking to a trade friend who does a lot of recovery work to get his opinion on what to buy and he said there's quite a few worth considering but the big problem with them, in his experience, is that people don't charge them so they don't work when needed. Also, of course, being batteries, they degrade with time. This led me on to doing more research which was when I came across "Ultra", some call them "Super" capacitors. If you're not "electronically minded", and I'm not, then in simple terms these are like batteries which can be charged up quickly and will then deliver starting current for a limited time - plenty long enough to start the vehicle. They will go flat quite quickly if left so are not like a conventional jump pack and can't really be used as a power bank. The clever bit though is that they consist of a bank of, usually, 5 or 6 of these capacitors each one being of around 2.5 volts capacity - bit like the cells in a lead acid battery. If you know anything about starting problems and conventional batteries then you'll know that most "flat" batteries aren't actually completely flat. A conventional battery will be unable to supply enough power to turn an engine over once the voltage drops to around the 10 volts or so and this is where the capacitor jump pack gets very clever. When you first connect it to the "Flat" battery - it has two conventional leads, one red one black - it internally connects the capacitors in parallel. so each capacitor is now subject to the "flat" battery voltage of, say, 10 volts. This enables the capacitors to charge fully (takes less than 5 minutes on my heavy duty pack) then you press the button which energises the pack and the "clever" electronics in the pack reconfigures the capacitors into a series connection - so now you've got them all connected in series which is each capacitor added together - around 13 volts or so depending on number of capacitors and exact state of charge and plenty enough to kick the engine into life. I've started several cars with mine, ranging from a couple of small cars and also my friend's large V6 Jaguar. The jump pack didn't break sweat even on the Jag.
This is the one I bought:
https://www.streetwizeaccessories.c...tarters/N-Capacitor-Jump-Starter-Green-SWPP20 Mine was for sale in Argos for around £150 there seem to be some good offers around on them. The Streetwise name I've been aware of for years and always connected with pretty DIY type quality. However I've changed my opinion. This is a serious piece of kit which seems to have plenty of power and now resides in my Scala's boot and goes everywhere with me. By the way, it doesn't have to be charged from the "flat" battery. It can be charged from any vehicle with a 12 volt battery and I'd not hesitate to do this if I had to as I think it's entirely safe, It also comes with a USB 13 amp plug charger in the box so can be charged from a wall socket if needs be. I think that takes much longer though.
Here's a video all about it, sorry for the "AI" voice but the video is quite descriptive. There was a good one showing a chap in the US - it's branded Keen Power over there by the way, almost certainly made in Taiwan or somewhere like that and badged up as per the seller - anyway, this chap was starting his very large diesel "DUALLY" with it, a far larger engine than any of ours over here. Ah Ha! found it. I've been searching for my original thread which I did when I bought this jump pack because it has a link to the guy with the truck! Here it is:
https://www.fiatforum.com/threads/jump-starters-and-jump-starting.515632/ So there you go. As you may have gathered I'm more than delighted with it. Hope you find this interesting. There is one thing to factor in though. Although very good indeed at jump starting you need to consider that that's all it really does. It's not a power bank, doesn't have a tyre inflator or built in light. So if that's important to you you'll need to look for one with a battery.
I know there's a lot to take in with this and I remember it took me some time to properly get my head round it. If you'd like to ask more then do just fire away. One last thing maybe worth considering, because it goes inert after being stored for a while, there's no possibility of a short circuit while it's kicking around in your boot!
Edit. By the way. If you're watching the chap with the big truck starting his Cummins engine, the first attempt is being made with the pack precharged. Maybe from the included charger or maybe from another vehicle or battery. The point is it's already fully charged. He goes through the on vehicle charging precedure later in the video.
I so hope not.
