Ping Jim Wilkins - Lithium Ion Jump Starter and Power Pack at Harbor Freight

Hi Jim,
Maybe you've seen this item at Harbor Freight. It's the first time I've noticed it. Thought you might find it of interest ;-) ==Viking Only: $79.99 Here's a powerful compact jump starter that can fit in your glove box. The lithium iron phosphate battery in this power pack is designed to maintain a charge for extended periods - 70% over 2 years. Safer than lead acid and Li-ion batteries, this power pack has a higher power density for more efficient power transfer. Built-in USB and 12VDC power ports charge your electronics and 12V appliances.
-Ultra-long life - holds 70% charge after 2 years, 5x more cycle life and 4x more cranks than lead acid batteries -Jump starter -USB/12V power bank -Flashlight -Automatic power-off to preserve battery life -Compatible with all smart phones and tablets" =http://www.harborfreight.com/Lithium-Ion-Jump-Starter-and-Power-Pack-62749.html

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Read the negative reviews on it.
The local store told me they were out and not expecting more in the next shipment, so I called around for price and local availability (returnability) and bought a LiPo Whistler WJS-3500 in WalMort.
The HF one has a 6A limit on the skimpy-looking coax output port. The laptop power bricks I intended to use with it surge to 9A. The WJS-3500 has no separate output so I bought an EC5 connector and made one, with a 30A fuse and Powerpoles to fit all my other cables. It supplied 22A for a quick test. The controller in the jumpstarting cable needs to see external battery voltage and limits cranking time.
Then I stopped at HF while shopping for something else, and saw one on the shelf. I don't really need two expensive Li jumpstarters. Hopefully I won't need one, but I had just measured the capacity of a 5 year old "18 Amp-Hr" AGM jumpstarter that I top up monthly at 4.5 A-H. Maybe this LiPo battery will hold up longer. I can squeeze long life from flooded lead batteries but not sealed ones.
--jsw

On Fri, 30 Dec 2016 14:50:21 -0500
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They changed their website code awhile back and the reviews don't show anymore. I can still get to them but not with my default browser settings. If I'm serious about buying something I'll go through the trouble to read'em...
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I suspected you already knew of it and had checked it out...
I've got around 1600 CCA under the hood of my old truck, if the batteries are up to snuff (pretty sure one is kaput right now). Makes me smile to think they would advertise these as "jump starters". Might work for my motorcycle if the battery was just borderline :)

On Fri, 30 Dec 2016 16:06:32 -0400, Leon Fisk
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Mine cranks the Corvair engine quite briskly as the only battery. Don't know how long though.

On Fri, 30 Dec 2016 22:38:30 -0500, snipped-for-privacy@snyder.on.ca wrote:
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AFAIK, the Corvair is the -only- GM engine which cranks easily.
- May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house. --George Carlin

On Fri, 30 Dec 2016 21:01:37 -0800, Larry Jaques
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This CorvAir engine has a Ford planetary permanent magnet starter and a 64 inch prop on it.
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On Sat, 31 Dec 2016 01:33:32 -0500, snipped-for-privacy@snyder.on.ca wrote:
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The prop doesn't matter at cranking speeds, but I didn't know Ford ever made a geared starter. I don't recall seeing or hearing of them back when I wrenched. Chrysler and Toyota, yes. And GMs only had the harsh gear noise when the shims weren't correct. Heh, heh, heh.
I'll bet that plane is quiet. Corvairs are so much better engines than VW, in every aspect. (/proud ex-Corvair owner)
- May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house. --George Carlin

On Sat, 31 Dec 2016 08:27:50 -0800, Larry Jaques
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The PMGR starter is almost universal on late model Fords. They look like a compact standard starter.
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On Fri, 06 Jan 2017 20:16:11 -0500
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Interesting product. I hadn't noticed these yet... They used to have an early version of these at one of the local GM plants in the guard shack. This was 20 years ago. It got a lot of use from what the guys told me. Made a lot of sense for that situation.
Reviews are all over the place on them though. I would be curious to try one on my truck. It would be interesting to see how it handled the 80 amp glow plug draw for 10 seconds and then get hit with the real starting current. Especially at 15 deg which is where we've been at for the last week or so.
Way out of my price range though. I'll just buy a new Group 78 battery for ~$90 and replace the questionable one first. Heck I could replace both of them and still have money left over :)

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I just gave the Whistler "Mighty" WJS-3500 Lithium jump starter a quick check, using a high-resistance 12V 18A-H AGM (sealed lead-acid) to imitate a dead car battery and the HF carbon pile to pull the starting current. On the first try it reached 150A before the beeping began. The second triggered the Mighty's red alarm LED, perhaps because the AGM voltage went to zero.
While trying to force some charge at 18V into the AGM I loaded the Mighty at ~4A with 3 Ohms through a home-made fused cable until an rc hobby Wattmeter showed 1.0 Amp-Hour drained. The voltage dropped from 12.5V to 11.5V and the charge status is 3 of 5 lit. I suspect the model name implies 3500 mA-hr cells. 4A approximates the drain of a laptop with an auto-air 12V power supply.
I think what this shows is that the Mighty's cable protector module is very to overly sensitive to a bad battery and may refuse to start with plenty of charge left. After the first successful try the carbon pile's voltmeter dropped to zero when the carbons first made contact, which I previously measured as below 10A.
The AGM is too weak to provide 1A although its voltage implies a full charge. Initially 18V forced less than 50mA, after a few minutes it began accepting 0.25A at 14.3V. In my experience they fail with either high resistance (sulfation?) or a dead cell, 10V out. I don't have a car battery in typical poor condition, those get traded in. I kept a couple of weak AGMs to experiment with, like removing the valve caps and adding distilled water, which didn't help much.
Perhaps the setup for the next attempt would be a low resistance in series with a good battery to better simulate a drained car battery.
-jsw

On Fri, 30 Dec 2016 13:16:53 -0400, Leon Fisk
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Mine is not from Harbor Fright, but it is basically the same thing - Volt Reactor JP08, suitable for starting engines 5.4 liters and up - from AvtekElectronics. Paid $99 Canadian for it a year or 2 ago - so very close to the HF price. (at a $0.74 canadian dollar)

On Fri, 30 Dec 2016 15:21:11 -0500, snipped-for-privacy@snyder.on.ca wrote:
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How well do these and supercapacitors work for starting cars? May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house. --George Carlin

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I don't know yet and am not about to drain a good battery to find out.
The test I'm planning is to connect it to a battery through some resistance to convince it that it's connected to a weak battery, then load it to its 200A rating with the HF carbon pile. I have to figure out what I have that can rapidly measure and record that much DC current since the manual implies that it may shut off after 3 seconds.
If not connected to a battery it lights a Fault LED and outputs about 6V. They don't want you to use it as the only vehicle battery. Unlike Lead-acids, Lithiums can't tolerate an overcharge from the alternator. --jsw

On Fri, 30 Dec 2016 19:37:26 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
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No? Why _ever_ not?
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That long? (Wow, that's brief.)
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Hence the BMS for those. Close maintenance on each cell.
- May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house. --George Carlin

On Fri, 30 Dec 2016 20:52:15 -0800, Larry Jaques
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They are NOT to be left connected to the charging system through the "booster" connection, there is a "charging" connector to charge them through that connects to the BMS
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http://www.chargingchargers.com/tutorials/batteries.html "SLI batteries are not designed for repeated deep discharge, and their life is considerably reduced when subjected to this."
SLI means Starting/Lighting/Ignition, the normal car battery, as opposed to Deep Discharge. I think I damaged a battery with -one- deep discharge using an ATV winch.
-jsw

On Sat, 31 Dec 2016 07:59:39 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
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Literal much? The facetiousity factor on that query was 100%.
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Ouch! That's something I've never seen. Were you winching it and yourself out of a 100' gorge after an Evel Knievel moment?
- May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house. --George Carlin

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Some readers may not know that.
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I was happy to watch and cheer on my friends' aerial vehicular antics, and let them think they could do at least some things I couldn't (wouldn't). If I want to blunder through the air I can rent a Cessna.
In that case a large oak tree on the steep hill behind my neighbor's house broke at the rotted base and wedged into another one, instead of crushing his shed just beyond.
The only way to (relatively) safely free it was to winch the lower end uphill after cautiously lifting it off the ground and trimming the ragged end square.
It was entangled by multiple branches so I couldn't know that the trunk wouldn't jerk sideways toward me as it slid down if I cut short lengths off the bottom, as I might with a simpler tree hung up in one fork.
I had a tension gauge in line to warn if I was close to overloading my gear. It took up to 3500 lbs (in addition to its own weight) to pull the tree loose, even with the lower end lifted off the ground.
-jsw

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Have you used it enough to review it?
My experience is with high-end industrial battery packs with sophisticated supervisory circuits which kept the cells balanced. We've seen what happens with the low-end batteries in hoverboards. This is my interest: http://www.businessinsider.com/home-battery-rival-tesla-powerwall-2-2016-10 "For reference, the average person uses 30 kWh of power a day."
For comparison I've been using 4 to 5 KWH per day for decades and paid about $200 for 2 KWH of lead-acids. My inverter is an APC1400 pure sine UPS that was free (broken?) at a flea market. I wrote a program to monitor it on this laptop.
-jsw

On Fri, 30 Dec 2016 18:34:51 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
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"Looks like you're using an ad blocker." Yes, and I'll continue. I use an average of 10kWh/day, and that's with electric water heating and air conditioner. I'd love a used Tesla battery and BMS, if anyone wants to get rid of the shabby old thing. (A GM, Ford, Toyota, or Nissan battery pack would be OK, too.)
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That's a great low usage. Congrats. I should cut my electric bill in half once I get the solar up and running. It's a $2k investment, but it's also off-gridable.
- May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house. --George Carlin