Power Pack / Jump Starter to suit Diesel

[Lance]

I'm looking for a jump start park to suit a Diesel.
Lots ovem about, but I guess some are good, and some not so........

Any recommendations / links on a reasonably priced unit ?

[Peter]

I purchased one from Jaycar about 18 months back making sure it was suitable for a diesel. Cost $99-00 It is a bit bulky about 6"x 3"x 2". I charge it every 3 months and always just before we head off. Fortunately I have never been necessary to use it.

[native pepper]

Have gone through a number of these so called jump starters, they work really well for the first few times, then lose the power to kick the engine over. I put it down to bad charging regimes and now use them for portable lights.

[Barboots]

Just use your 18v power tool batteries [emoji6]

[T1 Terry]

If find one that has lithium batteries, first find out just what chemistry cells they use. Forget about a lead acid battery type jump starter, might get a few uses if you keep it charged but the high load will destroy it.

T1 Terry

[native pepper]

Terry, all mine are lifepo4 they say. Tested the chargers for them and they seem to work the same as lead acid chargers. We had an EV show here in Tas not long ago, talked to a bloke with a home built EV and he told me he built his home charger himself and it pumps his li-ion pack at full charge until it is full, has no adsorb, float or anything else. He couldn't find a dedicated high amp li-ion charger, so built his own, it's just a big single stage charger.

Have also tried lithium vehicle batteries, which lasted just 2-3 years before they would not turn the engine on a cold day and then wouldn't start it when it was warm/hot. That was a couple of years ago and haven't used any more, went back to lead acid.

Both the jump starters and vehicle starter seemed to have the same problems, still use the vehicle lifepo4 starter for other things, the jump starters to still have power and all charged up, but won't provide the energy to start a vehicle, great lights though.

In regard to the lifepo4 vehicle starters, think a lot of their problems are related to the dramatic temperature changes under the hood. Next time have a go with them, which will be in the next couple of months, will locate the pack outside the engine bay and see how that goes. The new vehicle starters, have a built in bms so should be better and before I get one, will find out what parameters the bms uses and if it can be changed.

In my mind, they are excellent concepts, but like all approaches to lithium and especially lifepoi4, it's the charge regimes which cause the problems, in my opinion. They are still persisting with lead acid charging, so you may only get the same or a bit more life out of them as lead acid. Know others with off grid systems, that use altered lead acid chargers, which they claim are fine for lifepo4. But more and more are not preforming for them any more and they are all about 5 years old, have lost capacity and no longer draw big amps. Which seems the same with my vehicle jump and normal starters, bad charging regime, seems to equal loss of capacity and output.

[T1 Terry]

My Kombi has a very used and abused 4 cell Winston 90Ah battery as the start battery, the Falcon had an equally used and abused 4 cell battery as does the Prius. All the cells are over 7 yrs old now but still work fine for this short term power draw but don't have a lot of actual storage capacity remaining due to the hard life they suffered in other test set ups. Accidentally being connected directly to the solar for 6 weeks while we were away didn't do them a lot of good, but that was more than 3 yr ago and a lot of those cells are still doing this sort of work, it didn't kill all of them and very few of them were actually completely dead. What killed those that did die was either busted cases and the electrolyte evaporated or it was one of a group of cells in parallel and it dragged the others down to zero voltage while we weren't there to hear the alarms. There has been much upgrading of the control systems since then

[BobnBev]

Yes Talking about jump start . The little 40 amph batterys I picked up some years back worked real fine . When in wa camped on the beach a chap a few doors down left his fridge on and the v8 tojo was dead flat. When I carried the little 40 amph Lithium battery down he asked , what do you think that will do . Hooked it up and it spun the v8 like a big 200 la . Then he wanted to know all about this little yellow thing..
Needs to say I told a small fib or 2.. smile... How dare he question my little Lithium yellow thing...Bob ...

[Eddy]

Hi Bob

The little 40 amph batterys I picked up some years back worked real fine

Is that a drop in lithium battery primarily intended for use in a motorbike ?

Lance did you ever buy a portable jump starter ?

Thanks
Eddy

[Peter and Sandra]

I've had similar experience to NP.
I bought a lithium battery for my quaddie a couple of years ago and after 12 months or so it would not crank it over quick enough when the engine was cold unless it had just come off charge and then only for about 30 seconds, if it didn't start then it had to go back on the charger.
I went through everything, cleaned and checked the starter, all battery connections etc etc to no avail, pulled the same size LA out of the mates quaddie and it started first push of the button. The lithium battery now runs the electric fence and the battery out of it (same size) now starts the quaddie every time on the first go.