Easiest ‘fail safe’ jump starter - ever
Wouldn’t it be impossibly excellent if you could jump start your car using the energy trapped in a notionally ‘flat’ battery? Now you can
One of the most frustrating things about having a flat battery is: there’s typically plenty of energy to do the job left in the notionally ‘flat’ battery - the battery has merely lost the capacity to deliver that energy fast enough to crank the engine.
It’s frustrating for carmakers, too - all that expensive R&D to iron out those complex interactions. And yet, two of the least reliable aspects of the modern car continue to be two components carmakers don’t actually make - the tyres and the battery.
Here in ‘Straya - it’s potentially pretty easy to be in the middle of nowhere when this kind of thing lets you down. That’s generally not fun.
Basically, with a flat battery you have more than enough energy, but not nearly enough power. The basic problem with a flat battery is this - heaps of energy is left in the battery. The lights still work. You can recharge your phone. It’ll run the radio for hours. You can even hear the solenoid engaging the starter on the ring gear - if you attempt a start.
The battery can’t deliver the power you need to crank the starter against the internal friction and compression of the engine.
Would it not therefore be excellent if you had a device capable of trickling the energy in over several seconds to several minutes, and then punching it back out in a starter-friendly high power discharge?
See also:
This is my review of the OzCharge Rescue Mate 1000 - big brother of the Rescue Mate 500. It’s not a battery - it’s full of capacitors and mad electronic voodoo. This allows it to suck up energy slowly and punch out power fast.
Read more at Rescue Mate >>
I thought: ‘How sick can a car battery actually get, before it’s totally useless in this context?’
How about if the voltage drops from 12 to five, and the cold cranking current drops from (say) 300 amps to just two That’s a pretty sick battery.
Ultimately, using this anorexic USB power bank, we’re good to go in about 17 minutes.
It’s dead easy. The unit says ‘ready’ when it’s … ahhh ... ready. And once it’s ready it’ll hold the charge for a few days.
Good safety tip - shut down all the other electrical ancillaries, like the lights, radio and the HVAC, before jump starting. You want as much power as possible going into the starting process, right?
Then just wait for the ‘run’ mode to time out before disconnecting the unit - that’s more for your own safety than anything else. Because devices with accrued electrical energy deserve respect.
So - full disclosure. OzCharge contacted me. Said: please review our cool product. I said: OK. But they’re not paying me to talk them up. I kinda like it when organisations are confident enough about their product to roll the dice in exactly this way.
I do have this worrying tendency to say what I really think. You might have noticed. I’m very keen on bullshit filtration. At least then you know what I actually think, right?
The Rescue Mate is a lot better than a battery-type jump starter. Battery packs go flat. Most people are not disciplined enough to charge up every two to three months.
Balance of probabilities: you’ll forget to charge yours. It’ll be flat when you need it. Just like a flat spare tyre, only electrical, and just as useful. Because: Out of sight; out of mind, right?
