Jumper Cables

That's a great setup, what I like most is you have the battery pack in a metal housing, safest way to keep one imho.

 

Yeah, lithium makes me nervous. I only take that thing on trips. LOL I'm kidding a little but when you see the mess out there every day you get tainted. I've seen some really bad charging systems, and paid for a few from the cash register too. It's not hard to screw one up in a millisecond. I had a woman pull in and the paint on the hood was melting, smoke coming from under the hood. I lifted the hood and both pos/neg had slammed against the hood and arched off. Bungee cord holding the battery down. I told here I could not help her. She slammed the hood, reversed out and drove off in a huff. The battery blew before she hit the street. Took out a headlight, grill and AC condenser. Only $1000...lol
Zim

 

Same here.

 

oh no, now that was a really bad day...

 

Likewise. I’ve jumped trucks every way imaginable. So much that I don’t even know what I usually do. Never had any problems.

I do plan on buying a jumper pack on the company dime though. It sounds a lot more convenient than trying to drive a rear wheel work van through a snow bank to charge a diesel straight truck.

 

Me to, been jumping my tractor and other vehicles over a dozen times with my old tundra with cables hooked up directly to the battery, and never had an issue.

 

Me too!! I jumped my tractor yesterday - with our Tahoe (jumped it a lot lately - son is leaving the ignition on after hitting the kill switch). I've been doing it this way since I started driving (1978). I actually have the

$100 NOCO GB40 : 1000A UltraSafe Jump Starter – 12V Lithium Battery Booster Pack, Portable Jump Box, Power Bank & Jumper Cables - for 6.0L Gas and 3.0L Diesel Engines

NOCO GB40 and GB70 in all of our 5 vehicles, I just am in the habit of using cables I guess.

 

Do you just leave the NOCO Boost Plus in your vehicles all the time? The soaring heat from being left in a car/truck or the cold frigid weather for months does not cause them to lose charge?? I thought about getting one seeing how I'm a loner and would have to call a service garage for a jump when my battery in the Tacoma goes bad. I guess I could get use to carrying one in and out to the truck everytime I went to Walmart or the laundry mat.

 

I think the brand I have is Rugged Geek, it stays behind the back seat all year round and I probably only have to top it off a couple times a year. They also make jump boxes with capacitors instead of batteries, when you hook it up to the battery that needs a boost it charges the capacitors.

 

Thanks for the info. I like Interstate batteries and I see they have those booster packs like the NOCO. They are about $20 higher though. Have not decided on the namebrand which one to get yet but I think if I leave it in the truck I'll bring it in every 60 days and top the charge off.

 

I do leave it 100% of the time in my Lexus. I can check it after 6 months and it’s still nearly 100%. I have used it several times for friends and myself and it’s started first time every time. I will recharge it after using it although I don’t need to. It’s a great item to have in a disaster, too. You could recharge your cell phone many times. Oh I have the GB70.

 

Yeah we all do - to be honest my truck is seldom in a parking lot in the sun for very long, I keep it under the rear seat storage area. My other vehicles do and I check them usually once a month and I charge them (just top them off to full) probably every 3-4 months. However I bought one for my daughter's SUV - she is away at college. She parks in the sun there as she does not have a garage or covered parking. The NOCO stays in the back of her car in the netting behind the back seat. I've asked her to keep the cover over that area, she says she does (?). She comes home a couple times a year and I check it - it usually needs a LITTLE of a recharge. She has used it several times, when she drained her battery (playing the stereo with the car off between/after classes. The NOCO has worked every-time. I would not worry about it losing charge - just keep it under the seat and check it every so often. Good luck.

 

Good to hear! And thank you for the information.

 

I've jumped a number of vehicles and never run into issues. I've heard many different pieces of advice on the "proper" way to do it and often times I find myself unsuccessful when trying these "new" methods. My understanding is that it's the sparking that can cause the issues if not done right. But keep in mind, the issues are rare. You're more likely to just not be successful jumping the vehicle in the first place, in my experience.

 

I have a rechargeable Jump box that i keep in the Tacoma. I wouldn't be afraid to jump vehicle to vehicle as long as I'm the one doing it.
Box is way easier though.

 

Good question. I'm not an automotive charging system expert and I'm working academically here from what I know about the circuit. If anyone has a different answer please jump in.

This is what I think happens.

When the dead car is not running and the alternator is creating 0V and there is no problem.

Once it's starts, for a short period of time, both alternators have voltage output and this might be a problem. However, both alternators should have output diodes that prevent reverse currents. There is a bunch of disgusting math that that I have long forgotten but this also creates a diode-or gate. This means the output of of the highest one will provide most of current and the lower voltage one will provide ~0A.

This is where it gets a bit weird and I'm sort of guessing on what happens. One of the alternators will have voltage on the output slightly higher than it's true output, This this may confuse the voltage regulator on lower voltage side and it will try to adjust the output the opposite way, meaning lower the output.

For example lets say your donor car's output voltage is 13.4 and the dead car (once running) is 13.7. The donor car voltage regulator will tell the alternator to decrease it's voltage. Of course it didn't work and gets reduced again and it will eventually reduce it's to nothing, if that's possible. I also don't know the time between sampling the voltage.

 

Oh I've got a good jumping story that happened to be a few weeks ago and is a good reason why spending money on quality cables is worth it.

So my friend gives me a call and his car just "turned off" while driving up a hill on the freeway near my house. I drive out there and car has a dead battery, no lights. Thinking the alternator probably went out I wanted to hook up cables to see if the dash lights would come on and it'd start, so we could at least move it to the next exit to a more accessible area.

So we hook up the cables and I get in my truck and bring the rpm's just a bit. After about 10 seconds my friend says "it's turning the alternator". Mind you the key is not in the ignition of his car. I look over and sure enough I can see the alternator pully jerking slowly and my thought process went like this..

-If the alternator pully is spinning the engine is spinning.
-If the engine is turning its drawing a lot of power.

I look up to his battery just as the smoke starting to come out of the cables, and I screamed to disconnect them, and when he tried they were too hot. He ended up just grabbing the middle of the cable and yanking the clamps off his battery and by this time the smoke was really building up. I had just read a reddit story about a battery about to explode recently so it scared the hell out of me. Everything was fine with my truck luckily but I'm thinking a battery box is nice to have, or at the very minimum cables that won't catch on fire; I'm really surprised a fuse didn't blow.

What happened with his car is the starter broke and was constantly trying to start his car, even while driving down the freeway, so it killed the battery.

 

Throw in an open/high resistance ground connection to the block/chassis with battery post mounted accessories; things can get spicy.

 

How long does the Noco battery (or similar) thing stay charged? For instance If I charge it and leave it in my truck for a year or two, will it still be charged?

 

In my experience I have not checked mine for a year before and it was showing fully charged, so it was between 75%-100% (4 levels of lights). I have the GB70 model. If you watch the above video of a guy testing 5-6 boxes in various ways the NOCO doesn’t come out on top. I think it was 4th or 5th. When my Limited comes in 9/12 I will buy another NOCO. My experience has been tremendous with it. NOCO claims the GB70 can do up to 40 jump starts on one charge.