Charging the 12V Battery??

I got similar but a bit more powerful one DBPOWER 2000A 20800mA for less money. I have it in the car but have never used it yet. The good thing about those jump starter is that it can be used as a battery pack to charge phones and laptops. I like the one I bought because it has Type-C USB connector.

 

I'd be a little concerned about damaging the battery with one of those. The manual for my 2020 Prime says that the 12V battery should be charged at 5A or less. I have an older Lithium power pack that has a 12A output. It's intended to boost the battery rather than turn over an ICE. I don't know if you can buy something like that today.

 

Once again, someone has confused a charger's maximum CAPACITY with what it will actually supply under normal contidions.
Just because it's absolute maximum output CAPACITY is 12A does NOT mean that it will actually supply that much to a partially discharged battery.
It should work fine for a hybrid car that does NOT turn the "starter" with the 12 V source.

 

Still, owner's manuals stipulate you should not use a charger with higher than a certain rated amperage.

 

No, I'm not confused. The point I was making is that it could be a problem to attach a 1500A booster to a depleted battery that's only expecting a 5A charge. By comparison, my 12A booster isn't going to cause a problem. That's a more reasonable match. If someone is looking for a booster, I'd recommend looking for a small one like mine. Mine's an old Black & Decker Power to Go unit that's long since discontinued. Here's a link: http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B014ITIV4A

 

Booster amps and charger amps are completely different. I don't profess to know how or why, but I'm sticking with that. (Even if it gets me into @Grit 's quotes of shame...)

 

Does it really ?
I don't think so.
I thought it said, as quoted by several people, not to actually have it charge at higher than a certain rate.

 

No Ed, you ARE still confused.

For starters, the boosters are rated at Amp HOURS, right ? That is different than amps.
And they all operate from 13-15 volts with no load.

Secondly, nothing in the booster will magically FORCE 1500 amps into anything.
The system you connect it to will take whatever it needs.......unless maybe there is a dead short which is rare.

 

Shame.
Only because one is rated in amps and the other in amp-hours.......which is not the same thing.

 

To be fair, it says this:



Technically, you "might" be right. But you know what, I think I'll stick with a charger that's rated 5 amps or less. It works, it's plenty, and there's plenty of chargers available in that range.

 

Your comment about Amp Hours is meaningless. Battery banks that you use to charge your phone are rated in Amp Hours or Milliamp hours. Automotive battery boosters are rated in the maximum number of amps they can provide. Amp Hours has no relationship to maximum amps so mentioning it just adds confusion. The 1500A specified for the booster in question is the claimed maximum number of amps that the unit can provide.

No one - except you - suggested that 1500 amps would be forced into the battery. What will happen is that there will be a current surge that's much, much more than the 5A recommended maximum charge. The actual value will depend on how low the Prime's battery is, it's general condition, how good the connection is, etc. Will it cause a problem? Probably not, but it also won't help and certainly won't be good for the battery.

Lead-acid batteries are really good at sourcing and sinking amazing amounts of current. I used to work for a telephone company and heard many stories about wrenches that were dropped across our battery connections. They would just disappear with a bang and flash. I've also heard warnings about car batteries exploding when a wrench was dropped across their terminals.

I don't know why Toyota specified such a low charge current, but that's what they've done. So, it only makes sense to be cautious, particularly when you're looking at using a device that claims to be able to provide 300 times more than the rated current!

 

My JNC660 is rated at 1700 Peak Amps. However, residing inside the case is a basic battery, looks like a golf cart battery. I'm having a tough time finding the spec's but it's 18 22 amp hours, according to this site:

Clore Automotive JNC105 Replacement Battery For JNC660 | JB Tools

Here's a Clore link but no specs:

Clore PROFORMER Replacement Battery for JNC4000/JNC660/JNC770/JNCAIR/JNCXF - Clore Automotive

That's all it is. A relatively diminutive battery, good enough, with jumper cables.

 

Jump starting isn't about charging the battery, it is about getting the car started. The Prius manual has instructions on jump starting the car. If supplying the way greater than 5amps from the other car was a problem, Toyota would say no to jump charging.

The 5 amp charging limit doesn't apply to jump starting, as in that case, the other car or jump pack is only hooked up for a few minutes. Charging takes hours.

 

It certainly looks like a 12V 18 or 22 AH battery. Whether it could possibly source 1500A ..... can you say 'marketing'?

By the way, that's an obscene price for that battery. US$165 ... please. I can buy locally with full warranty for CA$55 / $66 for 18 / 22 AH. Even Canadian Tire has them for CA$72 and that's not a very good price. I'm sure that you could do better in Vancouver.

 

I suspect the peak amp rating is accurate.

I think you mean this one:

https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/12-volt-18ah-sla-battery-0102020p.html

It's 18 amp hours. The clore battery is 22. Doesn't seem a big difference, but I've hooked up an electronic load test to both, and the CCA is markedly better on the clore battery. IIRC I did find a better price than the clore website, window shopping once.

Searching now, I see a lot of 22 amp hour options. They're all badged different, but cheap enough it might be worth the gamble.

 

This isn't the first time that I've been unimpressed with the manual. From a technical point of view, the statement on jump starting is at least partially contradicted by the 5A charging limit.

I hear what you're saying about 'time' being the difference, but there's still something wrong with the 5A limit. Toyota says that the battery could explode if you charged it at more than 5A. Maybe if you put a 50A charger on it and left town for the weekend! I haven't looked at any other Toyota manuals. Could the 5A limit be related to an AGM battery? They're a bit pickier than a wet cell battery like the one in my 2020 Prime. Fast charging an AGM battery can seriously shorten its life if you're not careful. The 5A limit would ensure a longer life for the battery.

As an electrical engineer, I hate it when the documentation is incomplete and contradictory.

 

Sigh...

 

As you've found, all batteries are not created equal. There are specialized batteries that I'm sure could source 1500A with no trouble. But the terminals would be a lot bigger than the ones on the battery you showed. But I wouldn't worry about it. It's just a numbers game.

On the Prius, the 12V battery just has to start the computers. The ICE is started by the traction battery. As a result, neither peak amps nor AH ratings are significant when your battery is dead. According to a Youtube video from WeberAuto, the Prius needs something like 10 - 15 amps of 12V power to get everything going. Any booster can provide that. Higher amp ratings aren't useful, but will probably result in extended life for the booster. A higher AH rating would allow you to boost the car more times before recharging the booster, but if you spend 30 sec. at 15A, that's only 0.125 AH per start. So an 18 AH battery would allow 144 starts before recharging. If anyone would actually do that. Of course, the dead battery will suck up a lot of the charge, but you get the idea.

 

I've used this jump pack on V6 no problems. It's really more for "the other guy", you can help out without risking your car. Come to think of it, I've never used it on a Prius.

Come to think of it, this thread is about chargers, maybe we should bow out?

 

I thought, with the battery now under the hood, the Prius no longer got a AGM battery.

I see that my Camry manual has the same 5 amp warning, and faster charging may result in battery explosion. Since I've had it hooked up to a higher amp charger multiple times now, without anything exploding. This is likely just legal CYA, as oppose to any technical limit.

Charging batteries at a slower rate is generally better for their overall life, simply because less heat is generated.