Watching $$, or I would buy this

I have something very similar to that, made by the same company too

 

Are you looking for something that's for vehicles that have a 12volt starter motor that draws alot of amps? Or are you looking for something for a Prius, that uses high voltage battery to start the engine and draws very little amps from the 12v ?

 

I couldn't really see more specs for that on the walmart site (without wanting to enable 115 more blocked javascripts). But this seems to be the same thing at gooloo's own (less obnoxious) website:

GOOLOO GE4500 Portable Jump Starter - GOOLOO

As I mentioned in another thread not long ago, I'm much more interested in how much energy the thing stores (59.2 watthours for this one), and not in any superhyped peak current capacity. 4500 amps, assuming the thing can even get anywhere close to that IRL, is hundreds of times more than you need to READY a Prius ... and a capacity hundreds of times more won't READY any better.

Not long ago there was a thread with a link to a video where someone bought a bunch of different jump packs with enormous peak-amp figures printed on the box. and measured the actual peak amps out of all of them, and if I remember right there were only one or two where the advertised number was at all realistic.

But it's nice knowing the energy capacity. 59.2 watthours is nice. If not using it for jumping, it would recharge my phone a few times. It could run my heated gloves for about three hours. Run my little 12-volt fan for hot-weather comfort all night.

The one I have (different brand) is 38.4 watthours, so pretty much the same ballpark. It's plenty to READY a Prius, as long as all 38.4 Wh don't disappear into the Prius's hungry dead 12-volt battery in less time than it takes to slide in the driver's seat and press the power button. That can easily happen, when the car's ~ 560 Wh battery is very deeply discharged. I suspect the gooloo's 59.2 Wh could disappear into that empty maw just about as fast.

That's why if I'm at all thinking that might happen, I just disconnect the car's battery first, and use the jump pack to jump only the car, and then reconnect the car's battery. Granted, I have a gen 3, where that's all easily done under the hood up front. The gen 2 also has a nice unpluggable battery cable, only it unplugs back at the battery end, in the hatch and down under the deck.



I've started paying attention to what kind of battery is inside. The previous pack I had in my car (and I had also bought the same one for a family member and for a friend) used lithium polymer pouch packs inside. After a few years both mine and my family member's were visibly bulging, and I gingerly delivered them to the hazmat disposal folks and advised my friend to do the same.

The one I've got now (and bought for my family member to replace the old bulged one) uses lithium iron phosphate cells, and I'm expecting to worry less about that kind of thing.

But I find it hard to shop around with that as a criterion—often the type of cell inside isn't mentioned among the advertised specs at all.

 

Short Answer?
Yes.

First rule when the battery dies:
HAVE a charged and working jump-starter or a set of jumper cables and hope for good luck.

...Hope is NOT a plan.

The CHEAP jump cables that WORK are better than the Gucci ones that you're going to buy when you have enough money later.
Pro Tip:
I also use mine for boosting phones, tablets, etc while I'm in the car- and I test them (I have 2) regularly that way.



___________________________________________________________________

Longer answer:


Cars tend to be voltage devices these days rather than current devices.
WHAT this means is that my trusted 06 Envoy started having that "Monday Morning, I don't want to wake up" vibe following a winter(ish) storm in the Southeast.
The battery is almost 8 years old - which is 108 years in 'people years."

SO....
My beloved and trusty Envoy is one of the last of the cars that will give you that famous "slow crank" to warn you that the battery is even OLDER than a US President and it might be time - REALLY TIME to start shopping for a replacement!!

However (comma!!!) I have a jump-pack.
A CHEAP one - so when my 8-year-old battery failed after one-too-many of the warnings?

....It was a 5-minute fix.

If you drive a more modern car than my 19-year-old GMC???
AND...let's face it, this is a CAR forum so MOST of you DO.

YOU MAY NOT GET that 'slow-crank' warning!!!!
Your battery may fall below some notional 'float voltage' and a relay might not 'click' and you will have a 'dead-key' with no warning.
That's because 'some cars' these days "boot up" and then Robbie The Robot decides whether or not he will let the battery try to start the rest of the car.

SOME CARS (Priuses, for example!) do not even have starter motors!!

SO.
The GOOD NEWS is that you only need a cheap battery jump starter ONE TIME to work the relay and get your car booted up (and started) so you can get a replacement battery later that day because........HOW OLD IS YOUR CAR'S BATTERY???

 

If I remember right, a US President has to be a minimum of 35 years old. Is anybody's car running with a lead-acid battery older than that? I thought most people were getting 4 or 5 years in conventional cars; mine have been lasting about 10 in Prii.

Though I suppose the real constitutional question is now, if a ten-year-old runs for president and gets votes, who, if anyone, has the actual job of saying nope?

 

I have a Clore JNC660, getting on, in need of a new battery. In Canada, here’s the current Amazon (CDN) prices, for the complete pack, and just the “official” replacement battery:



All of which is a little absurd. There are cheap alternatives, but I’m sceptical about their functionality and longevity. Any thoughts on that would be appreciated.

 

I'm seeing a 22 amp-hour rating for that 12-volt battery, so maybe it's around 270 watthours, or the capacity of four (and change) of the ones Kris is looking at. It also looks in size to be at least four or five of the ones Kris is looking at, and maybe more than that in weight.

What kinds of protection are built into that one? Most of the little lithium ones nowadays have built-in polarity protection, short and overcurrent protection, overheat protection, overdischarge protection, and so on.

I see that the one Kris is looking at also has "AI software protection", though I haven't got a clue what that would be in a jump pack.

 

I've got two really old ones, like what Mendel posted. They have old gel-cell batteries in them. I know because I've replace them one each unit already. I hit the test button when I throw it in the car for a long trip or camping. They have a low battery alarm and work with my large GMC engine. Had to use it twice when that truck battery was failing, before I finally replaced it.
I may switch it over to lithium cells, next time they need replacement - currently about 6-7 years. Don't know if your able to replace the batteries in those newer ones or are they throw-away??

 

Seeing as the dumpster fire wants to eliminate reference to natural born citizens and their rights from our constitution right now, it does seem plausible that a 10 year old would be more qualified than the 8 year old genius who most recently had the oligarchs install him into power.