Portable emergency jump starter

[pumps]

My daughter has moved from the dorm apt. to a house she has rented with a roomie. She called me and said her battery was dead ( lights left on she said) and could she come by my work which is 5 minutes away and get my van to get her car jump started. I have taught her how to do it and she has her own cables but not always someone to get her a boost. Of course I had ridden my bike to the station today but we do have a battery booster pack. She got on her scooter and came and got it and all is well. She wants one now and I'll buy it but which one? Maybe one with a small compressor too? Who has one that they like? It will most likely stay in her house and kept charged..hopefully.

 

[angus67]

should keep it in her car. dead batteries usually happen enroute.

 

[pumps]

The rub there being that she has to keep it charged.....

 

[XSLeo]

Don'y they have a car adapter to charge them?

 

[cooltouch]

Catch 22? If your battery is dead, how you gonna charge it? Unless you keep it charged when the battery's fine and hope it doesn't discharge?

You can pick up a small one at Harbor Freight for pretty cheap:

http://www.harborfreight.com/12-volt-jump-start-and-power-supply-38391.html

 

[Travis]

I bought a cheap black and decker jump pack thing.. What a total waste of money.. It's absolute junk.

A buddy of mine has a much nicer one (can't remember the brand) that he keeps on his boat. It works great and is much heavier. If I buy another one, I'll spend more money on it and buy one that has some weight to it.

 

[angus67]

not very portable if you have to leave it plugged in at home, eh?
remember about 10 years ago, you could buy a quart of gas in a plastic bottle? the bottle was yellow? worked for me once. Have not seen that in a while.tweekers prolly drank it. it was super low octane, so you had to put it in a hot engine to get it to fire.

 

[xjwmx]

Jumper cables and a buzzer that goes off if she leaves the lights on should cover the battery on the road in warm weather. Should be easy to wire up a thing that makes noise when the lights are hot but the ignition wire isn't. Probably even available ready-made from J.C. Whitney

 

[angus67]

i have one of those buzzers for my iggy on my 650. bought it at a garage sale 1 buck.