[Shop-talk] battery jump boxes

[David Scheidt]

On Wed, Mar 12, 2025 at 7:05 AM Jim Stone <1789alpine at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I used to do some consulting with AAA and sometimes rode with their drivers.  They all carried Clore chargers like this one: https://cloreautomotive.com/product/es5000/.  That was good enough for me and I bough one for myself 12 years ago and it has never let me down, even when I have forgotten to refresh the charge every 3 months as they recommend.  They now have a number of different chargers, including some lithium ones that I am sure are equally good.
>

The clore lead acid jump starters have been the standard for 30 years
or more.  They're generally excellent, but of course, big and heavy
because of the lead acid battery.  The lithium stuff is much lighter,
and surprisingly powerful.  One thing worth noting: you can't run a
car on the lithium packs (or most of them, there might be some that do
this), so if the charging system doesn't work, you can't start it with
the pack and drive it into the shop.  Depending on your goal, that
might matter or might not.  They also have pretty low duty cycle, so
they'll work for starting a car that won't start because the battery
is flat, but they won't start a pre-combustion diesel that requires 30
seconds of cranking to get going.

-- 
David Scheidt
dmscheidt at gmail.com