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 LiFePO4 jump starter, anyone seen/used one?		  New Topic  Topic Locked
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delliottg
Former Mainsheet C250 Tech Editor

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USA
4479 Posts
Initially Posted - 12/07/2013 :  18:36:40  Show Profile  Visit delliottg's Homepage
All-Battery.com has these on sale for $90 with promo code <b><i>ABHDY624</i></b>. They seem too tiny to actually jump start a car, but I'm unfamiliar with the battery type (Lithium Iron Phosphate or Lithium Ferro Phosphate (LFP)). Since it also has 5 volt USB ports and a built in flashlight, seems like a handy thing to have in the car or boat. Not sure how they get 400 cranking amps out of a 12 amp power supply though. However, it's only for 3 seconds or less.

[url="http://www.all-battery.com/PropelJumpStarterPowerBankCarKit-51067.aspx?utm_source=email120613&utm_medium=email&utm_content=51067&utm_campaign=holiday1 "]LiFe Jump Starter[/url]

Here's a [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery"]Wikipedia article about the technology[/url], it's reasonably new, since 1996.
David
C-250 Mainsheet Editor


Sirius Lepak
1997 C-250 WK TR #271 --Seattle area Port Captain --
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Voyager
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
5362 Posts
Response Posted - 12/08/2013 :  08:25:10  Show Profile
David
Lithium-based battery technologies have been under development for some time, with PC batteries and batteries on the Boeing 777 that you may recall were catching fire. Locally there's a pro-TV camera battery maker Anton Bauer that mfrs battery power packs for news crews and they've switched over from lead-acid and NiMH to Li across most of the line. They also designed and mfred Apple's Macbook Pro battery line. The power density is the compelling reason: lighter weight delivering either more raw amps or greater amp-hours per pound.
I have an old-fashioned gel-cell battery jump starter that if its fully charged and the car battery if fading, will start my car if I get it going on the 1st or 2nd try.
Until the Lithium-based jump starters get battle tested on a large scale, we probably won't know how well they perform compared with lead-acid gel cells.
Edit: rereading the Wikipedia post, I see they're good for short bursts at full voltage. Lead, nickel and other Li batteries don't have this kind of performance.
All my solar lights around the yard use 3V lithium cells, so we know they can take plenty of charge-discharge cycles.
If you get one, I'd be interested in your experiences with it. Instant power, battery life and # recharge cycles.
Edited by - Voyager on 12/08/2013 08:37:31
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delliottg
Former Mainsheet C250 Tech Editor

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USA
4479 Posts
Response Posted - 12/08/2013 :  14:01:23  Show Profile  Visit delliottg's Homepage
I'm interested in these for multiple reasons. My company powers a LOT of our equipment with lithium cells, which are a major pain when you have to ship them overseas (we have customers pretty much anywhere there's a coastline, an app I wrote recently has been touched by 77 countries so far according to Google Analytics). Since these are "safer", we might look into changing over to them (I have no say in it, but they encourage new ideas, so our scientists may be interested).

I've got a gel-cell jump starter that I've had for quite some time and it's still reliable. We used to carry it in Rita's ancient Mercedes until we recently swapped in a new battery (it's tough on them with the glow plugs, but I've upgraded the system to parallel instead of series, which seems to work much better, and she doesn't have to glow forever in the cold anymore, plus the battery seems to stay "up" better now).
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pastmember
Master Marine Consultant

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2402 Posts
Response Posted - 12/08/2013 :  17:18:25  Show Profile
My bigger solar garden lights use LiFePO4 batteries. I get them at Amazon... of course.
Edited by - pastmember on 12/08/2013 17:20:36
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Notice: The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.