Zeusray multifunction battery pack with jump starter

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/08/16/zeusray-multifunction-battery.html

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I have one of these, it is nice and small and fills a tire very quickly. If I was regularly filling more than one tire or doing more than just topping-up all 4 I would get one of the bigger ones from Q, Viair, or Master-Flow.

In the 80’s I used to accidentally leave my headlights on and drain the battery rather frequently. I’m delighted that modern cars have beepers and automatic headlight shut off that makes that a much more rare occurrence. Even so I’ve gotten some useage out of the PowerStation jump starter and and air compressor I bought at Costco. It works well, but being a lead acid powered device, it’s bulky. So I’m interested in these new, smaller jump starters. But what, besides size and weight, are the advantages and trade offs?

With the lead acid jump starter I’m just putting a lead acid 12v battery parallel to the car’s own 12v battery. Heck, I could even run the car off of the jump starter alone for a while. The compact jump starters have to step up the voltage and are not, AFIK, native 12v. Does that change anything? Is there more chance of exploding batteries? Anything else?

As to advantages, the lead acid jump starter is supposed to be topped off monthly, lest it lose it’s ability to hold a charge over time. I’m thinking that the lithium jump starters may not need that kind of charge maintenance, or at least not as frequently.

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