What you should know about automotive jump packs

I have used many different jump packs over the years starting with a conventional Snap On jump pack I bought when I started my career even though I literally never used it. Surprising isn't it? A tech that never needed to jump start a battery... To be honest I owned jumper cables that I never even used. Batteries just were not as critical when I started driving and working on cars as they are now a days. Let us go through some information you should know about buying a jump pack: strengths and weaknesses.

For the purposes of this conversation what I call a conventional jump pack is the type of units used by actual automotive garages. There are many units out there marketed towards consumers that is an actual disservice to the customers they hope to achieve with their claims. If you are going to own a jump pack then you need to own something a garage would actually use. A business that uses these things on a daily basis will have the best advice in regard to this.

The real question: how do lithium jump packs and these conventional ones compare?

Are they fundamentally different?

If you read the manual that comes with lithium jump packs you would realize their biggest limitation. They are not meant to be connected to a vehicles electrical system for any sort of long term occurrence. For vehicles that are still COMPATIBLE with only needing an initial jump start they are great. For those vehicles who's alternator requires a proper voltage source for up to a minute then a lithium jump pack is not for you. They can actually explode if subject to the kind of charging vehicles alternators provide. On the other hand conventional jump packs can be used in place of batteries and can be left under the hood hooked up for as long as you want to. They share the same battery technology and are far less sensitive explosively to the same kind of inputs that lithium batteries warn against.

Do yourself a favor and do not buy the cheaply advertised jump packs that have a air compressor built in. Dedicated tools are always superior to combination tools. Do not fall victim to commercial trappings. That is why we are here...

Conventional - JNC 770R

While not being the JNC660 - a jump pack often found in garages and on sale from nearly every parts suppliers for just a song and a dance above 100 dollars, it is my preferred conventional jump pack. Not only do they have an port allowing for the included adapter to be hooked up to the cigarette lighter outlet to keep the keep-alive-memory intact but they are not as sensitive to how their batteries are charged. You can drive a car around with one of these hooked up in place of the battery or supplement it without fear of any issue effecting the jump pack or the vehicle short or long term. The 770R is the best value for an automotive specific tool that has an ON-OFF switch, a jump pack that will give you years of service and is serviceable - the battery can be replaced if you are up for it. My last one was 5 years old, I lost the charger, and it didn't have USB ports which is a nice addition.

These things are bullet proof, free you from most of the need for having jumper cables, can be used to supplement a healthy battery for diagnostic or programming purposes, and can even charge your USB devices.

VTOMAN V4000

I bought this, to be honest, without realizing its actual physical size. When I bought this a couple years ago for a song and a dance value compared to conventional jump packs I literally thought it was a full size jump pack. After using several "names not worth mentioning" lithium battery packs that were the first to market I decided not to buy another lithium pack ever again. They may be small and convenient to pack but their life span, usefulness and value is ultimately lacking. Personally, I use this mostly for my electrical devices when I am away from home although I did start my skid steer with it once.

Even though I realized my mistake this thing was lightyears beyond the previous ones I used. I especially like how they added USB ports for charging devices which is one of the greatest value this thing can give you. Not only is it a battery pack to boost your portable devices but it has attached cables that can be used to jump start a car versus removable clamps like some of the smaller packs have. Last thing I wanted was another lithium pack that has connection issues with its own attachments.

Years previous I had purchased a lithium jump pack to use on a daily basis at the shop. It was incredible... for a while. A couple of months in you had to charge it every time you tried to jump something and if its own battery was too far gone it wouldn't even start the car. These things also have specific instructions about not leaving them connected to a car longer than is necessary to jump start them. This is an important distinction versus the conventional jump pack types I mentioned above.