• đź’ˇ Fun fact. Whenever you start a thread, TCG Mechanic 5000 (our AI bot) will reply to you to start helping. It doesn't know everything and it will struggle with more complex questions but it can get the thread going and provide valuable information. You can choose to disable it prior to submitting a thread.

Drawing constant 12v power from lithium battery boosters

RareGMFan

Addict
Jan 12, 2008
934
176
Naperville, IL
So last year, I attended two car shows as a vendor with my rear-view mirrors and plan to do a lot more in 2018. I line up about 9 or 10 of the models I have available on a table and connect the wiring to a jumper box so that people can see the compasses, temp, auto-dimming etc in action. The current jumper box I'm using is a Schumacher XP400 that was only about $45 (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004EIDD2Q/?tag=tcg21-20). It does the trick except it drains within 2 or 3 hours and takes forever to recharge (which I can't do at the events since they're outdoors). Most of the events I'll be at will be at lest 4-5 hours, sometimes longer, so I'm researching other options.

On a whim, I bought this portable lithium batter booster during an Amazon lightening deal Thanksgiving weekend https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MY9FZM4/?tag=tcg21-20. It is supposedly powerful enough to jump bigger V8s and has solid reviews with people saying even after 10+ jumps, the batter was still at 90% full or better. I don't know if/how that would translate to drawing constant 12v power from it nor could I find much info on this. Basically, I wanted to see if I could get this thing to serve my purposes because it is very easily portable, charges quickly and is cost effective. I got it to fire up one mirror easily. The problem is you have to hit a "reset/prep" button on the plug for the cables and wait for the light to go green before it fires a boost of power for about 10 seconds and then keep repeating this process. This seems to be how pretty much all these lithium boosters work.

My question is does anyone who is familiar with these know of a way to possibly draw a steady supply of 12v power like the more traditional jumper packs? I'd like to see if I can get this figured out so I can run it through its paces and see how long it can supply power for before the return period ends. Thank you in advance for any input.
 

RareGMFan

Addict
Jan 12, 2008
934
176
Naperville, IL
That's basically what a traditional jump starter is. A small car battery in an easy to carry case with cables attached plus all you have to do is plug it directly into a 120v socket to recharge. The problem with going with the car battery route is I'd have to get a pretty hefty sized one to last for hours, would have to buy a separate charger to recharge it and I'd have to create an easy way to attach all the mirror wires to the posts (e.g. right now, I just wrap them all together and clip the jump box cables onto them). Also, other than very expensive specialty batteries like Reikken, car batteries were not meant to be repeatedly run down to nothing and recharged, so I don't know how long that solution would hold up for. I think that's part of the problem I'm facing with the current jump box. I don't think it holds power as long as it did when I first bought it.
 

nytebyte

Not Politically Correct
Mar 2, 2004
13,628
20,958
Those "battery boosters" are just that. Boosters.
They don't have enough amps to actually start a car, so the way they work is to slowly trickle charge a low or dead car battery over time so it has enough power to start the car.

They can't do it on their own.

If you don't want to use a car battery, you can probably use a portable jump start battery. Something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Jump-N-Carry-JNC660-1700-Peak-Starter/dp/B000JFJLP6/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1515078353&sr=8-10&keywords=portable+jump+starter

Those actually have enough power to start a car, or run accessories. That one has a 12V output you can probably use for the mirrors.
 
Old Thread: Hello . There have been no replies in this thread for 90 days.
Content in this thread may no longer be relevant. Consider starting a new thread to get fresh replies.

Thread Info