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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Emergency start

Anyone come across one of these ? (see photo)
Its a Floureon U8 emergency jump start battery. Rather smaller than a standard paperback book.Pretty handy just to keep in the car for emergencies. I think they cost about £30. Comes with its own jump leads and also USB power outlets for recharging phone ipad etc.

No financal interest, but I was given one recently and I think it is pretty good. It charges off the mains, or off a ciggy lighter once your car is running, and apparently good for 8 to 12 normal restarts when your car barttery lets you down. I have used it a couple of times (no MG content) and seen it start up a 450bhp V12, so its not short on output power!

Guyw

Yep
We've got a couple of them at work-not that brand but same as Not much bigger than a mobile phone really
They are around $100- here but well worth it
Very handy to take out on breakdowns
Our oldest one would be about a year old and has performed faultlessly, daily during that time
Costomers certainly have a second look when you pull it out of your pocket and plug the monster (in comparison) leeds into it and start up their dead cars
Largest vehicle I have started was a 7.3 litre F250 truck with a dead flat battery-----no problem at all
The built in light is handy for breakdown work as well.
Does that one have a torch built in ???
willy
William Revit

I 1st saw these about a year ago... id trust that one you have but all the ones ive seen look to be a scam because there so small about the size of a pack of smokes and some with no leads jist plug em in to the cig lighter and turn the key ....they just looked scamy to me

but yours looks like it could actually do something... it would be intereting to see if its like a lantern battry... open it up and theres like 50 To a 100 AA rechargeable battrys inside

prop
prop

Haha... well

i have been known to be wrong before... willy has the inside track on this one so ill take his word for it.

Okay, Who drank the top half of my glass of water ?

Prop
prop

I had a similar device, a Suaoki T10 400A 12V Extremely Mini Portable Car Jump Starter - £36 from Amazon.
It was used to start a two litre VW T2 van which I thought had an iffy battery. It worked well but on one occasion the van wouldn't start and on the 5th attempt I smelt burning - the 'jump leads' had started to melt. It went back to Amazon for a refund.
Subsequently the starting problem turned out to be the starter motor (which was tring to chew its way through the gearbox casing...) so it was an unfair test really. Up till then I'd been impressed by its performance especially considering its diminutive size.
Jeremy Tickle

Prop, l agree, l never understood how the ones you plug into the car's lighter socket would work. Even if they have the power how would that wiring cope with anything like the amps needed to spin the starter motor?

This one works well. Its definitely a quality built device well up to repeated use. I think things like this are a spin off from electric car R & D, there has been a lot of advancement in the capacity of small batteries in recent years. And, though not relevant to this item, in the power / size ratio of electric motors too. You can now get a 1/2hp electric motor the size of a cotton real when just a few years back they were at least the size of a 2 1/2 litre (1/2 gall) tin of paint!

Yes Willy, this has a pretty powerful torch light as well.
Guyw

Guyw

I assumed that the ones you plug into the lighter socket just charge the battery for a few minutes but would not be used for actual starting, as you said, those wires could not take the amps.

Dave
Dave Barrow

Guy

this is proving how weak i am in tue field of electics but is it possiable to (reverse??) charge a battry thur rhe cig lighter

i dont know the answer but im not sure its possiable even if rhe fuse is 20 amp

the amount of time it would take to add a volt to the car battry would be almost over night id think

id think if you could start or recharge thur the cig lighter then id think there is an app for that and just use your smart phone... same differance

but speaking of charging. Some interesting new stuff on you tube

you can plug in rhe home phone charger intonan apple and maybe other fruit to charge your phone and now there finding you can stick electrodes in the ground and water them with vinigar and power small items and with a big enough lawn ... your whole house

proo
prop

I have a 'lighter plug' with twin cables and croc clips that I used to use (against the rules) to put charge into the battery at breakdowns if I needed to tow a car in the dark that had a flat battery

I'd pop my battery pack (which COULD start cars) inside the passenger foot well and clip the lighter plug unit onto the jump leads of the battery pack

This let the fellow or laydee being towed use their lights and with the ignition on to release the steering lock they couls also copy my signals to following traffic

So yes, feeding the battery back through the lighter plug is a feasible thing

But using the lighter plug to start it, that sounds like a recipe for starting any number of problems
Bill sdgpM

This thread was discussed on 04/06/2016

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