My old combo emergency jump start, twin 12V cig outlets, tire inflator and light finally gave up the ghost. Now I could replace the 12V lead acid battery, but this unit didn’t fit well in the car and it is not cheap either to do so, so I am in the market for a lithium one which is much smaller and from reviews seem to work well. Most offer USB ports and some laptop charging too, some even do that with 12V option, which is closer. But I would like to plug cigarette lighter accessories into it as well, and for some reason I can’t find any which do this. Using the ones that offer the 12V laptop option is current limited to 1 amp on that. I would like to run a variety of 12V things off of this, including a 150 Watt inverter.
Does anyone know of any that offer this? hopefully on the cheaper end. Does anyone know why it is so rare? It does appear like I could use the jump start output to run 12V stuff (one model has a tire inflator that plugs into this same port) As a alternative If I could get that plug for the cables I could make a conversion to a cig outlet but having seen any of those either, are they standardized or proprietary?
A Lithium-Ion battery large enough to jump start a car would be terribly expensive. And unnecessary, as Li-Ion batteries are designed for constant use, being drained & recharged (i.e. cellphones, hybrid cars etc.) rather than for long term storage. It would also be a little dangerous, as large Li-Ion batteries have a huge energy potential and sometimes, ah, burst into flames!
Lead acid batteries are much more affordable & appropriate for booster pack use.
Let me ask – are you planning to run devices off the 12V outlet as a routine thing? Like, you need it within the passenger compartment rather than the trunk for everyday use?
I wouldn’t recommend that. At some point if you’re using it routinely you won’t have anought charge left to jump start your car in an emergency.
Do you have a 12V outlet in the car already? Maybe you can get some kind of splitter for it, like this.
Yeah I was wondering the same thing, but it turns out there are now Li Ion car jumpstarters available for $100. Li ion cells are pretty inefficient at high peak loads, but looks like the technology has moved on.