Jump starter packs, actual use?

I just bought my first starter pack, Amazon sale for $36 shipped on the Suaoki T10 12000mah powerbank/jump starter. Took just a few minutes to bring it up to a full charge, discover how to make the flashlight go on and off, and its back in its storage zip. Wife votes to keep it in the storage zip and put it under the seat in the car, but I think most use will be as a USB charger so it should live in the glove box with the accessories left in the zip under the seat.

If you have one, how do you use it, and where do you keep it?

Optional which did you get, and will you eventually get another one?

Anybody have plans to use the direct battery EC5 connection to power a flashlight?

I’d keep it indoors, or really I mean in a metal ammo can in a warm corner of the garage. Your vehicle is least likely to start in cold weather. Any jump starter has reduced current when it is cold. Plus being generic, or really any Li-Ion pack you own long term, if it bursts into flames maybe you don’t want it where the fire can burn for a while until noticed.

Frankly, no need for a USB power bank to charge in a car since a lighter outlet adapter can do that, but I would put one in the glove box only until the glove box became too full to easily sort through, then it would get demoted to under seat storage, except as I already wrote, I would not leave one in a vehicle unattended unless I had a specific scenario where I intended to use it so the benefit outweighed the risks of “all things die eventually”.

To me it seems more handy as a power source while camping, maybe powering a tent light, recharging a phone, but meh I’d probably just have a regular flashlight and a smaller/lighter power pack instead. I like to pack light .

I put mine under the seat, it’s always nice to have your own portable jump start instead hoping somebody will stop and help you jump start the car, plus it can also be used for emergency charger for your phone is also a big plus too :smiley:

I left Ravpower RP-PB27 in my car for 6 months and it just helped me yesterday to started my car from long weekend unused.
After that, it still have more than 60% capacity (base on LED indicator) but I did fully charge it for the next time. I alway keep it in my trunk, USB charger ports and flashlight are optional to me because I have many flashlights in my car and my pocket :person_facepalming: .

My friend has one of the cheap models and we used it a couple times to start a 2.4L 4cyl and 3.7L V6, it works great as long as your lead acid battery is not completely dead.

It is counter intuitive but if you want your LiPo pack to have good shelf life and not swell up you shouldn’t keep it fully charged, but then again it works best when fully charged.

I have a pps micro start, tends to go flat every 6 weeks or so.
use it mainly for starting the ride on mower.
had to jump the diesel ute needed a supercheap jump pack and the micro start.
still had to go to work damm

We keep a jump pack in the car trunk. It has started both our Subaru (gas motor), and the TDi Jetta that replaced the Subie. We do not use it as a USB power source, our cig lighter does that (when the car is running :-))