1+
Harbor Freight has a Lithium Ion Jump Starter and Power Pack these days.
Only a 3 watt flashlight, but has usb out as well…
Or… a smaller Pb-acid battery semi-permanently mounted in the trunk or wherever. Diode + small resistor to trickle-charge it and keep it mostly topped-off (as Pb-acid batteries prefer), with a beefy knife-switch in case it needs to be crowbarred to the mains to actually start the car.
Car starter = very high current very short term battery.
Flashlight = all sorts of sizes and currents, fairly long term battery.
I’ll pass on this as a hybrid.
Strange thing.
“US made CREE XHP70” - false
“Polimer lithium battery pack” - fitting rectangle into round tube is not good idea IMO
“available to start up to 6.0L V8 engines” - needs at least 200amps in States and up to twice more in nothern Canada
“3pcb series connection, 11.1-12.6V” - defenetly requires changing to 4S
“Start current: 200Amp, Peak current: 500Amp” EC5 port limit: 120Amp lol
“QC 3.0 out” 5V 2.4Amp - what?
I think what they meant is that CREE is a US-based company. As long as their quality control is held up to US manufacturing standards (or better), the actual location of the facility matters little.
If they’re fitting Li-Po packs in this flashlight, they could stack them together to take up the space. If you’re suggesting that they might be rolling them up in the tube, then I’ll agree that’s a bad idea.
Lithium jump-start packs are well able to output this current level. I know a mechanic that has one the size of a small laptop battery. He uses it multiple times on a single charge, even on large diesel trucks.
I don’t know if it needs to be 4S, but it probably would be much, much better.
EC5 port limit does seem a mis-match there. 
QC 3.0 5V 2.4A is the USB port “QC” here means it is rated for Quick Charge, which is used in (almost?) all new phones now.
I will have to check and see if this is fused, I would think so.
Roger that.
You know I have been thinking about this as well. I seriously doubt this pack could start a V8 in cold weather. My truck is a 4.9 liter but it was 70+ degrees when we tried that, and it felt a bit slow even then.
I have suggested to Gary that when we have a native English speaker go over this PDF we drop ALL the “HOT BUTTON” marketing stuff. It looks to me like the standard google search was done for trendy flashlight related words and they were all plastered in there. “USA Made” “Tactical Flashlight” on the red tag etc. No matter how good the product is all of those things make it seem cheap to me LOL.
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Thank you all very much for your suggestions. Any errors in the text and in the product that we can uncover now will save a world of hurt down the road, please keep them coming!
Good catch. This kind of thing is exactly why I wanted to have BLF give this a once over. I can see how this could cause premature failure.
I think if this is going to be a successful product, then all these inconsistencies and contradictions between the “documentation” and the product should be resolved in favor of whichever is “better”. For instance, being able to start a big V8 (or even larger) engine should be considered almost mandatory. That EC5 port should be replaced with one that’s rated for at least double the potential max output of the device.
“USA Made” is a worthy goal, and good advertising. Some people will choose a particular product over competitors’ based solely on this label. But, of course, it shouldn’t be a lie.
“Tactical” definitely cheapens ANY product to me these days. And not just the word, but anything that relates to it, like strike bezels. :confounded:
Actually, car starter never can turn engine with idle rpm. Most engines can start from 150-180rpm so starter motor prm multipied to the starter gear to flywheel gear ratio usually give 250-300 crankshaft rpm. As most dc motors, starter rpm lineary depends from input voltage. Thats why 3s is not good decision.
I wouldnt take to much attention to this petrol liters in miami. Take 602/617 diesel MB and test it in cold conditions.
Have you evaluated the safety concerns of such a product? Such as overload, overdrain, overheat, over-voltage, and under-voltage?
While you may know how to safely use such a product, selling it could get you sued for causing harm to a fool and his property.
Right now this is one of the top things I would like to work on. If anyone here happens to know of a port type that would be an option for a replacement please let me know.
Thanks for pointing this out Josh. I do recognize that the liability with this product is significantly greater than a typical flashlight. I will add to my list a request to be given specifics about the protection circuit.
You’re going to need a way for the software to disconnect all that power in the event it detects abuse. Mechanical relays can have great power ratings, though this is still a lot of power. How much power are you thinking exactly (in watts?) And I am sure you are going to want a shunt to calculate amps. This way your software can monitor watts in real time. Temperature monitoring might become necessary if you are trying to use the minimum amount of batteries needed.
Will this device be loaded with enough batteries to still start a V8 if it only has a 50% charge? 75% charge?
Another area of concern is the voltage difference. On YouTube this is not an issue because they use the minimum amount of batteries needed and disconnect it after the engine starts. What if the fool drives around with it connected? Or he sits inside after starting the vehicle for 30 minutes on the phone with the engine running before getting out to unhook it?
it’s actually very hard to design the protection so that it will actually let cars start, and not melt cables, and blow up internal li-ion cells…
i know, i have a 2500 watt electronic load at work and i destroyed one of these ‘600 cranking amp’ units, by testing it at 200A.
after about 15 seconds, before i could realize what was going on, plastic was melting, the thing got hot, swelled up, something went ‘pop’ inside. it did not blow up or catch on fire, the fuse did not blow, and it could even still be charged after that but had like 10A peak current instead of over 100.
later i learned that the battery layers separate and puff up, increasing resistance, limiting current -permanently.
this is exactly what would happen if you had a user try to start an engine that was too big, he would just leave the key on til the engine started, or the jump starter quit working, for good.
I think there is a reason why eBay has them from $25-$500 a range in quality.
There is a reason why the bigger SLA seem to be preferred for actually jumping cars.
Maybe this should be thought of as a Jumper battery first and then as a side function a flash light. (cool things are being done with COB strips)
Maybe there is a niche of a quality product in this space but how to get that across? (the market is already flooded with products) so maybe I’m slow but what is the actual problem that this proposed product addresses that is not already be done by better known or lower cost manufactures?
I still don’t see anyone carrying any of these devices around as a flashlight. All see to plan to leave it in the car. the big weakness of the SLA is if you don’t keep them charged they are dead when you need them.
The value added function might be to come up with circuitry to keep part of the “plugged in” until its needed and it self charged from the cars electrical system.
Thoughts?
Post #23? 
I hate to say this because I like projects like this… But products like this are only purchased by people that don’t understand batteries. A car battery is worn out after 5 years. It simply needs replacing when the car cranks slow. It’s not the cold day that causes the car not to start. If the car cranks slow in cool weather, replace it today, before it gets cold.
Here is the full list of why a car will not start:
- The battery is over 5 years old and now requires replacing.
- The battery selected did not have enough capacity for the vehicle from the day it was purchased. Sure, it worked fine for a few years by overworking it. But now it’s diminished to the point it can’t start this vehicle during the 3rd year.
- Cheap owners that leads to a combination of #1 and #2. This is the most common from my experience.
If a vehicle is cranking slow, replace the battery today. That’s all there is to it.
Now I’m sure someone will point out that leaving an accessory on could discharge the battery. That was true in vehicles before 2003? Now there is a cut-off switch installed that activates like 10 minutes after you walk away from the vehicle to prevent this.
All quite true JoshK. Since I began replacing vehicle batteries at 4-1½ to 5 years of age, regardless of it seeming to work okay, I have not had a battery fail on me. That’s over 30 years and never needing the jumper cables that each vehicle carries. I’ve used them for others, not myself though.
actually accessories can still drain it. i have a car with a computer that has drained its battery several times due to kids leaving dome lights on, couple days of that, and 600 watt-hours is gone…
the new ones do shut off headlights but not everything…
i;m skeptical that it can be done in a flashlight
at least one that has enough capacity and is still something you would want to carry around
i would not want to carry around a 5 lb thingy that could be half a pound, except for the car-start function, which i would hope to never need…!
i mean sure it would also power 1000 lumens for a 6 hours but i don;t really need that either
i’m better off with a BLF A6 for a light, and then a separate jump starter thingy that stays in the car
just saying - i could be wrong wrong wrong
wle