Now that I’ve had a chance to use them, I thought a review is in order.
I woke up the other morning hearing a strange ticking, it was very loud too. I looked out the front window and suddenly realized what it was- it was the Whelen PA/siren clicking through the speakers because the batteries on one of the vehicles was dead, and the relay inside the siren was clicking on and off, and chirping through the speakers.
It wasn’t the one in my Grand Cherokee, and suddenly I remembered I’d left everything on inside the M1009 the day before- two Ericsson Orion radios, GPS, dash-cam, and of course the PA/siren.
Since it was motorcycle weather and I was riding to work, I figured I’d just attack the problem when I got home; a good test to see if I could self-recover if this happened when I was deep in the National Forest camping.
The two jump boxes have been bouncing around in the back of the ’09 since I bought them and charged them up almost six months ago.
I forgot to check voltages, I guess that would have been useful information. The truck was completely dead though, at least the 12v side of things. The volt meter didn’t move at all when I turned the key.
My worry was how much the (mine are 12v) glow plug cycle would drain the jump box, like it could be dead before I even got to the part where I engage the starter…
Strategy…. Hook up one box to the 12v battery and keep one in reserve in case the glow plugs kill the first one, or connect both boxes to both batteries? I chose the latter, and connected both jump boxes to both batteries.
The boxes pulsed- like they sent power, clicked off, then sent power, then clicked off- all the way through the GP cycle (which wasn’t very long being about 68° out). The volt meter jumped each time the boxes clicked off. Not sure what that’s about.
After the wait light went out I turned the key and the truck fired up like I’d put two brand new mil batteries in it. SUCCESS!
I plugged in the boxes to recharge them and they were only down one out of five indicator lights, so I suspect I could have jumped off four or five trucks before really needing to recharge the boxes.
The jump boxes have a volt meter of their own, right at the base of the cables where they plug into the unit. Didn't even notice them until I saw them flash .