Video demo of me using this guy to run some LED lighting in the house: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PquTrhd9JcM
Now, down to business. I mention in the description to the video above that as a battery for LED lighting in emergency scenarios, this isn't ideal. I figure you'll get an hour, maybe two or three, but I can't see much more than that from what I saw tonight. That being said, it's really not what this little guy is for, so, I take no points away for that.
No, what this device is for is to jump your dead battery (or someone else's, as was the case earlier today.) For this, it's perfect. A few ladies were stranded around the corner from me, their battery dead as a door nail, when my son came in to let me know. We hopped in the HHR and rode over to get an idea of what was going on. The way he described it (they turned the key and it just clicked,) it sounded to me like a dead battery.
Sure enough, once there, hood up, and clips on the terminals, I turned the box on and had her give it a shot. It was a little sluggish, as anyone who's ever jumped a car will know is usually the case, but it fired right up. It ran for a few seconds then died. Initially, I thought maybe the alternator was shot, so hooked the ReadyStart maxx back up and had her fire it up again. This time, it wouldn't start. It cranked, gave good effort, but just wouldn't fire up. We tried another three or four times with the same result.
I saw on the dash that the gas needle was at rock bottom, so asked if they might be out. They told me they'd just put a bit in. Turned out it wasn't enough (I think a dollar maybe,) so, I grabbed my can from home and gave them what was left (about half, in a one gallon gas can,) and ran around the corner to the little gas station there for another gallon to get them on their way. Once all the gas was added, we tried one more time and she fired up without pause and kept running just fine.
With the five (we'll say, to be safe,) jumps off this pack, the battery level still showed right around eighty percent (I don't recall the exact number, but it started with eight, so, there's that.) I brought it home and plugged it in before my LED light test and it was back up to one hundred percent in under an hour.
The moral of this story is, it does what it's supposed to. If you're battery's dead, this little guy should have no issues jumping you off. Now, if you drive some big, industrial vehicle, I can't vouch, but it definitely works on large SUVs.
As I mention in the video, I give this device a solid five out of five stars and it was only a $60 purchase at Wal-Mart.
