Battery Backup/Emergency Jump starter

[nfpgasmask]

OK, so I am sure there are already a million threads on this, so if someone knows of a good one that answers my question, just point me in the right direction please.

This summer, I will likely be going on some remote trips with a single vehicle. I am looking for a solution in the event my battery dies.

What is the best thing to do? Run a 2nd, isolated battery or purchase some sort of emergency jump starter? My initial thought would be to run a 2nd, isolated battery, but I am not sure what is best.

Thanks for any input.

Bart

[Superu]

IMHO, an isolated second battery whether in a standard dual setup or in an aftermarket portable solution like the National Luna Portable Power Pack will give you the most reliability and maximum power to get you back up and running if you completely kill your starter battery.

The jump packs are good if you've only run the starter battery down, but if you manage to totally kill it, most of them I've used won;t bring you back to life.

I have the National Luna PPP in the back of our Suburban and have been very happy with it.

[Anthony.L]

I have a quick question. Say I have a second battery that is isolated with a National Luna or similar type system and my primary starter battery dies. How do I use my second isolated battery to start the vehicle? Is the only option to pull it out and put place of the primary battery?

[matt s]

There are various sizes of the backup jumper boxes. I have a big one and with a dead battery I connect the clamps directly to the leads coming off the dead battery, basically bypassing it to go to the starter. It works for me.

Mine is the large Husky one from Home Depot, however I think they no longer carry it.

[wrcsixeight]

I have a quick question. Say I have a second battery that is isolated with a National Luna or similar type system and my primary starter battery dies. How do I use my second isolated battery to start the vehicle? Is the only option to pull it out and put place of the primary battery?

There is a cable from the primary battery to the solenoid isolator, and a wire from the solenoid to the second battery.

You can either run a fat piece of wire and bridge these 2 contacts, or undo one cable and connect it to the other.

Those portable jumper packs are convenient, but for the cost of one you can get another nearly full size battery, one that could start the engine on it's own. Most jumper packs could not jumpstart an engine with a completely dead battery.

Some of the simple solenoid isolators will always have both batteries paralleled whenever the solenoid sees 12 volts from the ignition switch.

Some of the others might have a push button switch, or automatically sense of the engine battery is too low and parallel the second battery.

Physically removing the batteries should never have to happen.