What was your best purchase last year?

Seattle

Seattle

Valued Senior Member
I'm trying to make this thread a more generalized thread than just what I purchased so if you've recently purchased something that turned out to be a particularly good idea...post it here.

I bought a Hulkman jump starter for your car battery. I just had to use it the other day which is why it's on my mind at the moment. I somehow managed to leave the car lights on (they usually turn off automatically) and it drained the battery. I bumped the light control from "auto" to "on" and assumed the light would turn off by itself, as usual.

This is a lithium ion battery powered jump starter. It's a little smaller than a brick. I bought it a year ago, charged it and it still showed that it was at 100% charge when I used it the other day. It has two charger cables but they are only about 5 inches long.

You just turn the unit on and lay it down under the hood, connect the cables to the car battery, it says "ready" and you start your car. It works even if your car battery is completely dead and will work even if you removed your car battery. It also has a built-in flashlight, you can also use it to recharge a laptop or cell phone. You can even run a 12V "appliance" off it if necessary.

I store it in the trunk of the car on top of the spare battery. No more having to use long jumper cables, find another car or having to reposition your car so another car's jumper cables can reach it. I had a car battery die once at night, during a snow storm on Christmas eve at a climbing gym with no one else in the parking lot. That wouldn't be a problem with this.

If you don't have one you might want to think about getting one. Have you purchased anything recently that has turned out to be unexpectedly useful or unique?
 
Seattle said:
I'm trying to make this thread a more generalized thread than just what I purchased so if you've recently purchased something that turned out to be a particularly good idea...post it here.

I bought a Hulkman jump starter for your car battery. I just had to use it the other day which is why it's on my mind at the moment. I somehow managed to leave the car lights on (they usually turn off automatically) and it drained the battery. I bumped the light control from "auto" to "on" and assumed the light would turn off by itself, as usual.

This is a lithium ion battery powered jump starter. It's a little smaller than a brick. I bought it a year ago, charged it and it still showed that it was at 100% charge when I used it the other day. It has two charger cables but they are only about 5 inches long.

You just turn the unit on and lay it down under the hood, connect the cables to the car battery, it says "ready" and you start your car. It works even if your car battery is completely dead and will work even if you removed your car battery. It also has a built-in flashlight, you can also use it to recharge a laptop or cell phone. You can even run a 12V "appliance" off it if necessary.

I store it in the trunk of the car on top of the spare battery. No more having to use long jumper cables, find another car or having to reposition your car so another car's jumper cables can reach it. I had a car battery die once at night, during a snow storm on Christmas eve at a climbing gym with no one else in the parking lot. That wouldn't be a problem with this.

If you don't have one you might want to think about getting one. Have you purchased anything recently that has turned out to be unexpectedly useful or unique?
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Why do you need to jump start a modern car at all? I last had jump start leads for the car back in the 1980s. Or do you run an old banger with a dud alternator?
 
exchemist said:
Why do you need to jump start a modern car at all? I last had jump start leads for the car back in the 1980s. Or do you run an old banger with a dud alternator?
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My car is only 2 years old. I take it you have an electric and this is a dig at all non-electrics?
 
Seattle said:
My car is only 2 years old. I take it you have an electric and this is a dig at all non-electrics?
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No, I run a 12 year old petrol VW Golf. Before that I had a Peugeot, before that a couple of Mazda MX5s and before that another Peugeot. That takes us back to 1988. On none of these was there ever a problem starting them - except once when the battery underwent a sudden and total failure, for which the remedy was a new battery of course.
 
exchemist said:
No, I run a 12 year old petrol VW Golf. Before that I had a Peugeot, before that a couple of Mazda MX5s and before that another Peugeot. That takes us back to 1988. On none of these was there ever a problem starting them - except once when the battery underwent a sudden and total failure, for which the remedy was a new battery of course.
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My battery just drained when the light was left on. That can happen with any car. Any car will also eventually need to have the battery replaced and then that happens you might not be in a great place for that to happen.
 
Seattle said:
A new central heating boiler. Why would you need that in the modern age? Don't you have solar panels and wind turbines? :) (joke)
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I spent £500 getting a heat survey to see if a heat pump could be installed. The verdict was that my large Victorian house is too big for one to be retrofitted. I also explored solar panels but the roof has too many small sections that are awkward shapes, so the number of rectangular panels that could be mounted would not generate very much.

So reluctantly I concluded that the best way to reduce my carbon footprint was to fit double glazing and get a modern high efficiency condensing gas boiler, both of which are now installed. Next up will be replacing the front door so that it seals better and possibly getting some internal glass panels to put over the stained glass in the hall, which is a big source of heat leakage.
 
exchemist said:
I spent £500 getting a heat survey to see if a heat pump could be installed. The verdict was that my large Victorian house is too big for one to be retrofitted. I also explored solar panels but the roof has too many small sections that are awkward shapes, so the number of rectangular panels that could be mounted would not generate very much.

So reluctantly I concluded that the best way to reduce my carbon footprint was to fit double glazing and get a modern high efficiency condensing gas boiler, both of which are now installed. Next up will be replacing the front door so that it seals better and possibly getting some internal glass panels to put over the stained glass in the hall, which is a big source of heat leakage.
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Sounds like a good plan.

I still don't get your comment about why a car would need a jump starter when I explained that I left the lights on. I have an alternator but you need the car to run for that to work.

Did I miss something in your comment? It makes no sense, to me. :)
 
I’d say an “Ember” cup. It’s temperature controlled using an app and it keeps your coffee or tea or whatever hot beverage you typically drink, set at the temperature of your choice. It comes with a “docking station” for your cup so it charges over night. Or throughout the day.

Their slogan is “because temperature matters.” It does! I’ll get busy with work after pouring a cup of coffee in the morning, and an hour later, my coffee is still perfectly hot. I use it with tea, too. There are electric coffee warming “plates” out there for regular cups, but it’s not the same at all.
 
Seattle said:
Sounds like a good plan.

I still don't get your comment about why a car would need a jump starter when I explained that I left the lights on. I have an alternator but you need the car to run for that to work.

Did I miss something in your comment? It makes no sense, to me. :)
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A dodgy alternator can fail to charge your battery properly, I understand.

But it's interesting about the lights. That's never happened to me in over 30 years and it's not something that I would ever think I need to make contingency provision for. But the difference between us may be that I live in London (and before that The Hague). So I've always had other transport options if something goes wrong with the car.
 
billvon said:
Long storage times, for one.
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How long would that be? I seem to be able to leave mine a month without any trouble.

In fact, I may put this to the test, now that my father is dead. Driving to see him each week was about the only regular use the car was getting. That was in October so, now that all the Christmas travel is out of the way, the car is getting very little use.
 
billvon said:
For me, over three weeks was a problem.
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Before I got my latest car, I kept the previous car over 20 years so some troubleshooting was required from time to time.

Before you have replaced a starter and an alternator and you have an old battery, there are all those variables to consider when something isn't working correct. You can buy a new battery and think that corrected the problem only to find out weeks later that you have a faulty alternator.

I mainly drive my car around the neighborhood. I had replaced the battery and was driving to the climbing gym several nights a week (so the headlights are on) and everything went well for a couple of weeks and then the battery died again at the gym.

I got the alternator replaced and that fixed the problem. To your point of not using your car much and having the battery die after 3 weeks. That's about what I found to be the case when I bought a new battery and unbeknown to me I also had an alternator that wasn't actually charging the battery.

That's similar to just having a car in storage (other than the headlamp usage on the short drive to the gym).

The best solution now to that problem is probably the battery powered jump starter that I described but before I got that and before I got my latest car I also learned about and used a "battery tender". It's a slow trickle charger that charges your car battery and automatically shuts off when the battery is fully charged.

You just "permanently" attack a small quick disconnect cable to your car battery and run it across your engine and it sticks out from your grill by about an inch. That's where the quick disconnect is. You plug the actual electronic unit into your garage power outlet and then there is another small cable that is the other end of the quick disconnect cable.

You plug that into the grill area when your car will be just sitting there for a while and when you are ready to use the car you just use the quick disconnect and drive away. You reconnect when you get home. A lot of people who collect cars or have some "good weather" sports cars use these for similar reasons.

If you actually have a bad battery or if you run down the battery too much the Battery Tender is designed not to power on. It has to sense at least 9 volts. In my case I had to buy a regular battery charger, which means taking the battery out of the car to charge overnight. Then you can use the Battery Tender so that doesn't happen again. With the battery powered jump starter this isn't an issue. It does sense for a certain voltage lever but it has a button to push in that case and then it will go active and start the car anyway.

You have to do a lot of guessing with older cars sometimes. With my new car, I don't have to do any of that and bought the lithium ion battery jump starter just as "insurance" and because it's so small, convenient and is really a "life saver" when you do need it. In this particular case I've only needed it the one time when I inadvertently caused the lights to be left on.

In your case if sounds like you could use one (longer term storage of a car) or a Battery Tender.

Another advantage of the battery powered jump starter is that it's easy to help others. If I'm out in the mountains with friends (hiking, climbing, etc) and someone's car won't start at the trailhead parking lot that's obviously not convenient for them at all.

Rather than look around for jumper cables, or having to call road side assistance it would be easy to just walk over with the battery powered jumper and not have to maneuver two vehicles together, worry about one vehicle damaging the electronics in the other car. Just walk over, attach the unit and start the car, that's it.
 
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exchemist said:
Why do you need to jump start a modern car at all? I last had jump start leads for the car back in the 1980s. Or do you run an old banger with a dud alternator?
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I've found owning a set of jumper leads to be invaluable over the years. They aren't needed often, but when needed they save a LOT of time and money.

I have had my car battery go flat about three times that I can recall in the last 10 years, either due to leaving the lights on accidentally or (in one case) running the sound system for too long with the engine off.

I have also helped other people out many more times than I have needed to jump-start my own car, over the years.
 
Last year i bout an electric nose hair trimmer from Amazon... runs on 1 AA battery... works very grate... easy to clean... an i thank it was only 12 dollars.!!!
 
I agree with James.
I have used my cables many times to help others. A lot of people use to forget to turn off the lights when they got to work.

My favorite purchase was an electric chipper for the sticks from the trees. Then you just toss them on the mulch.
 
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