We're looking at a 2017 Volkswagen E Golf. It's an all electric vehicle
and it may surprise you to know that it has a 12 volt battery. And without this 12 volt battery
the big energy pack that underneath the vehicle
that drives the vehicle won't work. So there is the potential
that at some point this battery will fail
and I will be stranded. So what can I do? Well, thanks to the Home Depot
Seeds program, we now have a solution. We have the Schumacher SL 1647 car jump starter and power bank.
It's basically a three and one. It has led. It can jumpstart a vehicle with a thousand amp peak. I'll explain that later. And you can charge devices with it. Let's take a look inside. Included in the box are instructions. A car adapter to charge the unit A, USB B, two USB C
that can be used to charge the unit. Do note that if you want to use the USB
cord to charge the unit, you will have to provide your own power
adapter. A little satchel to carry the jump starter, which has cables already attached to it. These are eight gauge just halfway decent. Then we'll take a closer look at the unit. Yes, it looks like four buttons,
but ah, in actuality just to one side of the jump starter
has this lip which you can clamp on to.
So it'll hold the two clamps,
the two leads just separated. Then on the other side, we see this. This is the LED. This is your work light. And underneath that,
there is a flap that opens. And you can see that there is two parts, a USB port, the USB port and a 12 volt charging pin. So you can charge the unit from your car you can charge it by plugging it into a USB adapter and then you can run a device or charge a device using this USB port. So two ports to charge one port to provide power The Schumacher's nice,
but is it necessary to jumpstart my car? Of course, a cheaper option
than the shoemaker is just jumper cables.
This one includes instructions
that are attached to it. So I would attach that to my vehicle and then find another vehicle
with a battery in, of course, this Prius third generation
doesn't have a battery under the hood. And as a matter of fact,
if you read the owner's manual, it tells you that it cannot jump another
vehicle without damaging electronics. Of this vehicle,
if you do have a Prius third generation, it can be jumpstarted
from another vehicle, just like the Prius. Three can't jump start another car. There are some electric vehicles
that can jump start other cars. So consult your owner's manual. I'm back to a dead battery. My jumper cable. Waiting for the right vehicle to show up
that can jump my vehicle or waiting for the auto club
or a shoemaker. Let's take a closer
look at what the Schumacher has to offer.
As I mentioned earlier, what looks like
four buttons are actually two The bottom one powers the light. The top one turns on the jumper capability This is a reading of the onboard
power pack and how much power you have when you go to jump a vehicle. This light will turn green. Letting you know that it's ready to jump And it turns off. This is a red warning light
that something's wrong. Either the wires are crossed,
you have an overload or an undue voltage. Or overvoltage situation
that needs to be corrected. Pressing the power button will give you the status
of the internal battery and note that you will have to charge this
before you can use it.
And you should periodically check the unit
to make sure that you have ample power
in case you do need to jump start holding down the button
a little bit longer. Actually, initiate the front light which is actually really bright and quite useful. Most of these LED lights are just dim and they're more gimmicky than anything. If you press and hold the button again,
it'll shut off. But you can also step through some strobing and S.O.S. The only issue with this button is hold it too long
and you turn off the unit. Hold it too short
and it doesn't do anything. So it's I think it's .75 of a second in order to switch to a different mode And so it's a little tricky
and I would imagine frustrating,
especially if you're out in the dark and you're trying to get this thing
to do what you want it to do. So just a little push. We'll switch it so that type of push, it's simple click. We'll get into different modes. Go longer than that.
And then you turn off the unit. The underside of the unit
has some warnings, but there are no instructions
on how to jump another vehicle. And this device itself. For that, you'd actually have to go
to the paper instructions, which most of us probably won't
have as these tend to get lost before attempting to jumpstart a vehicle, make sure that it is completely off
and the keys out of the ignition Also, make sure that this unit is powered off,
that there is nothing on. We're going to take our red clamp,
which is the positive clamp and we're going to attach that
to the positive terminal of the battery with the clamp secured to the terminal
We're now ready to take the negative
side, which is the black clamp, and we don't attach it
to the battery terminal, but to a ground point in this car,
it's right here. This piece of metal is our ground. So we'll put the clamp there
putting it in the wrong place, especially on an electric car,
could be very bad.
Yes, I know. On the box
they show you connecting the clamps to the positive
and the negative on the battery itself. But that's just marketing, not reality. Here we are using the light from our unit to show you that we first connect the red to the battery terminal. Then we find a ground on the vehicle which is not the negative terminal
on the battery.
In this case, it's the post right there. And now we are ready to hit the engine button. Wait about 30 seconds. You'll get a green light,
and then we attempt to turn the ignition. Or in case of this electric car, start
the motor as soon as the vehicle starts. Make sure you power down the unit
and the green light extinguishes. We remove the black negative clamp from the ground terminal Make sure it doesn't touch any metal on the vehicle. So preferably you'd clamp it on to here,
which is all plastic And then last,
we remove the positive clamp, put that cover back in place. And now we take our unit away.
But what if the dead
battery is not in your car, but on your smart device? Will this jumper be able to help you Well, supposedly, if you have a USB cable
connected to your device, it can we simply come
over to the unit, turn it on Well, something strange was happening. We weren't getting any status
on the light. And this like, I had to keep on
pressing this a bunch of times.
So I'm a little concerned that this isn't
always working the correct way. So we're going to try one more time. See, because you're supposed to be able
to turn on the unit that gives you the LED lights. Now we plug in our USP into the unit back here Of course, it's always upside down. And then we see that it is indeed
starting to charge the phone. So it will jump start your smart device. If this switch doesn't give you a problem. And again,
I just had to go through and cycle it a bunch of times
before I finally got this reading. If you don't get a battery status reading when pushing this button, check the engine button. If you press that and you get a green light here, you'll
usually get the status of the battery. And if it's full, then turn that off
come back here and play with it until it works or return the unit.
But it does seem to be charging the phone. Well, it's charging the phone
a few things to note. It puts out 1000 amp peak. And what that means is that there's
a thousand amps that rush out to the battery, but that quickly ramps down
because it can't maintain that. But it's enough to start the engine
because most engines can start with 400 to 600 amps. So it should be able to crank the engine. This is not a charging device, so it's just to provide enough power to turn the starter
to get the engine going. Once that happens,
then you remove this device. You do not place this on a battery
on the side thinking that it will charge it
because it won't. The internal battery is rated
at 8000 million powers, which can be enough to charge a modern
cell phone three to four times. The 1000 amp peak should be enough to start a six
liter gas engine and up to a three liter diesel engine. And remember, this is a three in one. You get a car jump starter in a power bank and a light.
The advantages of a portable car
jump starter is that you
don't have to carry cables in your car. Wait for the auto club to show up. You can just be self-reliant. And while this unit certainly
will start your vehicle, there are things that I just don't like
about it. First, it's just kind of bulky. You have these clamps? Yeah. They attach this piece of plastic here
which could potentially break off. Would have been nice if maybe
they attached to the sides of the unit. There are no instructions on the product
itself telling you how to operate it.
The two buttons actually look like
for buttons. A little deceiving, little confusing,
especially if you don't happen to have that little sheet
to guide you through the process. And should your batteries go dead
while it's raining? This unit is not waterproof
and it's not recommended that it gets wet. Another downfall. I'm a little concerned
with the longevity of this switch as it was acting up already in
the unit is brand new. On the plus side,
the cables are fairly long, three feet from back of the unit
to the tip of the clamp.
So they're actually
a little under three feet. If you find yourself stranded somewhere,
it's nice to know that you can use this as a power bank
to keep your smart device running. The ability to signal or to use this as an emergency flashlight is awesome. The ability to charge this
from a USB adapter or from your car is great. The ability to run devices and power devices from the power bank is awesome. I just wish the labeling was visible
because at night or even just for older people, it's
very difficult to make out the labeling.
Well, I can't wholeheartedly recommend
this unit. I will include this in the Prius only because when that battery goes, it's never going to be at the right place
and they're expensive to get. So I may not have quick access
to a replacement battery. So this power pack will at least
get me started and get me home or to a dealer where I can get the battery
But having said that, I could also buy a smaller jump starter
and achieve the same result. Or you can modify it to suit your needs. If you found this video
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And as always,
thank you so much for watching..