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A jump from another vehicle will provide enough electricity to start the vehicle. And the car's alternator will provide enough electricity to keep the car running...
But it takes *time* to recharge a battery so it will then be able to start the car on its own. Just like a cell phone with a very low battery. You can plug it in to use it right away. But if you immediately unplug it, the battery is still not charged.
In the case of a car you would need to leave a battery charger on the battery possibly overnight.
Or leave the engine running for a half hour maybe or take a long trip. Then the car's alternator charges the battery.
I had one of the combination charger/jump from Sam's Club for about $60 but it wouldn't turn my Van motor over. My buddy was mocking me saying it was a great product if I ever need to jump my lawnmower, blah, blah, blah. I got P.O.'d and went out to see how much I could spend on one and I have this monster that they claim you can jump a Greyhound Bus with. 1550 CCA. Weighs about 40 pounds and it will start anything. I carry it everywhere and usually jump 10-20 cars every winter. I also carry a few welding rods in case I have to spot weld something with it.
I do not use my lawn mower that much in the winter...
This is another technology. Battery maintainers are handy for cars which are used infrequently. They will maintain a tricle charge. The best ones also apply a higher voltage periodically to keep the battery acid stirred up. These are good for your tractor or a RV you don't use over the Winter. be sure to check battery fluid level for these applications.
Some modern vehicles have so much "parasitic draw" on the battery that 2 weeks or less of sitting idle can drain the battery to the point where the engine will not turn over.
If you know the vehicle is going to be unused for a couple weeks or more, it would pay to disconnect the battery negative cable.
Oh, sure, you will have to reprogram the stereo presets, but if the battery went dead, you would anyway!
Keep in mind that a fully charged battery probably won't freeze (it just won't get THAT cold, more than likely), but a discharged battery very likely WILL freeze, and if it freezes it will likely crack the case! That little factoid cost me over $250 last spring! I didn't check the house batteries in the motorhome often enough over the winter, they went dead, froze, broke, and those two Trojan 6 volts are PRICEY! Needless to say, this year I am keeping a close watch on them!
Most jumper cables are too small to truly jump start a car with a dead battery. Normally, you must connect the jumpers for 20-30 minutes for the dead battery to get some charge. Connect positive lead to lead first, then negative lead from chassis to chassis away from the battery. Drawing a spark near a battery might result in an explosion.
When disconnecting a battery, negative off first. When connecting a battery, negative on last. Fooling around with the positive terminal using a metal tool can easily result in some unintended "welding" events if you ground the tool while connected to the positive terminal and the negative is still connected.
Have y'all seen the new portable power supply/jump starter? It's a setup with a battery that's only the size of a paperback book but has enough power to start a car. Also has connections for plugging in phones/computers... so you can use it for those as well.
There are various charging/maintaining/starting options available:
1) Battery maintainers. These are very small, sometimes the size of a cigarette pack, and they are basically used to keep a CHARGED UP battery topped off over time. You can leave these plugged in and hooked up indefinitely. They prolong the life of a battery vs letting one sit in a discharged state. We have 5 cars that we rarely drive, and each one has a battery maintainer hooked up to it.
2) Battery chargers. These generally have several settings, like 2 amp, 10 amp, 15 amp, and , sometimes "start", that you use when a battery is extremely dead. The higher the amps the quicker it charges the battery. IMO, the old style battery chargers with the analog gauge on the front are much better than the new ones that are digital. I have tried charging a low battery with one of the new ones, and below 10.5 volts it doesn't see the battery and will kick out. The old ones will charge a battery no matter how low it is
3) Battery "Jump boxes". These are self contained units that have an internal battery so that, when your car will not start, you hook it up to the battery and it will jump start your car. You generally keep these hooked up to your home or garage 120 volt wall plug until needed, but they will hold a charge for a relatively long time once they are disconnected from house power.
4) Jumper cables. These are used in conjunction with another charged up vehicle and all you do is hook up the cables to the good battery and to the dead battery, wait a little bit, and then try to start the dead car. As someone mentioned, the cheap ones are useless and will start to get hot sometimes. More expensive ones have larger gauge cables and work much better.
A recent invention are very small battery chargers and very small jump boxes. We sell them at work and they are about twice the size of a pack of cigarettes, and they contain a lithium battery (in the case of the jump box) They are convenient to keep in the car and will hold a charge for some time. (but not the battery CHARGER, it still needs a 120 volt power source to work.
1. If you leave your car set for a month, it should start fine.
2. If you leave your lights on and drain the battery, the best way to get it started is using jumper cables to connect it to another car.
A battery charger is plugged into a wall outlet, and charges the battery at (usually) a fairly slow rate.
Jumper cables connect the battery of one car with the battery of another car.
Battery charger:
Jumper cables:
There's another option today. The Micro-Start XP-10 or similar jump starter.
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