a plug goes into the hole on the opposite side of the battery, use the one from the old batt, or look at the post covers on the new batt for a detachable plug.

 

Thanks for the pictures. Turns out my vent hose had broken off at some point! I have hacked it together at the floor and at the battery until I can find a new one.

I thought I had read on the forum that the batteries were available at Walmart for $77.00 and that these even came with a new vent hose. I ended up buying the only battery Walmart's computer says will fit for $115.00. It is indeed the proper size and has the vent holes but no vent hose.

I'm going to wait on installing it and keep looking for a cheaper battery or an equally priced battery that comes with the hose (at least until the car fails to start one of these "cold" mornings).

 

RockAuto sells them, Advance/Pep/Zone will order them. About $10.

I just went through looking for a cheaper battery, I went with the Wal-mart.

BTW, Old size 90 new size T5. They are moving battery specs to DIN sizes now.

 

Just went through the 5 year death of the original GM juice box. The vent tube DOES NOT come with the battery. They sell for an extra $20 or so. Mine was brittle and broke, so I bought a piece of rubber tubing the correct size. Worked fine ( I sleeved it with a piece of larger tubing just in case. BTW the new batteries don't come with the vent( on the top of the battery) attachment either so save the old one. It simply pulls out.

 

I don't understand what you mean.

The proper battery has a vent hole on each end of it, look closely at the plastic post protectors on the new battery there should be a small plug that snaps off of one to plug the unused hole.

There is no vent on the top of the battery. What attachment do you mean?

Here's a link to Ebay for the tube around $12, this is just the first one of many pages.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/DORMAN-924-253-Battery-Cable-Accessory-Battery-Vent-tube-/390440671978?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&fits=Model%3AHHR&hash=item5ae813daea&vxp=mtr

 

These things put out way more than 12 V - never apply one of these with the battery removed! The open circuit voltage is probably 30 - 50 V.

With the car battery as ballast this is probably safe for the electronics, but would be a bad idea without the car battery in parallel. If somebody owns one of these, maybe they could report on the open circuit voltage output.

From the video it looks like the unit can be used to provide lower voltages for purposes other than jump starting.

Even though the output voltage is going to drop with a load, such as an interior light, the open circuit voltage is high enough that I would not take a chance connecting one of these in jump start mode without the ballast of the regular car battery. By inspection, no little tiny 13.2 V battery is going to charge up a flat starting battery. They work by building up surface charge on the starting battery, which requires the much higher open circuit voltage.

 

Wrong - it is 13.5V

 

To understand my concerns, consider the similar unit:


How do I know if my Porta Jump is fully charged? Is there a way to test it?
Answer : There are a few ways to see if your Porta Jump has any energy in it. The simple way to test if the Porta Jump has energy in it, is to plug in adaptor cord to the Porta Jump only. This will read the energy level in the unit. If the LED light shines a bright green, then you know that the unit has power in it. The more advanced way would be to take a volt meter and attach it to the opposite end that normally would plug into the adaptor port in the vehicle. A fully charged unit would read around 30 volts.


http://www.portajumpsa.co.za/index.htm

 

If you take the thing apart, you will find several rechargeable AA batteries. It will NOT jumpstart a car, it will impart a little bit of a charge to a low (not dead) battery. Read the instructions; they say to plug it into the lighter socket for 15-30 minutes then try to start the car.

 

These work on a different principle than an ordinary jump.

Even in the case of an ordinary "jump," the term is usually a misnomer. It is possible to crank an engine directly using heavy gage jumper cables with heavy duty clamps. But usually what is going on is a boost. Booster cables and clamps charge up the flat battery, and also give a boost during cranking, but could never carry enough current to crank on their own.