Who has used a lithium power bank / jump starter to power a sonar or flasher?

[Drift Dodger]

I'd like to replace my sonar ice pack's SLA battery with a lithium solution of some sort, possibly a Dakota lithium. However I'm curious whether a lithium power bank / jump starter might be a better alternative. Plenty of these on the market, with a multitude of options and power ratings.

Who has used one, and how has it performed with your equipment on the ice?

[markinohio]

I’ve been using a Renogy 38000mAh/144Wh (12Ah @ 12V) with a power hungry Garmin Panoptix unit from the kayak. I’ve been able to get at least 10hrs of use without depleting the battery. But, I still do not know what type of results I will get on the ice.

I’m fairly ignorant of electricity, and was very confused when comparing different power packs. It seems most give their capacity rating in mAh at 3.8V. I found this calculator very useful:

https://milliamps-watts.appspot.com/

[Lukaszu]

Lithium ion is what's in most power banks.. These are sensitive to cold. Dakota is lithium iron... Much better for cold.
If it works will depend on your flasher kind too

[matzilla]

lithium ion is less prone to cold impact than sla however, so it really doesn't matter....

[markinohio]

Is there any evidence that LiFePo4 has better cold weather performance than other LiPo batteries?

It is my understanding that the major advantage of LiFePo4 is increased lifecycles, with the trade-off being increased weight relative to other LiPo batteries.

[winterbuddy]

I'm curious whether a lithium power bank / jump starter might be a better alternative. Plenty of these on the market, with a multitude of options and power ratings.

As pointed out, the ratings are not consistent between products.  Many options are 3 cells in series, which provides a lower operating voltage, thus a less desirable system for most applications.  A vexilar can run off a lemon, so you have more lighter options.  I often run a vex off 4 18650 cells in a simple holder.  You can get close to 20hours run time with the flx28.

[Lukaszu]

Firstly important to know what flasher u will use. Because for example Marcum will shut down at voltage lower then 10.5v and fry somewhere above 14.5v.
3 lithium ions in series will give you stable voltage at 11.1v.
It is possible but again what are u gonna power? For how long? And why you wanna go that rout?

And yes no evidence necessary, lithium ions do not perform in the cold as well as lithium iron aka lifepo4 batteries... This is a well known fact.

[Drift Dodger]

All good info so far, thanks all. Originally I was planning to just get a lithium jump starter for the wife's car, then on second thought to possibly perform double-duty powering my sonar as well (Garmin echoMAP).

[Barfnick]

I have used a couple different ones to power my Striker 4. The one that works the best is the GooLoo one I got on Amazon for around $75.00. That one will power it for a couple days before needing to recharge. The second best was the Anti-Gravity, but that jump starter was already a couple years old before I tried it ice fishing and was the reason I even thought of trying it. I tried a cheap lithium battery pack and that didn't work very well at all. I bought that one to power my heated vest and it works fine for that, but not for the locator.

[Drift Dodger]

So I got in on what I considered a pretty good Black Friday deal on this Boostmi jump starter (https://shop.boostmi.com/collections/products/products/pro) from Costco Canada (https://www.costco.ca/Boostmi-Pro-Portable-Jump-Starter-and-Personal-Power-Supply.product.100410499.html). Has a lithium iron phosphate battery with claimed 18,000mAh. Not sure what the maximum continuous run-time would be running my Garmin echoMAP, but have gone without recharging on several separate outings over a period of four days or so. Seems almost weightless compared to any capacity SLA battery that I've used. I'm quite happy with it so far.

[icetilt]

Stupid question maybe, How are you guys hooking up the power to the lithium jumper packs?

[Drift Dodger]

Stupid question maybe, How are you guys hooking up the power to the lithium jumper packs?

I cut the wire/plug from an old (dead) 12v power supply and spliced that to the sonar's power cable.

[Drift Dodger]

[mcflyfisher]

I built 2 different packs out of salvaged 18650 lithium batteries.   Both were 3s packs.   One is 3s3p and one is 3s4p.  Something around 5amphour and 7 amp hour.   I use them on my striker 4.  Honestly, they work just fine.   The cold degrades performance for sure, but the weight savings means I can add extra capacity that more than makes up for the loss of cold weather performance. 
As for the jump starter performance,  be aware that the capacity of these is almost never actually what is claimed.   I've harvested lots of 18650 cells from different things over the last few years, and have never found quality cells in any of the jumper packs,  or phone charger packs.  They may still work for you but don't expect some claimed 30,000miliamp hour pack to actually have 30 amp hours in it.