TOPDON JS3000 Portable Jump Starter Review | AutoGuide.com

Nov 01, 2024

Have starting power wherever you need it

There are a lot of portable jump starters on the market today, and most of them do a great job on average, every-day vehicles. What about if your vehicle is not average? Bigger motors need a little extra juice to get going and you can bring that juice with you by way of the TOPDON JS3000, a jump starter that has enough in the tank to get even big diesel engines up and running. It does that and a lot more, too.

Ever since we started using battery systems in automobiles, there has been a need to occasionally get a jump start. Battery systems can drain the power enough to keep the car from turning over easier than you might think. For most people, a set of jumper cables and another car are required to get going again, but it wasn’t long before lead-acid battery pack jumpers became popular, especially with tow-truck drivers and road-service companies. As battery technology progressed, so did options for jump start systems.

A little over ten years ago, lithium-ion batteries were put in use for jump starting vehicles with dead batteries. The lithium-ion batteries were more powerful and far more compact, making it possible to have a smaller, more easily portable system for getting you back on the road. There are a lot of other uses for these jump starters, too, which has made them even more popular.

TOPDON has been at the forefront of development of portable lithium-ion battery jump starters, and The JumpSurge 3000, or JS3000, is a perfect tool to have with you if you have a bigger vehicle that might require a little extra juice to get going again.

The JS3000 has 3,000 peak amps for jump starting vehicles and to work as a power bank for vehicles on, and off the road. It works with all vehicles using 12V batteries and can handle bigger stuff, such as up to nine-liter gas engines and seven-liter diesel engines. We used it on a wide range of vehicles, including ATVs and Side-by-Sides, regular trucks, vans, a diesel Ford F350, and even a 1945 John Deere Model A tractor. It started every one of them and all on an initial charge.

The JS3000 is more than capable of 45 jump starts on a single charge including, as we said, some pretty big stuff. Unlike using jumper cables, where it might take a few moments to get enough juice transferred over to the dead battery to be able to turn the engine over, the JS3000 was almost instant with everything we used it on. The old tractor took about five times as long to get going, but considering the average time to get enough charge transferred to the dead battery was roughly one second, we’re pretty sure that the five seconds it took to get the tractor enough power – after it had sat in storage for a year (!) – was more than acceptable. We didn’t worry about over charging or anything else because the JS3000 has multiple built-in protection systems.

The TOPDON JS3000 is much more than just a jump starter for dead batteries. It is a portable power source that holds a lot of juice. If you travel with kids, and they have electronics like a tablet or even a phone, having a JS3000 can be a lifesaver. It can recharge a regular tablet in no time, and it is a must-have tool for traveling when you need to have access to a charged phone. We even took the JS3000 with us on a flight to ensure we had charged phones for accessing boarding passes, driving directions, and more. On a week-long Florida adventure, we tested the power of the JS3000 by using it as the only way to keep a smartphone charged, and we still had more than 50% battery left in the unit when we got back.

It can also be a true life saver. We loaned it to an elderly lady who was on oxygen. She had a power outage in her home, and used the JS3000 to power her portable concentrator until power was restored. Being compact, the JS3000 let her be mobile enough to still be active when she waited for the lights to come back on.

If you can’t tell, we really like the TOPDON JS3000. Using it as a jump starter is simple. You simply plug in the battery connectors, attach them to the correct posts on your battery and hit the power button. It has a two-way USB-C port for use as a power source, and for recharging the unit. It comes in a handy carry case with everything you need in it, and the unit is water and dust proof. It can handle temperatures ranging from -4 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. That means if you live in really cold areas in winter, or places where the sun can drive up the inside temperature of your vehicle in summer, you should take the JS3000 with you and not leave it in the car. That falls into that common sense thing.

Keeping the JS3000 on hand for whenever you hit the road is great insurance. You get portable power and the ability to jump start even large engines...all for about $200. It certainly beats waiting for somebody to come along and help you.

Disclaimer: TOPDON did provide the JS3000 portable jump starter seen in this review for evaluation. The company, however, was not allowed to view this article prior to publishing and had no influence on the review.

More by Derrek Sigler