Professional Tool Reviews for Pros

We’ve spent some time expressing our abiding love for portable jump starters on this site. Even this morning, Austin, our video editor, used one to get to work. Today, we’re looking at the DeWalt Portable Jump Starter and Power Station. This unit sets itself apart with multiple functions, including some diagnostic feedback.

We love portable jump starters. Unlike the more traditional method of jump-starting your “dead” battery, which generally takes another car and a few minutes, a jump starter eliminates the need for the other car. Portable models eliminate the need for an external power source.

This DeWalt DXAEPS14 jump starter provides 1600 peak amps and 750 instant amps of jump-starting power from its SLA battery. That’s enough amps to get most engines up to V8’s started and is pretty high compared to other portable units.

When it’s go time, the jumper cables pull out from the side storage bay relatively easily. From there, you simply match the colors on your cables to the colors on your battery terminal, turn on the unit, and hit the ignition in your car or truck. Once you’re back up and running, the cables wrap back up around the unit to keep everything neat and organized.

What’s really interesting about this unit is an alternator check. Like jumping your battery, the alternator check is simple. Hit the Alternator Check button on the DXAEPS14, and hook up to your fully charged battery with your engine running. The system will begin to assess your alternator voltage range. If everything is as it should be, the LCD screen will display an “Alt Good” indication. If there’s something amiss, the system warns you.

Before running the alternator check, turn off all the accessories and anything that could draw power from the alternator. After the initial check is complete, turn all of the accessories back on (except the A/C or defrost), and run the check again.

Pairing an inflator with a jump starter is a brilliant move, taking care of two of the most common issues you run into with one tool. Similar to the LokiThor JA301 we reviewed previously, the DeWalt DXAEPS14 includes it as well.

DeWalt uses what they call a SureFit nozzle at the free end of the compressor hose. This screws onto your valve stem instead of the clamp system that most inflators come with. In time, the rubber gaskets in a clamp have a tendency to wear out and leak. DeWalt’s setup is likely to last much longer.

You can inflate from 3 PSI all the way to 120 PSI. Like other cordless inflators we’ve tested, you can set the target pressure on the controls and the compressor will automatically stop when it reaches it.

When the job is done, you can wrap the hose back around the cord wrap for handy storage. DeWalt also includes a needle for inflating sports balls, but not an adapter for pool inflatables or air mattresses.

The DeWalt Jump Starter and Power Station also has the goods for operating as a portable power supply for both your sensitive electronics and some limited AC power usage. It features four USB ports and two 120V outlets for plugging in small appliances.

The four USB ports provide a combined total of 6.2A, while the dual 120V AC power outlets provide a combined total power draw of 500W.

While it’s handy in a pinch if you’re stuck and need to charge your phone, keep in mind you’re draining your emergency power supply.

You may have picked up on the SLA battery reference earlier in the review. If you’re new to battery tech, that stands for Sealed Lead Acid—a modern take on lead acid batteries. While they’re far better than the batteries we used a couple decades ago, the choice has some consequences.

We’ve used plenty of jump starters over the last few years, and one of the draws has been that they’re light and compact, some of which you could actually store in some oversized glove boxes if you wanted. The DeWalt is not that kind of jump starter.

It weighs a robust 20+ pounds, and while it’s not obscenely large, it is a similar size to, say, your car’s battery. It won’t have any problems hanging out in your trunk, but a glove box is out of the question and it will take up some prime real estate anywhere in your cab.

There’s also the issue of recharge times. We haven’t run it dead to see how long it takes to charge up, but DeWalt warns us to give it 40 hours for the initial charge. From there, a full charge cycle is closer to 10 hours. Contrasting this to the couple of hours it takes to recharge your standard jump pack… well, this is going to take a while longer than that.

You also need to maintain it by keeping it charged. Lead acid batteries self-drain faster than lithium-ion and you can really limit the overall life if it drains too deep too often.

The DeWalt DXAEPS14 is available now at The Home Depot for $199. It comes with a 1-year warranty and a 1-year free service agreement.

DeWalt packs some impressive features into their jump starter and the cranking amps are solid. The ability to jump, inflate, test the alternator, and charge devices via USB or AC outlet covers more bases than most. Overall, it does the job it’s designed to do well. What you need to decide is whether the feature set is worth the trade-offs compared to lithium-ion options.

You'll find Chris behind the scenes of almost everything Pro Tool Reviews produces. When he doesn't have his hands on tools himself, he's often the man behind the camera lens making the rest of the team look good. In his free time, you might find Chris with his nose jammed in a book, or tearing out his remaining hair while watching Liverpool FC. He enjoys his faith, family, friends, and the Oxford comma.

Makita 18V High-Pressure Inflator Delivers Up To 160 PSI While cordless inflators all perform the same basic function, some models feature an extra degree of refinement. The Makita DMP181 18V Cordless High-Pressure Tire Inflator improves upon previous models with a higher PSI limit, faster inflation, and some convenience features to easily top off car, truck, […]

DeWalt 20V Max Cordless Universal Dust Extractor Kit Cracks Down On Jobsite Airborn Hazards The dangers of silica dust are no secret in the construction industry. OSHA has taken great measures to warn of the risk associated with loose concrete dust and its effects years down the road. This DeWalt cordless universal dust extraction kit […]

Josh and Kenny planned to revisit our Milwaukee vs DeWalt one-hand reciprocating saw head-to-head. Unfortunately for the test (and fortunately for our appetites), they quickly lost focus and, well, you can see for yourself what happened. Still, it was highly entertaining for the rest of the office and the results were delicious. From all of […]

DeWalt DCH416 60V Max FlexVolt Rotary Hammer Opens Up 1 1/4-Inch Class DeWalt is expanding its FlexVolt rotary hammer portfolio with the DeWalt DCH416, a 1 1/4-inch SDS-Plus model. As the least powerful of the 60V Max line, why is it worth your consideration? We got our hands on one to find out. For your […]

Amazon reviews tear this unit to pieces! Bad (small screws) build, and  should be plugged in to charge monthly!, and no mention of Full Sine Wave for AC. Not even made or supported by Dewalt! OTOH- Great gathering of features! If they can get this to use a standard Dewalt 40-60V battery (Lithium!!!!), and update to Sine AC, what people expect as “standard” (won’t kill their laptop if used! Danger! Will Robinson!), then it would fly off the shelves! Not Ready For Prime Time, as is. :-) Might be fine for camping, USB charging phones, if left on charger full…  Read more »

As an Amazon Associate, we may earn income when you click on an Amazon link. Thanks for helping us do what we love.

See our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

Pro Tool Reviews is a successful online publication that has been providing tool reviews and industry news since 2008. In today’s world of Internet news and online content, we found that more and more professionals researched a large majority of their major power tool purchases online. That piqued our interest.

There’s one key thing to note about Pro Tool Reviews: We’re all about the professional tool user and tradesman!

Copyright ©2008-2021 CD Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

Professional Tool Reviews for Pros

This website uses anonymous cookies to provide you with the best browsing experience.

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognizing you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful. Feel free to read our full privacy policy.

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

This website uses the following additional cookies:

Gleam.io - This lets us offer giveaways that collect anonymous user information such as the number of visitors to the site. No personal information is collected until or unless it is voluntarily submitted for purposes of manually entering a giveaway.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!