Hazmat01 may be and electrician but he is not my electrician or a mechanic. LOL!!

Hondabuster and GeorgiaBII are exactly right. Most 4cyl cars will put out a max of 80-120 amps of current. V8 trucks about 100-130 amps. An alternator will only put out as many amps as the vehicle is drawing. If you are driving durring the day with the radio on and no acc on then your alt will put out a min amount of amperage and will adjust higher or lower depending on the draw( lights, defroster, heater etc..) but will not exceed the maximum amount of amperage the alternator was designed for. You can use a 1000 amp diesel battery in a power wheels and it wont harm it because the motor has a very small draw on the battery. It would sure last along time though. Your atv will only draw the amps from the donor battery that it needs. If you are ever unsure of what volt a battery is a 6 volt will have 3 cells, 12v has 6 cells and 24v has 12 cells. Dont worry about jump starting. It can be running because your alternator puts out way less amperage than the battery anyways. Average alternator 100 amps, average battery 500+ amps. You do the math. Running makes no difference.

 

Our electrician friend is a classic example of someone knowing too much and also not enough.

If one unhooks a battery cable from a Polaris while the engine is running it WILL fry every light bulb that happens to be on at the time. On newer Polaris ATV's it could also ruin the ECM, or a few other things.

In short it is OK to jump start your quad from your car as long as your car is not running when you must do so. Just don't make a habit of doing it all the time.

 

This may be a stupid question but did you try the kickstarter? As long as there is even a minimal charge on the battery, enough to run the CDI or coil or whatever supplies the spark you ought to be able to start it manually. I had one of those flaky batteries in the ATP and I had to use the recoil starter many times last winter till I got off my butt and replaced the battery. The battery was flat too, I mean it didn't have enough juice to run the lights and the recoil starter worked fine.
Q

 

The predator doesnt have a kickstarter.

 

damnmy head hurts!!lol

 

Sooooo I guess it was a stupid question, not my first won't be my last!
Q

 

LMAO!

 

This is from an older thread, on the same topic, and is a piece written for motorcycles, but motorcycle and atv charging systems are for the most part, identicle.
All atvs have stators or magnetos, none has alternators (device with a field wire for controlling output), all stators run at max output, and cant be trimmed back.


jump start thread


It goes on to explain why the donor vehicle must be off, and the reason is voltage and not current. The atvs starter and starter circuit has a fixed resistance, itll only pull a known amount of current and that can be figured by using ohms law. But the starting system and the charging system will gladly accept higher voltage, and then theres problems.

 

Sorry, I will shut up now.

 

This is off the subject but, i HAVE BEEN THROUGH THREE BATTERIES ON MY PRED. the problem was The tray on the sub frame .From riding the battery moved around and a hole would be rubbed into the battery.Also the charging system sucks on a pred,It's just enough to run the quad.After padding the tray and getting the Procom black box and rectifier I have no more problems.

As for jump starting I have done it before and it Never hurt anything and it won't.I even jump started my 2500 Chevy truck off the predator before.