polecat702

What's the best way to hook up a float charger? I'm spending more time away working, and all my cars have dead batteries, except my El Camino. Beat's me why it isn't dead also.

WallyP

If you want to get fancy:
- Tender output wire hard-wired to the jump start post, with the wire run out to the grille area, where it is firmly anchored at a polarized connector. (The tender that I use comes with this connector in the charging wire.)
- Tender unit mounted near the front of the car, with the output wire run to the polarized connector on the car. The output wire from the tender is firmly anchored to the garage wall, so that the connector will pull apart if (when) you forget to unplug it and back out of the garage.

The Fixer

I just take 1 minute and disconnect my battery ground at the body where tools are stowed.

MainePorsche

I've hooked two wires to the battery direct from the female end of a trailer hitch pigtail. The mail ends I connected to the Schumacher charging unit I use. The 'in car' pigtail fits nicely behind the tool tray. The Male end I chose is very long wires, and works nicely in my garage. Plus I can detach the ground strap for work and still tend the battery. It is an easy plug in, plug out set up. Not fancy, but functional.

SeanR

I hook them up like Wally talks about but leave the pigtail just in front of the radiator, tucks in nicely against the fender and you don't know it is there unless you are looking for it. Pop the hood and hook it up.

Schumacher at Walmart makes a nice one.

joejoe

I ran the leads from battery out the vent on bottom. Tied the end to hanger and left about 2" free. It hangs high enough not to get caught and is easily reached to plug in.

polecat702

Thanks guys!

Bertrand Daoust

Nothing fancy here but it works well.
Fast and easy.

wg928

I have switched the negatine battery strap on my both cars and leave the girls to bed for months at a time ...."switch on" equals ready starts for the next drive....hope I'm not damaging anything electronic

danglerb

I put a GAMA side post battery switch on both 928's, not on the battery, but between the ground strap and chassis connection. Requires a really "fat" washer to raise the switch up from the frame, but its reliable and quick to use.

GAMA is made in the USA, sold on ebay for about $12 shipped.

Amazon has the Battery Tender Jrs cheap, as well as the accessory connection pack, spare hook up wires to use the tender on more than one car.

Alan

Like Wally said - except this has a socket in the grille area you can just plug a 110v power feed connector into...

Alan

mdkelly1

Have used the same approach as Bertrand (post #8) for the past 15 years whenever the 928 is on a maintainer (a Schumacher in this case). Works great.

I normally disconnect the battery ground strap behind the tool panel when storing the car for long periods if it is not on a maintainer.

I use a dedicated (permanent) pigtail connection to the battery on the 996TT since it is just under the upper lip of the hood outside the insulated area. A CTEK maintainer (with the included connectors) works fine for that.

polecat702

I was concerned about using the jump post. I thought it might screw up the LH.

As always, Alan is over the top! I think I'll go with a quick connect pig tail.

Thanks again!

Alan

You may be right about that... Anyway jump post or battery direct is the same thing as far as the LH is concerned.

A battery maintainer of good quality is a safe bet here even while all is still connected up (these are low current and have good voltage regulation), however do not connect a med/high current charger without disconnecting the battery from the vehicle (at least one post). Ideal mechanism here is to disconnect the ground strap with a battery switch and add a charger port at the back somewhere with a direct battery connection - of course I have both of those too!

Alan

MainePorsche

If you're going to go quick connect pigtail to battery (like my set up), Wally reviewed and suggested an inline fuse to positive. On my pigtail pictured brown was negative and green was positive. He recommended a 10 amp fuse. I like the direct to battery set up for I can tend the battery while working on the electrics with ground strap disconnected. Also the maintainer is isolated from the cars sensitive components in case of a spike. Battery is fuse protected.