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Does anyone know of a portable battery jump starter with cables longer than 12 inches? I need to jump start my 991, and the cable clamps of the portable jump starter I have - a Schumacher SL1327 - are 12" and too short. On my 991, as described in the owner's manual, there is a specific ground point marked on the driver-side of the front trunk where you're supposed to attach a negative jump cable clamp. But the distance between the battery's positive terminal and the negative ground point is longer than 2-feet. So when I attach a jumper clamp to the positive battery terminal, the ground attachment point is too far away to attach the black clamp. I've looked online but can't find a portable jumper with longer cables. It's as if Porsche canvassed the portable jumper market and intentionally put the negative jumper terminal just far enough away so you can't use any of them. Larger, non-portable jump starters have longer cables but I want a portable one that I can keep in my glove box.
use regular jumper cables 10' long and use a donor vehicle pulled up close,,maybe forget the portable idea?
Of course, that's always a possibility. But it's not always the case there's a donor car around. And in this immediate case, my 911's in my garage and there's no other car available to jump it. Plus, I really want to have a jump starter power pack in the glove box for moments like this one!
Yes - that's a way. But everything I've read says not to do that because of the danger of explosion from hydrogen leaking out of the battery plus a spark. Of course, that's got to be a remote possibility with modern batteries. Still, Porsche has provided a specific ground point in the front trunk for connecting a jumper cable and the instruction manual says to clamp there. So out of an abundance of caution that's what I want to do. The question, though, still is: why aren't there any portable jumper power packs with longer cables???? You'd think there ought to be.
The reason the grounding point is away from the battery is because that 200 lawyers decided that once, in 1959, a battery exploded when jumped post to post. Since that random occurrence, 200,000,000 batteries have been jumped post to post without incident. But you can never be too careful.
The reason the grounding point is away from the battery is because that 200 lawyers decided that once, in 1959, a battery exploded when jumped post to post. Since that random occurrence, 200,000,000 batteries have been jumped post to post without incident. But you can never be too careful.
Life is dangerous. Embrace it.
LOL! Actually, the number's 200,000,002. I've jumped a battery post-to-post myself at least a couple of times. If I were confident that jumping the battery directly via both terminals wouldn't screw up the car's finicky electronics systems for some reason I wouldn't hesitate to do it.
If you make sure you connections are solid and not bouncing the clamps on the terminals you will be fine. Also note that if you have a quality mini jump starter it should not be putting energy to the clamps unless it sees the battery is at a voltage that is sufficient for jump starting....
We also make MICRO-START jump starters and were the original to produce this product back in 2013 though it has become a ubiquitous product and there is some crummy models and some good ones out there.
We also make a longer wiring Harness Kit that allows you to route a wiring Harness outside your frunk so you can jump start the battery anytime you need to , or energize the car so you can get into the frunk...and NOT need to attach you clamps. Depending on your brand our Harness kit might fit it.
Something to consider is to install an Antigravity battery. I put one in my Cayman S shortly after I bought it a year ago. I had some sort of inconsistent parasitic drain that would sometimes flatten the battery. With the Antigravity battery's built in jump start, all you do is push a button on the key fob remote and the car bursts back into life, letting you unlock the car, start up and drive away. Very convenient. The battery isn't cheap, but that awesome feature and the fact that it was 43lbs lighter than what was in the car before made it worth it to me. When I traded the Cayman for my current 991.1 C2S, I transferred the battery over, too.
I bought this one: DBPOWER 600A Peak 18000mAh Portable Car Jump Starter (up to 6.5L Gas/5.2L Diesel Engine) Portable Battery Booster with Smart Charging Port, Compass, L
This jump start battery pack will not supply power until you click the little button, which makes connecting it to your battery directly a non-issue.
The only downside to these little jump start batteries compared to the ultimate solution - the antigravity - is storage, charging, and accessibility. It shouldn’t be stored in a place that gets extremely cold or hot, it should be recharged at least every 6 months, maybe more, and if it’s locked in your car when you really need it, one might have trouble getting to it if the frunk lid lock cannot be activated due to a dead battery.
This is WAY more effective than jumpers. This is what roadside support used when jumper cables won't work on completely dead batteries.
Agree. These mini jump starters which you can buy on Amazon are a technological marvel (compared to what was available 20 yrs ago) and they work great. Saves a ton of time, money, and exasperation, plus will charge your laptop, cell phone and other appliances. Make sure you get one with sufficient power ( i have on with 16800 mAh, 800 A; and another with 13600mAh, 500 A. The former is much quicker).
Thanks, everyone. I tried to jump my battery by clamping directly to its terminals (as some of you said I could do given my jump starter's clamp leads couldn't reach the ground point in the car), but the battery wouldn't jump. I finally figured out why - the battery was so dead that the jump starter's protection circuits couldn't see it. Not enough voltage. I ended up just buying a new battery and moving on with life. But the moral to this story is to get a jump starter whose protection circuits can be disabled. I found a few of those on Amazon.
06-07-2020, 05:01 PM
Recommendation for Portable Jump Starter
