Jump Starter Recommendations

After finding my battery dead a few weeks ago (2011 Boxster ) and going through the procedure to access the battery , I've decided to pursue the idea of a jumpstarter that can power the electrical system through the cigarette lighter - just long enough to get the front end open. Has anyone found such a device? I have two jumpstarters in other cars - a Noco and an AntiGravity. Both have cigarette lighter adapters, but they are only for charging the device. If anyone has come across a product that will actually deliver power through the cigarette lighter plug, I'd love to hear about it. Thanks!

Following

I'm not sure what I originally wrote is helpful so I'll follow too. There is a reason Porsche provides a spot at the fuse panel for this, I believe adding power via the lighter can pose other problems, solve one create another type of situation. The wires that feed the lighter are not appropriate for high current, they would need to be much lower gauge numbers to be suitable for that.

Sound advice. What I'm interested in investigating is powering the electrical system adequately for opening the frunk, thus allowing connection directly to the battery . I took a look at my son's AntiGravity starting pack. In addition to the normal clamps, it has a regulated 12v 10A outlet requiring an adapter. I'd be surprised if the cigarette lighter in the car is fused at anything less than 10 amps. They don't include a plug for the cigarette lighter, so that would have to be a home brew item. Another option, possibly smarter, is to find a set of longer leads, better suited to connection at the fuse panel, and with a connector for the jump battery pack. I'll report what I find, and thank you for the help!

Longer leads to fuse block sounds like a good plan. My car is indoors garaged so the frunk can stay on one click. If this was an ongoing problem for me and I was not garaged? I might consider looking for a natural pass through to the bottom plastic pan and design a protruding two prong connector whose wires on the opposite end go directly to the battery . something completely reversable without destruction to the panel. Then I'd have a corresponding plug for said lead with long wires. Get under the front, plug it in, add power to the long leads, done deal.

Just as a point of info, Car & Driver did a Best Portable Jump Starter article a couple months ago. The number one recommendation was the Jump-N-Carry JNC325 available from Amazon for $166. The two best reasons were they come with 24 inch cables and a "voltage bypass sensor" so completely dead batteries can be jumped. The reason I noticed it was the cable length, which seemed better than most for us 987 folks looking for a good ground point when opening the frunk lid via the fuse panel. Didn't buy one yet but if I was to do so, I would give this one serious consideration. Oh, no lighter plug included nor available as far as I know.

Having followed this topic over the years, and reading the numerous problems that others have encountered in trying use the fuse block charge point and experiencing failures in either jump starting the car or merely gaining access to the frunk, I am in the process of designing/engineering a paralleled, remote positive terminal off the battery and possibly mounting it under the passenger side wheel well liner. Using appropriate gauged cable and a proper terminal, I believe one could provide easy remote access to the battery for the purpose of jump starting or at least opening the frunk to access the battery . At least in theory. Hope to attempt this one day, when all the other projects are don.

I use a NOCO Boost Plus 1000 amp booster pack. The booster has a manual mode that will apply 12 volts without any detected voltage on the clamps. This is needed to use it to pop frunk or jump a totally dead battery . Reverse polarity safety systems are bypassed when using this mode. It does have short cables though, so if you want to connect the positive to the pop put emergency connector in the fuse panel and also connect the negative to a good ground that is not painted, that can be problematic. Also, ground clamp is too short if you want to jump the battery and use the positive terminal on the battery and the ground connector on the driver side shock tower. I made a simple extension from old jumper cable to give me ability to have extra length on the ground cable. This allows me to reach the ground bolt on the shock tower as well as reach the steel unpainted door latch on the drivers door for a solid ground connection. Works great to pop frunk in emergency, as well as jumping a dead battery .

My wife has the same booster . I checked the forced charge mode and it delivered a regulated 12V. The leads, as you said were too short to be useful for my purpose, so I'll keep this under the seat with a new GB40. My long term solution is to lengthen the manual release cable. Next time it's on the lift, I'll look for a suitable routing. I've got some small aircraft cable for trim tabs that should work fine. Thanks to all for the advice and collective wisdom. This should eliminate the possibility of being stranded by a dead battery.

Boris, I had applied 12VDC to the 987 lighter plug a few times before and never had an issue, also used this method to open my friend 997 frunk (twice..) Note: a battery charger will Not open the frunk (not enough amps) but a jumper cable from a 12V car battery connected to a lighter adapter does the trick.

Trickle chargers can safely back feed through the lighter plug to maintain battery charge, but the booster pack puts out a lot more amperage. I was concerned that it could blow the fuse or mess up some random computer module in the car when connecting, so I never attempted doing it that way. If back feeding 12v from booster through the lighter safely works, I suppose you could just create your own lighter plug adapter to connect to the noco booster via it, then put noco in forced mode and it should work.

I think the cig lighter is rated 10amps and the outlet in the passenger well is 3 amps. I use that one for my trickle charger. It only pulls <1 amp on maintain.

Trickle chargers are old tech, not to be used for battery maintenance and preservation. For today's batteries, you want a battery "maintainer" that can also desulfate a battery. I use a CTEK 4.3 Amp maintainer anytime my 2017 Porsche will sit 3 days or more in my garage. It's the same maintainer that Porsche sells with the Porsche name on it. So my battery is still fresh at 7 years old! Did I make that clear enough?

yea loud and clear.

On my 981CS I was worried about getting stranded with a dead battery and having to mess with the fuse box jumper so I purchased a 42” harnesses from Anti-Gravity that connects directly to the battery terminals and I ran it to the base of the windshield by the wipers. It has 10 gauge wires and a XP1/XPE EC5 female connector that plugs directly into my 12V mini jumper to power up or jump start the car in the event of a dead battery. I keep the mini jumper under the seat and can open the car with the emergency key if the battery is dead. I have a weatherproof cap on the connector and have it tucked out of sight by the wiper. I can also use this with my Ctek charger to maintain the battery Jim

I had done the same hookup too, and I keep a NOCO booster battery pack behind passenger seat as backup. Very easy to setup to do. I see you also connected the ground to the chassis as opposed to the negative post on the battery (always a recommended practice). I stretched the ground a bit farther to the driver side shock tower ground bolt, but same body grounding result either way. I added an extra item to my install that I highly recommend, Antigravity lead acid battery tracker. This $35 item connects via bluetooth to your phone and reports battery status. Only draws milliamps so it is not a load problem on your battery. You can see real time voltage, cranking amps, alternator charging performance and a 30 day voltage history. It will identify any parasitic drain while car is off and warn you via message on your phone if battery drops below the parameters you set up. You should never get caught off guard with this item installed. I hooked this up after I suspected I had a parasitic drain problem on my battery. It identified the daily excessive draw occurring and allowed me to present the issue to dealer to demonstrate how fast my battery was getting flattened. I had a faulty instrument cluster that was sucking current when the car was off (fortunately covered by CPO warranty). Battery tracker reporting also provided evidence to PCNA that the battery was permanently damaged due to the constant flattening. I was able to get the battery paid for as well because of this data (initially dealer refused to pay for battery because claimed it was a wear and tear item). It was a well spent $35.

I like that idea quite a lot. One concern for me is that I park the Porsche in a metal building about 100 feet from the house. What kind of range are you seeing with Bluetooth? I'm not sure of the sensitivity of my iPhone receiver, but a few milliwatts is not a lot to work with at that distance.

The Bluetooth has pretty standard range (about 30 feet give or take a few based on obstructions). That is not an issue for your history though. The tracker stores data for 31 rolling days and will do a connection and sync of all information as soon as you are within range. Specs at: Lead/Acid Battery Tracker The Antigravity Battery Tracker is a Bluetooth Monitoring system for your Lead/Acid Battery’s health. Track its voltage, starting performance and charging. antigravitybatteries.com

That looks like a good 1000amp booster . This is what my buddy got: https://4wheelonline.com/antigravity-xp-3-micro-portable-jump-starter.240228.0 He tried it on a Ford Ranger V6 and it worked.

That looks like a very nice compact and high end booster . Noco unit is only about $100 so a good value for what you get and works great. The most important thing to look for in these units, if your primary use is for it to pop frunk latch in an emergency, then secondarily jump the car, is to be certain that the device has a manual or forced 12v mode. I bought a more expensive unit that was very light and well built, but found out it could not provide any voltage unless a 12 volt battery with at least a minimal charge on it was detected on the other end. These newer units have reverse polarity safety’s built in and will not allow any voltage at the clamps unless the software in the device detects a minimal amount of properly connected voltage on the other end. Some units have a forced mode that puts 12 volts out regardless of polarity, or even if a battery is not attached to the clamps. That mode allows you to get voltage to the fuse box when doing an emergency frunk release. I had to return the one I got before I got the Noco because it did not have this feature. I could not tell in the antigravity specs if it allowed this or not. Important detail to be aware of for Porsche applications.