Interesting product. How i understand is that its internal battery is not enough for a full top up only for a jump start.
You still can use it 2x per week for example but it would look like your are using a small bucket to keep the water level of a leaking pool. Manageable but you must turn multiple times.

 

Yep, the internal battery is 6Ah. The number of visits per week depends on how much power the car uses just sitting there.

But I've just read a review here which says that if there is no external power source attached to the CS Free (mains, another car battery or the PV charger) then it is in "Boost mode", which expects the battery to be flat and tries to charge it in 15 mins (at up to 20A). This is the main expected use of the CS Free which I guess is why it defaults to Boost mode. I could use it with another car battery and take them to the underground garage every 3 or 4 weeks. Bit of a PITA, but I guess not that bad. I'm going to be pulling the passenger seat out of my Cayman to fit my dashcam+battery while the car is off the road, and there are other jobs I can do while the Cayman battery is charging up.

I would just like a garage, but finding a house is very hard at the moment as there are hardly any coming on the market.

 

My SA mentioned to me the other day that while the car is in transport they put it in a mode that has minimal battery drain. No one has mentioned it here, so maybe that is not something that is easy to do for the buyer.

 

That's interesting. I can look through the settings available on the car in my X431 to see if there is anything that looks promising.

 

Could you remove the battery from the car whilst in storage, take the battery home, and put it on a battery conditioner?

 

Ah, you'd lose a bunch of important settings in the car, no?

 

maybe try a portable battery / power station like jackery500/1000

you can place the power station /battery on the seat inside and hook up the battery maintainer to the cig outlet

 

Portable mains power . I had not thought of that and I think it is a very good option. Getting the CS Free with another car battery would be about €250, but more of a PITA and more single rather than the general use of portable mains (could still use the CS Free to start flat batteries). Instead a Jackery 500 (518Wh) at €350 and a CTEK MXS 5 (which I will get anyway when I have a garage) would let me maintain the Cayman battery and give me a portable mains unit to use anytime.

 

Perhaps find a different place to keep the car over the winter.

 

If only . I live in an apartment with only outside parking. My Cayman was never going to be kept outside, but in the town where I live there are no free underground parking spaces or garages. The nearest underground garage I could get a space is in a bigger town 5km away and the contract has a three month notice period. So putting the car in another place for 3 months will cost more and possibly be much further away. Also I'd have to find somewhere that has mains power if I'm going to use an MXS 5. But PEC's battery removal option is also very appealing having zero cost. I need to have a think about the pros and cons of keeping the battery in the car with an MXS 5 vs. just taking the battery out.

 

Hi Everyone,

Update for anyone searching the forum in the future with a similar situation. I went for the CTEK MXS 5.0 with a Jackery 500 and it is working so far. The car has been stuck in the garage since the beginning of December, so 2 weeks now, and yesterday lunchtime I plugged in the MXS 5.0 to the passenger footwell lighter socket and into a 89% full Jackery 500, locked the car and left it. Came back in the very early evening, about 4 hours later and the MXS 5.0 was in stage 4 and while I was there it did stage 5 (battery check), passed on 6 (no recond needed) and then went into 7 (the long term charging mode). The Jackery 500 had gone down to 60% and the power draw was 36 watts (the power draw when I first switched the MXS 5.0 on in stage 1 was around 80 watts).

So far it is all working and I'm happy, but I'll keep this thread updated with any issues I find in the next few months.

Just for reference, the choice of the Jackery 500 was mainly as I'll be working on the car while it is laid up and I didn't want to be disconnecting and reconnecting the battery, as well as lugging the battery home to maintain it there. I got the Jackery 500 for €330 which is certainly cheaper than finding somewhere else to store the car. I would have bought the MXS 5.0 if I had access to a garage with mains power anyway, so I don't count that as a cost for this solution. Given the ability to work on the car while it is laid up I'm fine with the €330 cost.

Thanks as always to everyone in the thread - it's great that everyone is so supportive.

Cheers
Mark

 

I went for the CTEK MXS 5.0 with a Jackery 500 and it is working so far.... The Jackery 500 had gone down to 60% and the power draw was 36 watts (the power draw when I first switched the MXS 5.0 on in stage 1 was around 80 watts).... Came back 4 hours later...The Jackery 500 had gone down to 60% and the power draw was 36 watts

I am curious about the Jackery 500, what its capacity is, etc. I would guess the name 500 indicates approximately 500 WHrs. If so, then it would run for a bit under 14 hrs if the CTEK always drew 36w. So your observed Jackery level is about right. The Jackery did well to bring the car's battery up to a good level but it won't last long enough to be a long-term storage solution. I have an Ecoflow River Max, nominally 576 WHrs (with a max power rating of 800w). It is marvelous for providing power in places where a long extension cord would be inconvenient. I once experimented with charging a travel trailer's deep-cycle AGM battery. It works well for maybe one cycle's worth of power usage, extending the battery's usability, but as with your CTEK that isn't enough energy to run indefinitely.

 

Hi Mark - any update on this? I have a 997.2 in an underground garage in London with no mains power. Need a solution and sounds like this may be it!

 

Hi Charles (did I get the name right?),

The Jackery+MXS 5.0 has been working fine. I was a bit irregular with the charging to start with and the battery voltage on the MFD went down to 11.8v at one point (when switching the ignition on). Very glad I changed the MFD to show the battery voltage as I don't normally have that displayed (I went home and got the Jackery directly).

Now I'm in a weekly rhythm, taking a fully charged Jackery to the car every Friday morning, leaving it there during the day and picking it up again in the evening. When I pick it up, the MXS 5.0 is on stage 7 (battery maintenance) and the Jackery is between 30% and 50% depending what time I plugged it in and picked it up (depends a bit on my work schedule). I did leave it overnight once and the Jackery discharged completely as expected, but I guess it doesn't make much difference charging the battery in maintenance mode for some extra hours before it is unplugged for another week (but happy to be corrected on that by anyone!).

In the last 2 months I've been working on the car at various times, fitting a dashcam and deep cleaning the interior, all with no problems. Last weekend I had to drive the car about 100m for some cleaning tasks and back again - everything worked fine.

I can't say anything about any long term effects on the battery, however I guess the battery isn't experiencing anything massively different from the car being driven once a week (but also happy to be corrected on that by anyone!).

 

Now I'm in a weekly rhythm, taking a fully charged Jackery to the car every Friday morning, leaving it there during the day and picking it up again in the evening.

Your post leaves me with some questions., First, what is the capacity of the Jackery you are using and the current draw of your MXS 5.0? I ask because I have a Shumacher charger/maintainer and a conveniently portable Ecoflow battery which (IIRC) is comparable to one of the Jackery units. I don't need to use anything on the car's battery because I drive it often enough even in winter. But it's good to know there are options if I need them.

Second, how often do you drive your car and for how much? Or rather, for how long do you not drive it? I could be wrong but it strikes me that if you drive it enough you may not need to be so paranoid about its battery.

 

I had no idea what the power requirements would be and just took a guess at the 500. Glad to have over-estimated rather than under .

The MXS 5.0 is a battery charger and maintainer, not a trickle charger. It starts off getting the battery up to full charge and then goes into maintenance mode where it monitors the battery voltage and keeps it full. If I had access to a mains socket I would leave the MXS 5.0 plugged in the whole 3 months.

My usage of 50-70% of the Jackery's 518Wh is spread over 8-12 hours and the Jackery will have charged the car battery up (much?) sooner using (much?) less energy. I don't know how much charging it is doing before it switches to maintenance mode, I only I see the remaining capacity in the Jackery at the time I come to pick it up. My guess is you will be fine with the 240Wh and 200W output of the Jackery 240 (the MXS 5.0 draws about 80W max.).

I just checked idealo.de (price comparison site for Germany) and the Jackery 500 costs 335EUR and the 240 costs 200EUR. So price per Wh is a bit less for the 500 and the max. draw is 500W, but I guess it depends if you might use it in other situations (where having 518Wh instead of 240Wh and up to 500W output instead of 200W is better).

 

This has been really helpful thanks Mark. I am going to go with the MXS 5.0 and Jackery 240. I can get the 240 here in the UK for GBP170 whereas the 500 is GBP560 so much bigger spread in the price here.

 

Im using a jackery 1000 and it auto shuts off after 12 hours with 60% left

a jackery 500 with the 12 hour auto shut off should last the full 12 hours