Forget the Jumper Cables! This Shell Jump Starter Has What Your Dead Car Needs
One sunny afternoon, after eating a meal at a restaurant, I walked out to my 2008 Honda S2000, put the key in the ignition, and attempted to start the car. Instead of the car roaring to life, like usual, I was met with the dreaded “tick, tick, tick” and accompanying flashing dash lights that told me that my battery was dead.
“Not again,” I thought, as I pulled the latch to open the hood. My aftermarket car alarm had drained my battery yet again. Fortunately, instead of having to enlist the help of a stranger with a working car and jumper cables, I simply used the Shell jump starter to start the car and get on my way.
The Shell SH912 jump starter will make you forget about jumper cables
In case you haven’t seen them, portable jump starters have been quite popular in the past few years. They provide an easy and convenient way to jump-start a dead battery instead of having to use another car and a set of jumper cables. I had the privilege to try out a specific portable jump starter – the Shell SH912 – and found it to be useful for more than jump-starting my dead car, but we’ll get to that later.
As for jump-starting a car, the process is as simple as can be:
- Pull the charger and the jump starter cables out of the case
- Connect the cables to the charger and then to the car battery’s positive and negative terminals
- Start the car
It works the same way that you would jump-start a car with jumper cables but negates the need for another car. Best of all, the Shell jump starter is portable and small in size, so it’s easy to store inside the car or in the trunk area. There’s no longer a need to wind up dirty cables into a ball or case and have them take up a bunch of unnecessary cargo space.
The only downside to the setup that I found is that the jumper cable attachment is short, which can be inconvenient to some users.
Additionally, this specific model has a 12,000mAh battery that’s capable of starting vehicles with up to a 6.0-liter gas engine or a 2.0-liter diesel engine. However, a larger 16,000mAh and 24,000mAh setup are available for larger vehicles.
This jump starter can do more than start your car
The Shell SH912 comes with a bevy of features that goes beyond starting a car. In addition to an input for the jumper cables, the jump-starting unit also has two USB-A output ports, a USB-C input and output port, and a USB-A inlet charging port. I used the USB-A outlet ports to charge my phone and it worked like a charm. I imagine that those ports can come in handy for charging other devices when you’re stuck on the side of the road as well.
Speaking of handy features, the Shell jump starter also has a built-in LED flashlight that works well if you need to start your car at night time. But if you need a little more safety, then there are three other modes including an S.O.S light, white floodlight, and a red alert strobe in case of emergencies. Hopefully, I won’t need to ever use those modes, but I personally like that Shell included it in the starter as other starters in the market don’t have those features.
Charging the starter takes a while
As far as charging the starter unit, there are two different input ports (USB-A and C) that allow you to connect the charger to a wall outlet. There are also four blue indicator bars on the unit itself to denote its charge level. I quickly learned that the unit needs to at least be charged up to three bars to start a car because when I plugged in the jump cable attachment when it was at two bars, the unit let out the most ear-piercing beeping sound.
Apparently, it will also let out that horrendous sound if you reverse the polarity when jump-starting a battery and if the unit gets too hot or is too low to start a car. Again, it’s a super loud continuous beep so be sure to charge the battery up completely when you receive it – you have been warned.
However, just note that charging the jump starter can take a whole 24 hours, as mine did. Of course, it was pretty drained when I received it, so it most likely won’t take that long from here on out.
Ultimately, the Shell SH912 is an extremely portable and convenient unit that I can recommend to anyone that’s tired of having to use jumper cables – or perhaps has an aftermarket alarm on their car that likes to drain batteries in short amounts of time.
