Porter-Cable® runs quietly in a lot of American garages: a drill/driver from a big-box combo kit, maybe a circular saw, and a couple of 20V MAX™ slide packs sharing one charger. Here is what most of those owners never hear about — the same packs will fire a 140 dB quad-trumpet train horn with no wiring, no air tank, and no 12V hookup.
Yes — There Is a Train Horn Built for Porter-Cable® 20V MAX™ Batteries
The Quad Train Horn for Porter-Cable® 20V battery ships fully assembled: four powder-coated aluminum trumpets (14", 12", 8", and 5") plumbed to a self-contained compressor unit with a native Porter-Cable® battery mount. Slide a charged pack on and you can trigger it two ways — the trigger on the unit itself, or the included 433 MHz wireless remote from up to 160 ft away. If you want to fire it from a treestand, a dock, or the far corner of a property, the optional long-range remote reaches up to 2,000 ft line-of-sight. The unit weighs about 4 lb before the battery and offers three output levels, so it moves easily between a truck bed, a boat locker, and a UTV.
Nothing has to be installed unless you want it mounted. A bracket lets you bolt it behind a grille or under a bed rail, but plenty of owners keep it loose as a grab-and-go horn. The full lineup of horns for Porter-Cable® 20V batteries sits on one page if you want to compare configurations first.
First, Dodge the 18V Trap
Porter-Cable® has sold two different cordless systems, and they do not mix. The older 18V line ran on nickel-based post-style packs that plug up into the tool handle. The 20V MAX™ line, introduced in 2013, runs on lithium-ion slide packs with a completely different connector — the two platforms are not interchangeable, and the batteries physically will not seat on each other’s tools. The horn is built for the modern 20V MAX™ slide interface only. If your packs are the old post-style 18V units, they will not fit; third-party adapters exist to run new 20V packs on legacy 18V tools, but the horn itself needs a slide-style 20V MAX™ pack on its mount.
One more label worth decoding: “20V MAX” is an 18V-class battery. The five lithium-ion cells inside carry a nominal rating of 3.6 volts each — 18 volts total — and only rest near 4 volts per cell fresh off the charger with no load applied, which is where the “20V” figure comes from. In practice a Porter-Cable® 20V MAX™ pack feeds the horn’s compressor the same voltage class as a Milwaukee® M18™ or any other 18V-class platform. Loudness comes from trumpet count, trumpet length, and compressor output — not the name on the battery. We ran that comparison in detail in our Milwaukee® M18™ vs DeWalt® 20V MAX™ battery breakdown, and the conclusion applies here too: pick the horn that matches the packs you already own.
Which Porter-Cable® Packs Fit
Any Porter-Cable® 20V MAX™ slide-style pack seats on the horn’s mount. The first-party lineup covers the common sizes:
- PCC681L — 1.3Ah compact pack, the unit bundled with many drill kits
- PCC680L — 1.5Ah compact pack, about 9.6 oz
- PCC682L — 2.0Ah pack
- PCC685L — 4.0Ah pack, the high-capacity option of the family
Third-party 20V MAX™-compatible packs push capacity further — 5Ah, 6Ah, and up to 12Ah — and those work too, as long as they use the standard Porter-Cable® slide interface.
The cross-brand question comes up constantly, because Stanley Black & Decker owns Porter-Cable®, DeWalt®, Craftsman®, and BLACK+DECKER® alike. Shared ownership does not mean shared batteries. DeWalt® 20V MAX™ packs carry five electrical contacts where Porter-Cable® packs carry four, and the rail geometry differs, so a DeWalt® pack will not seat on a Porter-Cable® mount — if your packs are yellow, the Quad Train Horn for DeWalt® 20v battery is the right version instead. BLACK+DECKER® packs are the closest cousins — both value platforms use a four-contact slide design — but each horn is built for one battery mount, so match the horn to the brand of packs in your garage; we covered that platform in our BLACK+DECKER® 20V battery horn guide. And if you are set on running one horn across two battery brands, third-party adapters exist — where they make sense (and where they don’t) is in our cross-brand battery adapter guide.
Loudness: Where the Quad Tier Sits
Battery train horns sort into three loudness tiers: dual-trumpet models around 130 dB, quad-trumpet models around 140 dB, and the Extreme and Boss Series builds at 150 dB and up. The Porter-Cable-compatible model sits in the quad tier. Its four trumpets are cut to different lengths so each sounds a different note, which is what produces the discordant, multi-pitch locomotive chord instead of a single flat honk. At 140 dB up close it is dramatically louder than a stock car horn — loud enough to carry through a closed cab, over an outboard motor, or across a back field.
If you want the top of the range on the same batteries, there is an Extreme Series Train Horn for Porter-Cable® 20V battery — longer trumpets and a higher-output compressor for a deeper, harder-hitting 150 dB-class blast. The Extreme tier started on the Extreme Series Train Horn for Milwaukee® 18v Battery and now covers the Porter-Cable® mount as well, so stepping up does not mean switching battery platforms.
Runtime: Blasts per Charge, Not Hours
A train horn is a burst load, not a continuous one, so even small packs go a long way. The published figure for this horn family is 500+ short blasts — or roughly 200 sustained blasts — on a 6Ah pack. Scale that linearly by capacity and you get a realistic planning table:
| Pack size | Short blasts (est.) | Sustained blasts (est.) |
|---|---|---|
| 1.3Ah (PCC681L) | ~105 | ~40 |
| 1.5Ah (PCC680L) | ~125 | ~50 |
| 2.0Ah (PCC682L) | ~165 | ~65 |
| 4.0Ah (PCC685L) | ~330 | ~130 |
| 6Ah (aftermarket) | 500+ | ~200 |
Treat the smaller-pack numbers as estimates scaled from the 6Ah figure — cold weather, pack age, and long continuous blasts pull them down. The practical read is simple: the 1.3Ah pack that came free with a drill kit covers months of normal use, and a 4Ah or larger pack turns the horn into something you charge a few times a season. That margin matters most away from shore power — on a boat, at a hunting camp, or on the back forty — where the horn may sit for weeks between uses and still needs to sound on the first press. How capacity, voltage sag, and duty cycle interact is covered in our 2Ah vs 5Ah vs 9Ah runtime comparison.
FAQ
Will my old Porter-Cable® 18V batteries work?
No. The legacy 18V line uses nickel-based post-style packs with a different connector, and the two platforms were never cross-compatible. The horn needs a 20V MAX™ slide-style pack — first-party or aftermarket.
Can I run it on DeWalt®, Craftsman®, or BLACK+DECKER® packs?
Not directly — each platform has its own contact count and rail geometry, so packs do not cross between mounts even within the Stanley Black & Decker family. Every major platform has its own horn version, so match the horn to your packs; third-party adapters are the only workaround.
Do I need a special charger?
No. The horn draws from the pack exactly like a tool does, so your existing Porter-Cable® charger handles everything. If you want a dedicated spare to keep with the horn, a 20V MAX-compatible charger is available as an add-on.
How loud is 140 dB in practice?
Loud enough that hearing protection is smart when triggering it at arm’s length, and loud enough to carry far beyond shouting distance outdoors. That is the point of the wireless remote: stand back, protect your ears, and let the trumpets do the work.