jjrho

Too much to read.... reas most...I like lithium batts as I have em in my mc....shorai....

For a 991.2 gt3... what is the price for rs30 + kit ? I don't mind blue braclets....

please advise....

James R

inverterman

Hi Scott, this is Jim just up the road from you in Ventura. In December I purchased two RS-30 batteries from you for my 996 gt3 and new RS. Question, when changing the battery, I was advised to keep 12 volts safely on the positive terminal. We disconnect ECU power to the race cars all the time but do you see any necessity to keep power on the ECU during battery swap? (Sometimes we keep power on the ECU if we're testing other functions). Another concern are maintainers. I have in use a dozen of the attached brand of charger, maintainer, testers for several years with great results. However we all know that a normal lead acid charger with pulsing or a disulfide mode will destroy a lithium battery. With such good charger performance on all my vehicles, have you tested this particular charger/maintainer? I spoke with the owner of BatterySaver and was assured that if properly set up, this unit will work perfectly. However, this unit isn't plug and play, some operator interface is necessary to set the device to Lithium application. https://www.batterysaver.com/store/p77/9950.html What's your thought on my two questions? Your office has my contact information on file.

usctrojanGT3

Here's the charger that was provided from Anti-Gravity for their battery...

inverterman

$58 is a much better price point than $165 for the Battery Saver. I hope to contact Scott this week to discuss the fleet of maintainers that I have been using for the past several years.

inverterman

I'm diving into this swap tomorrow after I speak with the dealer regarding ECU remaining powered through the swap. Maybe it doesn't matter but I know that OBD2 cars require several drive cycles to reset all the emissions sensors. ECU power should be the smaller cable connection on the positive terminal block. Remove the battery hold down clamp and the sheet metal loop above the battery. Remove the negative cable first, then pull the positive cable and push 500MCM cable piece of heat shrink to ensure the temporary 12v fused power isn't shorted to anything. Slide the factory battery right and remove it. Drop the new assembly down and reattach the positive cable, then the negative. Make the RS-30 Anti Gravity battery is ON and producing 12+ volts before removing secondary battery power.

I used blue LocTite on the 4 fasteners when I assembled the battery old down stanchions.

Antigravity

Hi guys, on this we would typically say no. I know manufactures will always say, "yes this will work for your needs" and in theory it should but we always stay away from any multi function charges that are doing different chemical compositions. We've just see too many problems in the past where a battery was improperly charged from something that was supposed to be able to do it correctly...For that reason we always suggest a dedicated intelligent lithium charger like the Optimate series that the link was shared to. We also like the 5amp option which can be nice if there is a higher draw. As far as keeping power to the ECU that can be helpful but mentioned most time a car just needs to be driven a little bit for some things to be reset.

and here is the link for the 5 amp option.

https://shop.antigravitybatteries.co...timate-tm-291/

inverterman

Excellent, Although I absolutely love the Battery Saver product on all my stored vehicles, I am not going to chance the 9950 on these new lithium batteries. At $58, the basic Optimate is my choice until we get some data.

Thanks,

Antigravity

Hi Invert... This is Scott, I'm the President of Antigravity, but often you will see answers by Chad also. You can tell if I answer because its a long ramble. Chad writes much more concisely than me. Anyway, We are not trying to say the Battery Saver is bad... we just have not had much experience with them, and we have not seen them dedicate a charger to Lithium... so we don't know their level of experience with this and if they are basically just using a Lead alogorithim and saying its for Lithium... which a company called NOCO does. Keep in mind the RS-30 isn't some delicate flower that is going to be ruined by a Lead/Acid charger if you stick it on for 20 minutes. It the longer term charging where the lead starts to damage a Lithium Battery, or the De-Sulphate modes. So we like just recommending a couple easily accessible high quality brands. Optimate and CTEK, and we stop there. We don't like Battery Tender either... again just a Lead Charger and cheaper components inside.

I also wanted to answer you because you asked about keeping the the Terminals with power to them during a battery change. I have done that personally on my GT3RS... and it worked fine, and I actually like that idea best if you have a Turbo or some of the previous years of cars that can throw flags and make you drive a little bit before the car operates correctly again. So I will say that is a very good option IF you are CAREFUL to keep the Cables you are energizing from grounding out on some part in the frunk.

Now the other thing is that I have MORE TIMES THAN NOT just swapped the battery out without doing anything. No boloney I have about 100 battery change outs, or shut downs in my RS, and what I can say is in my Car, I just start it up and never get a flag nor have it run odd. So it may be a system with less of the electronics than a Turbo, but I've never experienced any issues with flags or odd things after taking the battery out, or letting the battery die. Keep in mind I have a 2016 so someone else might have a different experience with a different year or model.

For example I am testing our latest model of batteries (coming soon). I have the Battery in the RS... and I have 4 Auto headlights on my bench but attached with some cable to the battery thats in the RS. so I can make certain levels of discharge depending on how many exterior headlamps I put on my test rig... So then I put it on blast and just discharge the RS battery until the SLEEP MODE kicks in. Then I'll let it sit a couple days... awaken the battery check if the RE-START works then do it again at a different discharge rate. So my point is this testing is making the RS go to a complete shut off quite a bit, a nd to date I have not had any issues with starting it back up and seeing any flags. So I can assume there is nothing really detrimental in my experience so far with just doing a change out of the battery and letting the system be un-energized, or having the battery go completely dead and just re-starting it.

inverterman

You're not rambling brother. I welcome your insight and knowledge of these things and appreciate your transparency and willingness to share your experience and knowledge. if I may add yet another facet to this discussion, have you tested your batteries in an endurance racing series environment? I have had the great fortune of driving some very nice equipment and winning championships in various endurance road racing series, and have seen many different lighting arrangements running off of a single Optima battery. Since batteries are used for starting and are not generally relied upon to carry loads such as lighting, it is imperative to have enough battery reserve to allow for a car chief to organize an alternator change. Will your new battery have a longer reserve capacity and if not, can lithium batteries double reserve if wired in parallel to double reserve capacity?

The good news is the RS-30 is now installed in the 2019 RS and all emissions are ready. While in there I removed the center lock, the tow hook kit, and the tire inflating goop shedding 46.7 pounds from the car. I was happy with how easy it was to reset ride height and corner balance the car. Looking forward to your success and new product offerings from Antigravity Batteries.

Antigravity

Invert,
YOu bring up a couple good points here... some lead directly into what we are doing with the new battery.

1- Endurance racing... I cannot accurately answer this as much as I would like to for Street Racing because I have not specifically worked with STREET Endurance Specific Racing Team.... if you mean like Lemans type 24Hour racing. But we do arguably something a bit harder... we do alot of Off-Road Trophy Trucks, and other Baja vehicles from UTVs to buggies etc....We also do Ultra 4 type Racing like King of the Hammers. And often these guys are going in a major deficit in the Baja Trucks because when all the lights go on, and the radio, fans, etc the draw is very heavy... so we have done a lot of that which is arguably a bit more of a draw because they have much more LED lighting, and higher wattage draw items when running at night than a (Street) Endurance Vehicle due to how many watts the Baja Trucks lighting draws with those massive multiple HIDs... but in those cases we run the RS-30s WITHOUT the BMS and in paralllel... So it just a full on 30Ah in each individual RS-30 and not BMS ... then the drivers will often "drive by voltage" and turn off certain lighting if they see the voltage starting to track down. So yes we have done it... and when the RS 30 doesn't have the BMS we can rig them in Parallel without the BMSs causing any issues since they are not there, but then you lack the protections features... but these guys know to watch for over-discharge, so it not much an issue with Racing since those guys are Pros and know their stuff.

But to touch on this a bit because you bring up using a single Optima Battery being used... Well our latest incarnations are going to have Amp Hour options as follow 25Ah, 30Ah, and 40Amp Hours Options in the Group 48/H6 sizes as well as in the Group 47 /H5 size which is even smaller. So with 40Ah of Lithium your going to have a very good run with lighting. Additionally, the RS-30 is a 30Ah battery, but YES it is cut short a bit on available Capacity due to having the RE-START feature which in the RS-30 cuts the voltage a good bit before how low the battery can actually go in terms of depth of discharge. And while this is what I feel it optimal for not getting stranded in a passenger Car it might not be optimal for someone looking for a very deep discharge of the battery to get the longest running time possible in a deeper cycle application like Endurance Racing to power Lighting.

The NEW RE-STARTs are a bit of a different Animal in the way we designed them..... we found that every manufacturer is going full-on with START/STOP and IBS (Intelligent Battery Sensors) which equate to systems that takes the battery much deeper into its depth of discharge before the Alternator kicks in. All the cars now have Alternators that are being run by the Computer and being told when to engage and start charging...which is much lower in the State of Charge (voltage) than before. All of this is being done so manufacturers can meet emissions, get a little more power and also better mileage since the Alternator is not dragging on the Motor so often. So with that being the case, we had to design the new battery to go much lower in the voltage before the RE-START kicks in and goes to sleep so it could be more compatible with the START/STOP systems. So the newer batteries do have a much DEEPER level of discharge, but they sacrifice a little power to the Rs-30 when RE-STARTing.. but they do still do it well enough. . So the new stuff would be much more in line with an Endurance use and powering something as long as possible in a more Deep Cycle application.

Last, I will try to post up about the new Batteries in the next few days... and for anyone with an RS-30... don't think it's obsolete at all. The new battery has the same cell packs, but it just now in OEM sizes to make is more "Friendly for All" and to allow for us to approach a more "main stream" general public angle. But it does have one ultra cool new feature of a WIRELESS KEYFOB so you won't have to physically press a button on the Battery to activate the RE-START feature you just press the Wireless Keyfob. I'll get some picture up in a few days.

GBX

A/S

@Antigravity, my 2019 GT3 RS is patiently waiting for your batteries to get back in stock.

Will the RS30 come back in-stock, or are you removing it from the line-up?

Please, publish weights of the 25Ah, 30Ah and 40Ah. It is nice to be able to install a battery without having to add special mounts (which are invisible as the plastic cover that sits in the 991s).

I have a Porsche OEM Lithium that works quite well, but it is a 18Ah if I recall, so it doesn't last more than a day and a 1/2 before beeping (the beep informs that it needs to be recharged). This OEM battery is now 9 years old, so it shows how good it is.

Battery and seats are the last steps in my weight reduction process for the RS (the bucket seats are too heavy and the car has two).

Antigravity

Hi GBX, the short answer is no. If you're driving it often enough or are using a maintainer on the battery for longer periods where it's not running it should not go into sleep mode. The battery only does this when there is a high enough draw bringing the capacity of the battery down. We've let our GT3RS go for go for an extended time (almost two months) without anything and it never went into sleep mode and fired right up. Now there's a higher draw(older cars usually are not as efficient) or some aftermarket accessories they can speed that draw up. But again from the description of your use it shouldn't be a problem.

Gt3rs.2

IvanBurns

Using an OBD-II scan tool on both my 997 GTS and 991 GT3, I found that the alternator was outputting 15.3 volts on both with the engine running at idle. Isn't that high? Isn't that high enough to be damaging to a lithium battery?