mickav8r

Chad,
I was going to pull the trigger on a H640AH for Black Friday as my GT4 definitely needs a new battery. However seeing this thread and the potential for issues I wonder if you could answer some questions (I sent emails last week that have gone unanswered).

I live in New England, the car is about to be put away for the winter. For me, that means parked in an unheated storage unit, that has no power to trickle charge the battery. Its out of the elements per say but will definitely see some cold temps. Thats okay the car won't be moving unless the roads are free of salt and temps are above say 40 degrees and that usually means March/April. I watched one of the Antigravity Youtube videos and you seemed concerned about cranking when the temp is below 20 degrees. That will likely never occur, but what about storage in the car? I'd rather not disconnect the battery, the GT4's go to sleep and have no parasitic drain that I'm aware of. What I'm getting at is, do I have a concern with an Antigravity battery in my GT4 in cold to extreme cold (sub 30 to occasional -10 degree temps) when its not being asked to start the car, but parked for 4-5 months?

With cars having issues, if I purchase a battery for Black Friday but the car isn't driven for 3-4 months and then develops issues in the spring, the battery will still obviously be under warranty, but it will be almost like I just bought the battery, not that it was working fine for 3 months.

I'd like to take advantage of the sale, but if the recommendation is to not let it sit in the car in the cold, I can hold off or I will go with an AGM battery.

-Tom

Antigravity

Hi Tom, sorry as I was out all of last week and am still playing a little catch up..you should see your email replied to shortly.
Best regards,
Chad

ajw45

Hey Chad, I'm also in the Northeast so would love to hear any considerations re cold weather. I don't really drive much in the winter anyway so not a big deal but just good to know what the pros and cons are.

Antigravity

Happy Thanksgiving all!

Tom,

There would be not issue with the battery being subjected to 10 and 20 degrees weather in storage and it would still start the Car fine. OUr issue is if you are leaving a car outdoors in sub freezing weather to a degree that the battery could freeze.... this would be very rare anyway... but we just bring it up to point out that if you are a work Car that is left outdoors during the winter for long periods that our battery might not be the best option.. But sitting in a storage space in the car even in the 20s won't freeze the battery. Occasional drops into the zeros are fine also.... it take a long sustained cold to freeze a battery.

As far as storage I have a 2016GT3 RS.... minimal electronics and a 40Ah can sit in that Car about 7-8 weeks after a full charge and then will go into sleep mode. But even after going into sleep mode you still have about a month to start it before it too dead to use the RE-START. So if you could get one charge on it or even start it for about 10 mins to get a little more charge back in it , it could possibly do your three months. A better option is the 60Ah which should get you close to 3 months. That would be dependant on making sure you don't have any other things on the car like USB chargers or anything like that that could increase the parasitic drain...

Last we would honor the battery warranty if you develope issues later... but the fact is we also have another sale I think in Feb or Mar if you wanted to just wait until the next sale.

n3rd

Update on my car. Still going strong with no errors.

Snowy999

That’s great to hear. Scott and team were great when my early version caused a problem and it sure looks like version 2 has nailed it for tje GT4! Such good tech!

CAL GT4

Been following this thread closely since about a year ago my car had the EXACT same issue and symptoms, down to the errors and flashing headlights. It ended up burning out my two front turn signal indicators as well. Do you know what build date your car was? Seems like only certain cars have these issues. Mine is a 4/2016.

I like the product so that battery is now running perfectly in my E46 M3. I do want to re-try the battery in my GT4 since I've heard the new batches have updated BMS which resolves all the issues. But it sounds like there are some batches of batteries out there that still have old BMS? The one I have is the 40 Ah but also considering the 60 Ah since my car does sit for a few weeks sometimes. Wondering if I should just wait for all the old inventory to be sold before risking running into the same issues.

RolloGigolo

​​​​​​Agreed

dmaul

Moving this from other thread since this one is more recent/relevant

I installed an antigravity H6 in my 981 GT4 about a month ago, and I just started having these same codes. I did have to use the reserve on the battery about a week ago because an accessory ran the battery dead.

Production date on car is January 2016. No idea on the battery.

jakermc

I don't think the production date of the car is relevant. If I had to guess which company has more variation in their production process, Porsche or Antigravity, I'd bet on the latter. I suspect that's why sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

mickav8r

What size battery? That seems to be the issue. 30? 40? 60?

Antigravity

Were you able fully recharge the battery after you used the RE-START feature? Did the battery work for you the first month because you say you "just started" having these issues. Keep in mind if the battery is to the point that you are using the RE-START feature then the battery is in a very over-discharged state. Per the Users Manual you must fully recharge the battery after using the RE-START button or you will need to drive quite a long time to get a full recharge on the Battery. So if the batteryhas been over-discharge to the point of using the RE-START feature it is essentially a dead battery. Yes you can drive the car after you start it again... but you need to get a deep full re-charge on it.

Also note if any battery is over discharged, and you have the PDK or other higher draw accessories ON then the car is going to be wanting to use more of the Batteries energy and if the battery is in an over-discharged state then it not really getting a good charge on it if you using items that actually cause the car to draw more energy.... So if you have not fully recharged it try that then reach out to us if anything continues.

Last, you said an accessory drained the Battery that is on the Car, so check if the car is having a larger than normal parasitic drain from extra accessory you spoke about. We need this type of information just to see how the voltage is being effected. The reason for this is because the VOLTAGE is the exact reason for a flag... meaning the flags that have come before are all voltage related flags such as rear steering. The Car wants to see there is no voltage dropping when a load is on it, but an over-dischargeb battery of any chemistry will show a voltage drop compared to a fully charged battery. Anyway that is why we ask these question, just to have data that we can look at to best understand what could be happening.

dmaul

Here are some stats. I installed the battery October 20th. I put the car away November 8th and didn't drive it again until November 22, where I had to use the restart. I drove it a long distance after restart and it showed a full charge.

The first code was November 27th, I drove it every day between the 22nd and 27th so there was not much drain. I highlighted on the 27th approximately when the first code was.

I have a few accessories that might be reasonable for the drain. I have a camera that runs for a bit after the car is turned off. It has it's own voltage protection to shut off if the battery falls below 13v (not sure of exact voltage, I can look it up). It also runs for a maximum of 30 minutes on battery so highly doubtful it was reasonable for all the draining. What may have killed it faster this time is that during that period my front lift kit on my front suspension blew an air line and may have run its pump until the battery died. I can't prove this happened but it is a possibility, at least it is a weird coincidence that these two things happened at the same time.

I'm not suggesting anything negative at this point, I'll reset the codes and monitor the battery closer to see how the drain is going forward. I might have to do more to combat the drain and possibly go to a bigger one from the 30 Ah.

Apologies if my posts sound negative, I'm just trying to share my experience and any guidance I'd appreciate. Like I said, it already saved me once so the restart is an amazing feature.

Antigravity

1- Thanks for the Data... I'm going to have Chad reach out to you so we can get a baseline going again after a charge of the Battery... but if would please email Chad@antigravitybatteries.com so he can respond. We don't know how to contact you at this point.

2- Even driving a car a while often time won't get a full charge on the battery... yes it could have, but maybe not. The reason being is that if other accessories are also running like lighting, Cameras, Sport Mode or A/C or whatever, they take away some of the charging amps that would be charging the battery quicker. So we just like to see if we can get a full charge on the battery to eliminate any potential other scenarios. In other words we go to a baseline we know as accurate... such as the battery charging the battery fully. Then see if that changes anything.

3- I did not feel you were being negative at all, and we want you or others to feel free to post of your experience with us or the products. The GT4 has been and odd one, it like the thorn in our side and we think we have it figured out. But that is why we need communication with the GT4 Guys who have any issues recently. That has not been many be like you we need to see what's up since you have a latter one. So we need to get that baseline and be in touch with you to see if you continue to get the flags or if it was something else. So please reach out to Chad and I (scott@antigravitybatteries.com). And we'll see what gives and if any flags continue after we have you do some basic things.

4- By the way on Nov 27th... can you drag your finger over the highest voltage points so we can see the readings of the Battery Tracker... that looks like its well over 15v.... so it might be running into our protections.... and there for throwing the flags.... So please slide you finger along the screen on the App... until you hit those peaks and show us that reading....

Thanks for the input.

Antigravity

Jake I took note of your statement above saying "If I had to guess which company has more variation in their production process, Porsche or Antigravity, I'd bet on the latter. I suspect that's why sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't."
It seems you are trying to imply that our Antigravity Battery product has a "problem" or has some offending "variables" in production process that would cause flags in the GT4, this is not accurate. I know you were quite upset with Antigravity when we accidentally sent you the wrong product, but it appears to me that you are continuing to push a narrative that is attempting to blame the product as inferior or something is wrong. Again, quite inaccurate and not based on the data available. In an effort to clarify this I am responding so that you and others can better understand what is happening. I have explained this in other threads as well.

1- In terms of the Antigravity Batteries in the GT4...
Our batteries have what is called a Battery Management System (BMS). It is a Circuit Board inside the battery, with a written set of parameters that protect the Lithium Battery from damage and to make it as safe and long lasting as possible. The parameters are also for keeping the battery from being damaged by outside issues such as accidental over-discharges and over-chargers, short circuiting, and it also encompasses protections from extreme heat or freezing. Last, the BMS also balances all the lithium cells so they discharge and recharge together, and this makes for the longest lasting battery possible. So the Circuit Board is programmed with a set of parameters/instructions that the battery cannot operate outside of, and if there is a high over-charge current coming into the battery then the protections will kick in and clip the voltage so it does not damage the battery. The Car then reacts to seeing this clipping voltage by throwing a flag. But let me make it clear there is no "variables" that are changing in our production or quality across the BMSs ... it simply either one programmed set, or another programed set for each BMS as we see what works for the GT4. There is no "better" or "worse" production, or anything like that between the BMSs it just a set of instruction saying to not allow this voltage to go above this, or if the incoming voltage exceeds a programmed threshold then the BMS "clips" the voltage. So that is what causes the Flags. Its because the GT4 kicks up voltage high enough (like 15.5v) for our BMS to react to what appears to be a threat of over-charge, then the GT4 system sees Clipping voltages as our protection kicks in and throws a flags. There is absolutely no design flaw or other such issue. So we found that Conservative setting works excellent in most all Car and is fine.... But then we found a few OUTLIERS like the GT4. And YES the GT4 is the anomaly, not the Battery. For whatever reason the GT4 often pumps the voltage up into the mid to high 15v ranges, so our protections would kick- in. So while I think you might be trying to insinuate this is some flaw in the battery it is ABSOLUTELY NOT. We designed it to be a certain way and it's doing just what we tell it. So over the last year we have been altering the programming to work with the GT4s. You might ask how do we know the GT4 is the anomaly? Well because we have THOUSANDS of other Cars and probably two thousand other Porsches alone that DON'T have this issue when using our batteries. So our data proves the Battery works fine in the vast majority of Cars, but the GT4 does some weird stuff more often than any other Car to date. We think we have got most all of the recent GT4s working without the flags, but there are sometimes other issues like low state of charge and other things that can be happening. Anyway my point here is to explain what is happening, and ask that you stop insinuating there is something "wrong" with our production, or the product. We have had massive success with this exact Battery in racing, street uses, Off-Road Racing etc.

Now in regards to actual " variables" the fact is this, the Porsches including the GT4 have Canbus and Linbus and there are many different data points collected and analyzed by the car hundreds of times a second in regards to the Charging and Electronics system in regards to the battery....For example the CANBUS and Lin systems are tracking how much energy is going into and out of the battery and those variables change based on temperature of the outside air, the load from the Cars accessories on the Battery, the batteries voltage drop or lack thereof during a load, how much current is being put back into the Battery, what is being drawn out, what the voltage is when turning on PDK.... and many many other variables. Anyway hundreds of points of data read and reacted to hundreds of times a second. So there is a ton of information going on all the time with the Cars system reading information on the Cars status in relation to the Battery and the Accessories and Charging System within the Car. So the bottom line is we do NOT know why in the GT4 only we see jumps to 15.5v (which is considered and OVER-CHARE voltage level in the industry) when none of the other Porsches are seeming to do that, so we have tried to change some of the parameters in our battery to deal with that better and it have succeeded in most all the recent circumstances.... but the bottom line here is the Porsche GT4 is actually having all the variables, and is very sensitive to what we thing are voltage readings, and it is also allowing for high jumps into the 15v range which most cars do not do. That is a Porsche thing specific to the GT4 and they might have a perfect reason for that... but it something we are not sure why they do and its not industry standard.

Last the lead/acid battery won't have the car throw flags simply because it is not protected or regulated. If you throw 16v at a lead acid battery it won't react, but the fact is that is an over-charge scenario. If we put a Lithium Battery in a Car without its BMS Protections you would not see any flags either... because the voltage from the Car could jump up to 16v and the Lithium battery without a BMS wouldn't try to clip it... it would allow anything to happen. But that is not a proper way to make for a long-term safe Lithium Battery that goes into very expensive Cars. We are doing it correctly and changing programing to make this work while retaining the Conservative safety factors we will always abide by.