Antigravity battery for the ftr.

ferraiolo1

2021-2024 IMR Ambassador
Staff member
I was waiting to get a bit more info in battery failure cases. But now I know for a fact it’s happened to five ftr owners who installed this battery including me.

there seems to be an issue with the restart feature circuit board and the vibrations. The battery will still show fully charged. But as soon as you go to click the power on, the bike goes blank. It’s an internal failure of the battery. And the restart feature does not function.


They do have a 3 year warranty, but you have to send in your battery for them to test it and determine it’s bad in order for them to send you another one. Which means a few weeks of down time for your bike.

I was lucky enough, when mine went out they still had some non restart batteries which I replaced mine with and so far mines been good for a year now. But they no longer offer them. It’s all the restart options.

So buyer beware, and determine if you want to take the $250 risk or move to another option. I pulled my video as I don’t want to promote a product that has known faults and the company is still pushing that specific technology.
 
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mark.lb

Well-known member
Good to know ferraiolo1.
I have the exact same battery in my big bore Scout and I will keep an eye on it. So far so good. My FTR is still running the original OEM battery but in May it turned three years old. I was planning to replace it with a Antigravity battery before winter. There are other lithium ion options available from Duraboost, BikeMaster, Shorai, XTREME, Full Spectrum Power, and WPS. I know very little about these brands and liked the Restart feature of the Antigravity. It sounded like a valuable insurance policy on a motorcycle especially the FTR, a bike known to kill batteries. Now it sounds like the Achilles heel of Antigravity.
 

Max Kool

Well-known member
Makes you think, could vibrations be the reason why Shorai doesn’t offer any model for both the Scout and the FTR?
 

ferraiolo1

2021-2024 IMR Ambassador
Staff member
This is the non restart replacement.
 

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I didn't like the restart feature, so I got the same battery. Working great so far.

I was considering the restart battery for one of my cars, but now not so sure. What is the current status of these types of batteries?
 

mark.lb

Well-known member
I was waiting to get a bit more info in battery failure cases. But now I know for a fact it’s happened to five ftr owners who installed this battery including me.

there seems to be an issue with the restart feature circuit board and the vibrations. The battery will still show fully charged. But as soon as you go to click the power on, the bike goes blank. It’s an internal failure of the battery. And the restart feature does not function.


They do have a 3 year warranty, but you have to send in your battery for them to test it and determine it’s bad in order for them to send you another one. Which means a few weeks of down time for your bike.

I was lucky enough, when mine went out they still had some non restart batteries which I replaced mine with and so far mines been good for a year now. But they no longer offer them. It’s all the restart options.

So buyer beware, and determine if you want to take the $250 risk or move to another option. I pulled my video as I don’t want to promote a product that has known faults and the company is still pushing that specific technology.
Mike in your opinion - Is the vibration causing the ReStart circuit board failure a result of the battery mounting location on the FTR?
The battery on my Scout is in a more conventional “under the seat” location and my not experience the same vibration as being mounted directly to the front of the engine. Pitt Cycles used this battery in other Scout builds and they are still going strong well into their second year.
 

EllenGtrGrl

Active member
Hmmmm, interesting information. The weather's been weird here - cold in the morning (30s to 40s Faherenheit [0 to 5 Celsius] in the morning, when I would commute - no thanks, that's no fun at freeway speeds), until recently. Combined with long hours at work (I work as a Quality Engineer, and we're shorthanded, due to New Guy utterly failing as a Quality Tech. [we gave him 5 months to learn the job], resulting in him being let go), I've not been able to get ye olde FTR's battery hooked up until this morning (I'm on vacation today and tomorrow). I'll have to keep the new battery info in mind since I have an Anti-Gravity LiIhium Ion installed. You may remember that I swapped over from a lead acid to the Anti-Gravity, due to frustration, after having 2, lead acid batteries fail (with the situation not helped by the fact that I have no power outlet in the underground parking my FTR is parked in, to hook up a battery tender to).

Per the speculation about whether or not engine vibration is a factor in the issues discovered recently with Anti-Gravity batteries - it's possible. While the battery was originally geared towards Harleys, which of course have 45 degree v-twins, that frankly are jack hammers, when it comes to vibration, the engines are isolated significantly from the rest of the motorcycle vibration-wise, due to being rubber mounted (shades of a Norton Commando), and the battery is mounted away from the engine, under the seat (a traditional battery location), helping to further isolate it from engine vibration. The FTR1200 by contrast, has its battery in (what is to me) a weird location - right in front of the engine. The enging is counterbalanced, which combined with its 60 degree cylinder spacing angle makes a quite a bit smoother vibration-wise compared to a Harley engine, but it's no 90 degree v-twin (which can be made very smooth when counterbalancers are used). So, with the battery being so close to a vibrating engine, and the heat it puts out, I will admit, that battery durability has been on my mind for some time.
 
I was waiting to get a bit more info in battery failure cases. But now I know for a fact it’s happened to five ftr owners who installed this battery including me.

there seems to be an issue with the restart feature circuit board and the vibrations. The battery will still show fully charged. But as soon as you go to click the power on, the bike goes blank. It’s an internal failure of the battery. And the restart feature does not function.


They do have a 3 year warranty, but you have to send in your battery for them to test it and determine it’s bad in order for them to send you another one. Which means a few weeks of down time for your bike.

I was lucky enough, when mine went out they still had some non restart batteries which I replaced mine with and so far mines been good for a year now. But they no longer offer them. It’s all the restart options.

So buyer beware, and determine if you want to take the $250 risk or move to another option. I pulled my video as I don’t want to promote a product that has known faults and the company is still pushing that specific technology.


Hey Ferraiolo,

I just bought a FTR and I stumbled across this thread because I was reviewing FTR upgrades and found this website a few weeks back... I'm the owner of Antigravity and while I am truely sorry if you had a problem with any Antigraity Battery you have bought, I can say for certain it is not vibration or the circuit board going bad due to vibration. I can say this because these RE-START batteries are used extensively in all forms of Racing such as Off-Road in the Baja 1000, in ADV bikes, Off-Road bikes, MX bikes, and actually tons of Harleys, and Indians. So I'm scratching my head that you are saying that you know of 5 FTR guys who had the same issue. I am not saying you did not have a problem, I'm just clarifying its not a vibration issue, so I have to look into this.

In any event, I can test this out personally since I have this bike now. I just bought a 2019 RR. I have not put our battery in it yet since I always basline any bikes I get by riding them for month or two before doing any changes to them. I am looking forward to testing the battery now, because I would be glad to know if any bike is specifically having a failure like you are stating. I have not heard of it before so I will have to have staff look at our warranty records and see if FTR come up as a specific bike that has any excessive warranty issues.

I'll post up my finding as I do the install and ride it. If there is any issue I have not problem posting about it because I would love to know about it also and get it fixed. But I'll check it out.

If you don't mind sending me and email to [email protected] and tell me the year of bike, who you bought the battery from, the model of battery, roughly when you did the warranty and so on. I will be able to check our data base of warranties since we track by manufacturer and also Model and year of Model to see if any bike does have any issues. So I can check and see if the FTRs stands out as a bike that had excessive warranty claims because 5 FTRs having issues seem excessive, and would draw our attention since honestly we are not getting a lot of warranties in general..... But I will check into that and let you know.
 

mark.lb

Well-known member
Very interesting.
I run the Antigravity ATX-12-HD in my big bore Scout. It was installed in April 2022. So far I never had to use the RE-START feature. The battery worked well this riding season. I am curious to see if it will be reliable for 3-4 years like conventional AGM batteries.
 
I will absolutely send you an email with all the details. As I never heard back what the actual fault was with my battery. My email is [email protected] when you see it.

Wrote back MIke, thanks for the in-depth email!


Very interesting.
I run the Antigravity ATX-12-HD in my big bore Scout. It was installed in April 2022. So far I never had to use the RE-START feature. The battery worked well this riding season. I am curious to see if it will be reliable for 3-4 years like conventional AGM batteries.

It should be absolutely fine. Any issues let me know or call us, we will absolutely handle any warranty and quickly. We don't mess around in that area, but as MIke said you do need to send it back to us, but we will also get it done in a few days not a few weeks, and we can send a loner battery our with a deposit if you had to have something because of a ride. But again, I don't expect that to happen at all.

But I don't want this to be a narrative of IF the batteries fail, because I have to be honest this caught me off guard about batteries failing in FTRs... or having a series of failures in one particular bike. We don't have many warranties but it can and does happen. But as I said I want to look into this and review. I'll keep in touch here, but won't start until about mid January since I will be out of town this week and then want to ride the FTR about 400 more miles so I can document the details of the bike before I make any changes. This way I have a clear undersatanding of the bike, can get data on the charging system and so on.

Anyway... I have to say... The FTR is the best looking Bike I have, and I have some seriously cool bikes already...
 

ferraiolo1

2021-2024 IMR Ambassador
Staff member
Another friend of mine had a similar failure this week with her antigravity in her ftr. Restart button does nothing.
 
Another friend of mine had a similar failure this week with her antigravity in her ftr. Restart button does nothing.

Ferraiolo1, as I state above in a post, I was going to be testing in my own FTR, and did start doing the load tests for starting and initial charging profiles from my FTR which is not conclusive yet since I have not gotten to ride much since December and the rains recently. Testing on the bike in the Garage is only is only part of the testing, because I have to get miles on the bike to accurately read the Charging system of the bike also, but the tests are going forward at this time.

Additionally, I want to point out something to you in an attempt to ask you to be more objective in your posts..... when you simply post you "know of someone who had a failure" it is not really painting the picture completely or accurately. The truth is, at this time we have no idea what this Customers issues are yet since we have not had a chance to hear from or talk to her. While she could have a battery that failed, there is absolutely a possiblity of the issue being lack of mainenance, custom wiring for some accessory, over-discharge from too long in storage. Also, the RE-START won't work if you let the battery sit many weeks after it went into it's sleep/protection mode, the battery is not an infinate supply of energy. We also don't know if her FTR had been running the battery perfectly fine for a years, or if she just got it. So I would ask you to try to look at the entire picture and be objective before just simply stating something failed.

I understand you feel you are doing the community a benefit, or protecting it since you are a Staff Member on FTR, and I think President of its Owners group, but it does not seem very objective to just report " I know people who have had failures..." without our company being able to talk to those people and see what exactly was happening and better understand what the causes might be. It is just as easy for Antigravity Batteries to say these failures are not due to the battery being defective since we don't see this in other bikes... but talks is cheap and we don't work like that. We are looking into this claimed issue seriously to see what might potentially be a problem. The problem might also be something like a thin wire gauge to the Battery is not letting it flow enough current without resistance and extra heat since its Lithium. So we are not taking it lightly, but we are looking at real world accurate testing so we can see a problem and correct it if it exists. Also, let us go through the Warranty process with the Customer and learn about the reasons for the failures before you simply report "I know of another person who had a failure.." because it does not allow for completely informed opinion as to the what caused problem.

We are here to seek resolution of this by accurate thorough testing, which I have begun. So if any of you have any issues please write to us at Antigravity Batteries so we can assist, learn more and address it for you. You can write to scott@ or [email protected].

Lastly, this is not a post to be confrontational with you Ferraiolo1, but rather to make clear we just desire open objective discussion.
 

ferraiolo1

2021-2024 IMR Ambassador
Staff member
She is a member here but she is currently on a trip with IMC on another bike. I asked for her sn and date of purchase to email you, Once she is back. It’s almost the exact failure I experienced.

I’m glad the testing is on going. And the forum is an open discussion area, a place to document issues and successes.
 
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That.Thomas.Guy

New member
Ferraiolo1, as I state above in a post, I was going to be testing in my own FTR, and did start doing the load tests for starting and initial charging profiles from my FTR which is not conclusive yet since I have not gotten to ride much since December and the rains recently. Testing on the bike in the Garage is only is only part of the testing, because I have to get miles on the bike to accurately read the Charging system of the bike also, but the tests are going forward at this time.

Additionally, I want to point out something to you in an attempt to ask you to be more objective in your posts..... when you simply post you "know of someone who had a failure" it is not really painting the picture completely or accurately. The truth is, at this time we have no idea what this Customers issues are yet since we have not had a chance to hear from or talk to her. While she could have a battery that failed, there is absolutely a possiblity of the issue being lack of mainenance, custom wiring for some accessory, over-discharge from too long in storage. Also, the RE-START won't work if you let the battery sit many weeks after it went into it's sleep/protection mode, the battery is not an infinate supply of energy. We also don't know if her FTR had been running the battery perfectly fine for a years, or if she just got it. So I would ask you to try to look at the entire picture and be objective before just simply stating something failed.

I understand you feel you are doing the community a benefit, or protecting it since you are a Staff Member on FTR, and I think President of its Owners group, but it does not seem very objective to just report " I know people who have had failures..." without our company being able to talk to those people and see what exactly was happening and better understand what the causes might be. It is just as easy for Antigravity Batteries to say these failures are not due to the battery being defective since we don't see this in other bikes... but talks is cheap and we don't work like that. We are looking into this claimed issue seriously to see what might potentially be a problem. The problem might also be something like a thin wire gauge to the Battery is not letting it flow enough current without resistance and extra heat since its Lithium. So we are not taking it lightly, but we are looking at real world accurate testing so we can see a problem and correct it if it exists. Also, let us go through the Warranty process with the Customer and learn about the reasons for the failures before you simply report "I know of another person who had a failure.." because it does not allow for completely informed opinion as to the what caused problem.

We are here to seek resolution of this by accurate thorough testing, which I have begun. So if any of you have any issues please write to us at Antigravity Batteries so we can assist, learn more and address it for you. You can write to scott@ or [email protected].

Lastly, this is not a post to be confrontational with you Ferraiolo1, but rather to make clear we just desire open objective discussion.
I am a "know of someone" who was screwed over and is currently deterring your sales every chance I can get. As Mike's Co-administrator on the FTR FB page, I have quite the reach.

I'm out the money, and you still have my battery. I should have never even sent it in, as I am completely capable of deleting the module inside of it. It failed in warranty, and I didn't even hear from your warranty department till it was out of warranty.

Mike already gave you all my info (12/24/22), did you look into it? What was found?
 

acrws

Member
She is a member here but she is currently on a trip with IMC on another bike. I asked for her sn and date of purchase to email you, Once she is back. It’s almost the exact failure I experienced.

I’m glad the testing is on going. And the forum is an open discussion area, a place to document issues and successes.
Hi! It’s me! I’m the friend.

I’ve sent Mike my info as well as submitted the warranty form via e-mail to AG. Have to say, I’m pretty disappointed in the performance given that the product description touts “longer life” and “lower self-discharge” as selling points.

Hoping to get this resolved soon because it’s prime riding weather in FL, I’ll keep y’all updated on what I hear. (Don’t cry for me too much, though, friends…the Yuasa that I had switched out for the AG battery, and has literally done nothing but sit in a cardboard box in my garage since April of 2021, took a charge on the tender and is fussy but gets the FTR going well enough in a pinch!)
 
I am a "know of someone" who was screwed over and is currently deterring your sales every chance I can get. As Mike's Co-administrator on the FTR FB page, I have quite the reach.

I came on here and saw this Mike's Post in December. I simply wanted to find a way to see what was going on with the MIkes claims, and test my personal FTR with the battery and see if these statements were holding true so I could learn more, and improve the battery if needed. I was trying to be professional, learn more and assist as the owner of the company.

Oddly I have posted my email here, stating reach out to me if any problems, yet you nor the other friend contacted me, you just openly post here first rather than reaching out to me. So I have been a part of enough forums to know this is sort of a forum "pile-on" rather than a reasonable discusion. If you write to me I can access any past history and find who might be accountable and get a solution and resolution. IF you posting to rant than I certainly don't need to be here.

By the way are you guys the FTR Mafia? "Yo! "I have quite da reach", you gonna pay buddy ole pal" (y)
 
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