Hi all,
Sorry for the delay in writing. Just super busy but didn’t want to just do a quick post.
Hey all, sorry for all the raging disappointment…the thread bums me out, so I’m posting some facts in hopes some of you get something out of it. It will be a LONG POST and I may come across as unapologetic at times, but not because I’m a jerk but because I will state facts that may be blunt. Bottom line and being honest the best advice for me to give may be to NOT use our product in this application. We have a great reputation in all forms of Powersports and Motorsports, it's not based on marketing or boloney, we make a great product....Yet I see in this ONE application of total-loss and stunting it’s horrible…this is not coincidence, there is a conclusion to be made….Your particular application of FreeStyle using a Total-Loss present the opportunity for massive amounts of failures…more so than any other application and I will explain it more below.
1)First off… the Warranty issue.
Let’s me clarify this, I saw a number of “Antigravity won’t honor the warranty” or “they blame it on me”. The fact is our warranty clearly states a couple times over “WE DON”T WARRANTY FOR TOTAL-LOSS USE”…in addition we dedicate an entire paragraph to this in our Instructions that come with the battery…When you open our box it says in bold red letters “WARNING!!! READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS OR DAMAGE COULD RESULT” ….The reason we do not warranty for this is because total-loss is a radically modified NON-STOCK system. It is COMPETELY dependent on the USER knowing how this system should be operated and then requires massive and diligent monitoring of the battery before , during and after use. If the USER messes up once that could ruin the battery, not just ours but ANY lithium battery… that is why we don’t warranty for total-loss. Keep in mind EVERY battery company specifically state that over discharge voids a warranty. This is not just Antigravity… nor is it just Lithium companies, it’s ALL batteries because over discharge damages lead/acid or lithium, please check their warranties. So if a user makes the decision to install a custom system without charging abilities and makes some mistake along the way, or bolts on a bunch of different parts that we are not sure work correctly… or installs it the wrong way or uses a lead/acid charger on our lithium battery we aren’t responsible. I know it sounds like being an asshole but we can’t take any responsibility for how you modified your system into a one-off application that may or may not work…..Sorry that is just a fact as harsh as it sounds. We can’t warranty for a system that DOES not charge the battery and relies completely on the user operating it correctly.
2)The use of batteries in your sport…Freestyle Jetski with total-loss systems.
MANY of you need to understand the use of lithium batteries in your sport is NOTHING like the normal use for any battery in any other sport. In your sport there is 50 times more starting… It is massive starting attempts on the battery all ride long. If you fail a stunt you restart, over and over. Any of you who want to understand batteries, needs to realize each start attempt is a massive discharge of energy… so when I hear you guys talk about only using a couple gallons of fuels and basing that in relation to your battery use, that is not the correct way to speak when using a battery to power your system…. That isn’t the concern you should worry about… if you want to use total loss correctly you need to think only how many starts you are doing while your practicing and where your voltage is at. And being honest if you can’t commit to the massive maintenance and monitoring required for maintaining a battery in this highly specialized use then you probably shouldn’t do it. It’s an extremely easy system to make a mistake on and ruin a battery very quickly. We do many many total loss systems…. but the use is usually for ignition in system where it the vehicle is NOT started 20 to 50 times or more per session. So for this use you are just doing massive pulse discharges over and over and it is extremely hard on a battery from a discharge perspective. It can go flat fast…. It not about GALLONS… it about you VOLTAGE… From the feed back we have gotten a good pro will do a starts quite a few times practicing his routine, yet an amature will do maybe double or more the number of starts because the trick isn’t landed as often and the vehicle stalls….So you have a case where probably quite of a few of you don’t really know exactly what the battery is going through and think a battery should just last while you keep doing massive start attempts and thinking the battery should be able to do this… If it’s sized properly, and kept in perfect state of charge and monitored it might do pretty well, but if you make one mistake your done you ruined the battery… That is NOT just our battery, lithium doesn’t like over discharge.
A couple other issues you need to be aware of is that no battery is designed to put out 100 to 150 amps of juice for 20 to 40 start attempts in a row. It’s hard on a battery and coupled with the fact that it is not only turning over the motor it turning over the drag/resistance of the direct drive prop in the water. That’s a lot of power needed and sucks a lot of energy from the battery… the energy release is CAPACITY being taken down… So 20 starts is actually A LOT within a short time when your talking a direct drive prop in water. And with that amount of starts under you belt you are probably getting very critical on the voltage level very fast. My overall point being NO OTHER sport requires this type of abuse on the battery. So just take notes from what I’m saying. These are the FACTS.
The other fact you need to know about a battery is that you should ALWAYS keep it in the top 10% of SOC (state of charge) when your running a total loss system… this means if your ever run it below 13v your too low. You need to run it from it fully charged state which is about 14.6 (this will drop to the 13s quickly) then run until you’re at about 13 then go in a recharge. I don’t care how many GALLONS you ran through… you need to just worry about voltage. If you starting a lot, go check voltage. Get a waterproof voltage indicator…. If you not considering these facts I’m bringing up then you are honestly NOT ready for a total-loss system. Don’t believe the forums that all you have to do is just put one in and your good to go. You have to really spend time monitoring it.
Keep in mind these batteries are realatively small batteries and you can’t expect an endless supply of energy… you are saving about 10 pounds on a battery…. it is physically SMALLER than your original lead/acid by quite a bit and has LESS actual capacity due to its smaller physical size… Yes the power is MORE than lead/acid but the Capacity is less….You cannot have the same capacity is a battery two times larger like a lead acid battery is. So you get great starting performance but after a certain number of starts you voltage is going down to the large number of amps required to flip the motor and if it doing it hydro lock your basically shorting your battery out…. That is extremely hard on a battery.
So if you don’t know these things are they are not ingrained in you as a method to run a total loss system then being honest you should hold off on it. I’m not saying you’re an idiot…. I’m saying YOU DON”T KNOW ENOUGH to use the system consistently and get good results. I know you can go on these forums and get some awesome info but then again there is a lot of really un-informed info. And ultimately it is on YOU…. How you build your system, how you care and maintain your vehicle, How diligent you are in monitoring the battery. You have to be willing to put to in the time to monitor this set up.
I know this long writing will not cure all the issues and may not explain all of them. I'm just trying to arm you with some real knowledge about how lithium works in your application and the pitfalls. Like I said I'm here to just give some facts, not sell our product. This is just a bummer for me to see since we have awesome results everywhere else and I know .Jeremy Par got a season out of a 16 cell...as well as many of the Racer doing Jetski... but total-loss in the stunting world is just killing the batteries.
You can always write to us at info@antigravity and we will answer your questions honestly…
