[Florida Pan]

I always keep my bikes on a tender, mm-what if I am out in the back country camping for 2 weeks. Yes I know I can start the bike to charge the battery, but that's not the point.
I left my 7 month old battery off a tender for 2 days and the bike barley started and threw a bunch of codes. Yes they cleared, but again not the point. Is it really that hard to design a battery size that works for this bike? Either that or HD got a huge batch of crappy batteries from their vendor. I cannot see it being the key-fob- my GS never had this issue and It had a fob, many many HD have a FOB and don't have this problem. Any HD with an alarm needs a fob.

I am switching to a Lithium battery and am looking for feed-back. I have read many posts on this forum that had initial success with a lithium battery.
How has your longer term experience been with them?

Thanks,
Tom

 

[goosegreen]

No experiance as such as mine is always on the battery tender cost 30 euros in a month for the electric bill . I will ask my dealership what they suggest .

 

[Burnin Padrons]

I am one of the lucky ones not to have had any issues with my bike yet, however with the volume of battery, and voltage complaints, I plan on switching over to an anti gravity battery come spring. The reviews on this forum have been pretty positive

 

[Tobba611]

I always keep my bikes on a tender, mm-what if I am out in the back country camping for 2 weeks. Yes I know I can start the bike to charge the battery, but that's not the point.
I left my 7 month old battery off a tender for 2 days and the bike barley started and threw a bunch of codes. Yes they cleared, but again not the point. Is it really that hard to design a battery size that works for this bike? Either that or HD got a huge batch of crappy batteries from their vendor. I cannot see it being the key-fob- my GS never had this issue and It had a fob, many many HD have a FOB and don't have this problem. Any HD with an alarm needs a fob.

I am switching to a Lithium battery and am looking for feed-back. I have read many posts on this forum that had initial success with a lithium battery.
How has your longer term experience been with them?

Thanks,
Tom

I installed the Antigravity ATX12-HD RE-START Lithium Battery in late September and it's been a complete game changer for me. No starting issues, not one code thrown since install- two bike rally's, many, many starts and two weeks sitting dormant didn't phase it.

Before I bought the new battery, the bike had to spend all it's unridden time on a battery tender. I even used to put it in transport mode every time I parked it overnight.. I heard somewhere that it kept the bike from constantly looking for the key fob. I don't know if that's true, but it did seem to help. I complained to the dealership once and got another new HD battery, with the same problem. Finally, I bought a NOCO GB40 boost pack and a cable that hard-wires to the battery posts.(NOCO GBC007) and wouldn't leave home without the GB40, not even to the grocery store. Now I only take the GB40 when I'm camping or going way off grid. I haven't needed it all .

The starting issue was always weird for me, if the indicator on the dash showed less than 12.1 volts - the bike would turn over a little but sounded like it wasn't turning over for long enough- no start. It would do this if it had been sitting for a few days, or if I had been playing with the settings or ride modes with the engine off. Either way, the codes were plentiful. When I looked up the various codes, they were are in relation to some sort of voltage variation or drop.. Others were all about lost comms with different sections of the bike (BCM, ECM, ARH modules). I will point out though, that most of these codes were "red herrings", meaning that once I boosted or charged the bike, all the codes went to history (H). If it wasn't so easy to navigate the menu and go look at the codes, I probably wouldn't have known they were there after the next on/off engine cycle. Ironically, letting the bike sit for few minutes, until the battery drifted back up to 12.4 volts would let it start too.

Just as an "end-user", I highly recommend swapping the factory HD battery for something else, it seems like it isn't good enough to run the PA.. I don't know for sure but I would wager that the OEM battery is the same OEM battery that comes in a lot of H-D bikes and re-using it on the PA was some kind of manufacturing cost savings.

Hope this helps!

 

[Florida Pan]

I installed the Antigravity ATX12-HD RE-START Lithium Battery in late September and it's been a complete game changer for me. No starting issues, not one code thrown since install- two bike rally's, many, many starts and two weeks sitting dormant didn't phase it.

Before I bought the new battery, the bike had to spend all it's unridden time on a battery tender. I even used to put it in transport mode every time I parked it overnight.. I heard somewhere that it kept the bike from constantly looking for the key fob. I don't know if that's true, but it did seem to help. I complained to the dealership once and got another new HD battery, with the same problem. Finally, I bought a NOCO GB40 boost pack and a cable that hard-wires to the battery posts.(NOCO GBC007) and wouldn't leave home without the GB40, not even to the grocery store. Now I only take the GB40 when I'm camping or going way off grid. I haven't needed it all .

The starting issue was always weird for me, if the indicator on the dash showed less than 12.1 volts - the bike would turn over a little but sounded like it wasn't turning over for long enough- no start. It would do this if it had been sitting for a few days, or if I had been playing with the settings or ride modes with the engine off. Either way, the codes were plentiful. When I looked up the various codes, they were are in relation to some sort of voltage variation or drop.. Others were all about lost comms with different sections of the bike (BCM, ECM, ARH modules). I will point out though, that most of these codes were "red herrings", meaning that once I boosted or charged the bike, all the codes went to history (H). If it wasn't so easy to navigate the menu and go look at the codes, I probably wouldn't have known they were there after the next on/off engine cycle. Ironically, letting the bike sit for few minutes, until the battery drifted back up to 12.4 volts would let it start too.

Just as an "end-user", I highly recommend swapping the factory HD battery for something else, it seems like it isn't good enough to run the PA.. I don't know for sure but I would wager that the OEM battery is the same OEM battery that comes in a lot of H-D bikes and re-using it on the PA was some kind of manufacturing cost savings.

Hope this helps!

Thank-you for the info-just what I was looking for. You are spot on with your observations. Looks like I will get the Anti-Gravity. BTW I saw a YouTube video where a guy with a sportster started his bike at below freezing temps with an Anti Gravity battery. Took a few cranks to warm up the battery but it started just fine. He had mentioned it had sat in a freezing cold garage for a month with no tender.

 

[Tobba611]

I hope you have the same success as I have. In regards to cold weather,. I run a Shorai Lithium on my KLR650, I learned a few years ago that (in super cold conditions) to not even try to start it right away, but to turn the headlight on for a about 3 minutes, then hit the start. The headlight warms the battery up. I don't think you can turn the PA's headlight on BUT maybe you can turn on some aux lights or heated gear?

One more thing, I posted a pic on another thread about connecting the battery. I did have to make a little spacer so I could connect the positive lead easily. Should be easy to find if you search.