dstefan
Well-known member
So Will Prose kicked a hornets nest with a teardown video of a failed 100AH BB by showing that it was, according to him, a design flaw with the mounting of the positive terminal leading to overheating, melting of the plastic frame through which the + bus bar was bolted to the + terminal using an aluminum bolt.
The + terminal was loose and wiggling, the bright red epoxy seal was heat discolored to brown, the votage and current were dropping out and there was internal arcing inside the case.
Battleborn has made this exponentially worse by responding very defesively that this is an intentional failsafe to prevent thermal runaway, which maybe is true as there appears to be no cases of runaway, but . . . .
Long story short, quite a few pretty bad failure stories have emerged in the last six months and even more since the teardown vid. Evidently Battleborn is . . .well, embattled . . . as DragonFly energy the brand’s parent company has had a stock value collapse from 2023 from ~$150/share to less than $1. Of course, everyone on Prowse's forum is predicting bankruptcy So much for those 10 year warranties, which they appear to not be honoring by creating hurdles such that nothing short of a new failed battery out of the box is able to be warrantied.
Since I have one of these, bought 5 years ago, which has performed flawlessly, I was concerned and I went through all 28 pages of the thread on the forum https://diysolarforum.com/threads/battle-born-battery-issue.110295/ and checked my battery — all good outside the case internals, but still concerning. Hard to know what to think or do, but I really don’t have high current in or outflows with my battery — it’s a small camper, no inverter, and never draws more that 6-8 amps. It’s DC DC charged at 25amps.
From the thread, which is exploding, my takeaway is that the problems seem to come with either multiple battery installations, some with exposure to weather or extreme vibration, and heavy use — eg, high amp charging or discharging. Although, there are also anecdotal reports of single battery, lightly used failures that BB refuses to warranty.
Teardown
BB Response
Different, older comparison of BB vs Lithionics high end batteries
The + terminal was loose and wiggling, the bright red epoxy seal was heat discolored to brown, the votage and current were dropping out and there was internal arcing inside the case.
Battleborn has made this exponentially worse by responding very defesively that this is an intentional failsafe to prevent thermal runaway, which maybe is true as there appears to be no cases of runaway, but . . . .
Long story short, quite a few pretty bad failure stories have emerged in the last six months and even more since the teardown vid. Evidently Battleborn is . . .well, embattled . . . as DragonFly energy the brand’s parent company has had a stock value collapse from 2023 from ~$150/share to less than $1. Of course, everyone on Prowse's forum is predicting bankruptcy So much for those 10 year warranties, which they appear to not be honoring by creating hurdles such that nothing short of a new failed battery out of the box is able to be warrantied.
Since I have one of these, bought 5 years ago, which has performed flawlessly, I was concerned and I went through all 28 pages of the thread on the forum https://diysolarforum.com/threads/battle-born-battery-issue.110295/ and checked my battery — all good outside the case internals, but still concerning. Hard to know what to think or do, but I really don’t have high current in or outflows with my battery — it’s a small camper, no inverter, and never draws more that 6-8 amps. It’s DC DC charged at 25amps.
From the thread, which is exploding, my takeaway is that the problems seem to come with either multiple battery installations, some with exposure to weather or extreme vibration, and heavy use — eg, high amp charging or discharging. Although, there are also anecdotal reports of single battery, lightly used failures that BB refuses to warranty.
Teardown
BB Response
Different, older comparison of BB vs Lithionics high end batteries
