LiFePO4 Install

[Photobug]

I would hope this comes with a quick turn around. It would not bode well to hear the returns department to say "your battery is behind a long line of other returned batteries." Given the price and the hype, I would hope failures are very rare and warranties and repairs are swift.

Have you sent a link to this thread to Battle Born?

 

[dreadlocks]

Have you sent a link to this thread to Battle Born?

no, I'm not an "influencer"..

 

[Photobug]

no, I'm not an "influencer"..

I beg to differ. This thread got a lot of people thinking and talking about LiFePO's. I would hope a $1000 battery would get a different level of service than my $70 Costco FLA battery. While I have not had the opportunity to test Costco warranty on car products, Costco's other warranties are no questions asked.

I am waiting for your outcome to see if I go LiFePO or go back to Costco.

 

[dreadlocks]

yeah because I aint shilling for anybody.. I'm not trying to influence battleborn into doing anything for me they wouldn't for you.

 

[Photobug]

yeah because I aint shilling for anybody.. I'm not trying to influence battleborn into doing anything for me they wouldn't for you.

Then you are a better man than I. If I paid a premium price for a product, I would do whatever to make sure I got it repaired when it failed prematurely.

Without reading the whole history, do you think anything you did contributed to the battery's early demise?

 

[dreadlocks]

not really, perhaps the inverter was a bit too much.. I was pushing close to its rated limits, tho I'd expect it to provide its rated limits.. the most I ever saw was ~95A according to my battery monitor.

If they make it right then I'll keep on going confident battleborn's got my back and just keep rocking this battery and testing their 10Y warranty claim.. Sometimes ******** happens, I've design and built my own circuit boards, sometimes finding good quality components if your not a huge mega fab shop can be a circus. besides all the fake chips you have legit chips with **************** spec sheets and it makes life a ********** sometimes.. if its an array of mosfets in parallel to handle the load, the failure of one or two could have taken the whole lot with em as they woulda each hadda handle more amps which woulda driven temps up and resulted in more failures.. and here we are.

If I had access to the BMS, I'm 99% confident I could repair it myself.. mebe they have a new revision board with more overhead or better sourced components? hard to say but its likely unless I'm the first of this kinda of failure.. and then who's to say its not just a fluke?

 

[dreadlocks]

They called me today, got my serial number.. she expected a 5 digit number and got a 4 digit so yeah I'm an early adopter heh.. FedEx shipping label in hand, I'll package it up today and drop it off at the FedEx store a few blocks away.

 

[dreadlocks]

got another phone call from a tech, we chatted, he's the one assigned to my battery.. Told him the story from the beginning he agreed its either some cooked mosfets or a faulty connection to terminal post since my terminal post temperature probe often saw high temps w/inverter loads and charging.. he is leading towards the former because he says this is not how he typically sees mosfets fail.

He confirmed alot has changed on their circuitry since then with some extra logic to prevent the array of mosfets from overheating, and whatever I get back will be the latest and greatest.. he was very apologetic and provided great customer service.. I hung up feeling like this might just be for the better, getting a free upgrade to the latest revision of circuitry.

 

[luthj]

I don't feel so bad about consumers getting what amounts to final stage prototypes, if there is good warranty support. Though they really should do some more testing before they sell a full priced prototype like that... Of course the engineer in me knows that no matter how hard you work in the lab, real world testing often shakes out different.

 

[luthj]

On a related note, the fact that they can afford to have a tech talk to you on the phone for 10 minutes or more says something as well. Either they have very few warranty claims, or they spend lots of money on support personnel.

 

[dreadlocks]

they always make a better idiot.. I like the fact they cooking their own boards and making revisions, you can always improve a design, especially with further insight.. but often some corporate finance guy wont always let yeh.. especially if it results in a bit of scrap, despite any long term savings.. its about this quarter damnit.

And yeah, it was a nice phone call.. he didnt ask me once to unplug it and plug it back in again heh.

 

[luthj]

Given that their MFG is overseas, that always adds about double the turnover time for revisions, plus the time it takes for them to get into the supply chain. Possibly down the line there will be some broke (cheap!) original BB units. Us tech savvy folks can cut them open, replacing 5$ in parts, and have a very nice battery with only 1000 cycles on it...

 

[john61ct]

They called me today, got my serial number.. she expected a 5 digit number and got a 4 digit so yeah I'm an early adopter heh..

Pioneers, arrows

 

[dreadlocks]

so quick update, I was delayed in sending the battery back.. I made mistake of saying it was a battery and the local FedEx store nopped right out of accepting it and required I drive it all the way across the Denver Metro to the FedEx warehouse.. unfortunately it was rush hour at the time and next day I would be out of town, so it waited til I got home 4 days later.. then I dropped it off w/no problems.

I got tracking number saying the battery is on its way back to me, will be here this coming Wednesday.. just in time for our 10 day trip to Mesa Verde / Grand Canyon I'll be gone for this time next weekend.. I've not heard anything back from BattleBorn on the cause of the issue, I'm hoping there's some paperwork in the box when it comes back w/report of the issue.. if not I'll call em up before I head out of town.. they had it in hand for MEBE a week, this month is crazy busy so not been tracking it.. didnt think the'd have it back before our trip due to my delay getting it out.

So I'll have my LFP back for my first extended outing, with the new baby and a bunch of career changes that happened in last two years we've not gotten a real vacation since the Total Eclipse... We need this bad.. I'm shooting for 10 days w/out any generator usage, lets do this.

 

[67cj5]

Sorry to hear of your troubles Dread, I how
pe you get fixed up soon,

The more I read about these modern Tech batteries such as Li and Lead crystal the more I am thinking of staying with FLA or AGM, because of the need for special chargers and charge rates, The new tech is great at fast charging but the extra cost of the batteries and specialized chargers really ramps up the overall cost, tis a worry.