PSA: Battleborn

[Garbonzo]

Bought 2 BB100AH in 2017, added another one in 2020. In 2025 during annual capacity testing, had 2 of the 3 test below 80% and BB replaced them NO PROBLEM. They even paid for shipping. AND during that time and extensive use in my RV have had no problem. I DO NOT charge them at 1C nor Discharge them at that level. NEVER HAD A PROBLEM.

The problem with Will's post is that it is essentially anecdotal "research" with no information on usage pattern, wiring and circuit design and we all know that neglected battery systems without good design, proper wiring, periodic inspection and care, bad things WILL happen to any battery installation.

I like Will Prowse's entertaining posts, but realize he is a sensationalist and is looking for ways to fail batteries. Much of what he does and says is conjecture and not rigorous science or engineering. He got rich doing this and he has a formula that helps continue this. He has amply shown that even different batches of the same battery can have wide variation in the quality of the innards.

Properly installed and used, the BB batteries will be fine. If anyone in the Denver area wants to get rid of theirs, I will be happy to take them LOL

 

[colemj]

It is fine to describe Will as you did, but the inescapable conclusion has nothing to do with him. Just look at the two design aspects that are in question and you can see for yourself from the pictures - no Will required.

Properly used, by BB's specs and instructions, these batteries are showing failures. Will Prowse showed this with new and old batteries, where all he did was charge and discharge them to BB's requirements.

It is not acceptable to rely on much lower specs than BB's and calling this a success.

BTW, I've never seen Will Prowse try to fail a battery, and this is not part of his MO that I've seen. I've only seen him using batteries to the manufacturer's instructions and having them fail. But after all, that is his thing - evaluating batteries. That is a big difference. However, I rarely watch his videos unless they come up on something like this thread.

Mark

 

[CrispyCringle]

I havnt watched every Will Prouse vid, but I think I have seen all the ones about these 100Ahr batteries. This story is in every sailing forum on the planet. Im not sure how you can say he abused the batteries that he tested. He will charge and discharge them to spec. And anything that is rated as "continuous" should literally be able to do that continuously. Its not abuse. Its what Battleborn says their batteries should do, and you should be able to power something based on the full spec. Maybe not the best design principle, but it should work. Simple as that. He did go from a 1c charge rate to .5c, and I cant remember the reason for that. But it was not because he wanted to fry the battery by charging out of spec. However, he will charge and discharge batteries to what ever the manufacturer claims. But there is clearly a flaw in the design. If you haven't watched the videos, then you really should see for yourself.

I dont think most users ever charge and discharge to the manufacturers limit on a regular basis. Probably why most(?) cases there is never a problem. But even Prouse lowered his charge rate below spec on a brand new battery and it still failed after just a few charges. And I know everyone likes to defend their brand. I get it. But this seems pretty serious. Im not sure what my decision would be if I had these batteries on my boat and they were working okay. But I know I wouldnt like it.

 

[colemj]

He did go from a 1c charge rate to .5c, and I cant remember the reason for that.

I think it was because at first he was using the spec sheet from the cell manufacturer that stated 1C charge and 1C discharge for those cells. Then he saw that BB's spec sheet only said 0.5C charge, and he changed his method to reflect that.

Mark

 

[Sharonov]

I am an EE and I watched multiple Will's videos. He does a good job and there is little baitclick or hype or FUD in there. As for why ppl do not see more problems with BBs, my theory is that most light to medium duty house banks will have at least 300Ah (e.g. 3x100Ah batteries), so fault current is suddenly not a 100A but 300A. Heavy duty banks are required mostly for cooking and AC and will have way more than 300Ah. So in most cases BBs are not experiencing nowhere close to the current that causes fault. Also, in many cases the high current draw is intermittent (e.g. espresso pull) and there is not enough time for the junction to overheat.
If I had BBs on my boat, I would load the battery to the typical max (e.g. boil multiple batches of water in electric kettle) and monitor the battery either with thermal camera (best) or infrared thermometer or thermocouple thermometer or "your calibrated finger" thermometer. If temperature does not rise, it would make me feel better about the potential overheating issue. Since plastic top of the battery has warped in WIll's video, I feel that is a fair test. I do not know if the problem may develop over time though so may be keep re-testing it.

 

[dLj]

But this seems pretty serious. Im not sure what my decision would be if I had these batteries on my boat and they were working okay. But I know I wouldnt like it.

That is a darned good summary of where I'm at.

dj

 

[Garbonzo]

It is fine to describe Will as you did, but the inescapable conclusion has nothing to do with him. Just look at the two design aspects that are in question and you can see for yourself from the pictures - no Will required.

Properly used, by BB's specs and instructions, these batteries are showing failures. Will Prowse showed this with new and old batteries, where all he did was charge and discharge them to BB's requirements.

It is not acceptable to rely on much lower specs than BB's and calling this a success.

BTW, I've never seen Will Prowse try to fail a battery, and this is not part of his MO that I've seen. I've only seen him using batteries to the manufacturer's instructions and having them fail. But after all, that is his thing - evaluating batteries. That is a big difference. However, I rarely watch his videos unless they come up on something like this thread.

Mark

SO You don't watch Will's videos but know all about them. Genius.

 

[Davidasailor26]

Bought 2 BB100AH in 2017, added another one in 2020. In 2025 during annual capacity testing, had 2 of the 3 test below 80% and BB replaced them NO PROBLEM. They even paid for shipping. AND during that time and extensive use in my RV have had no problem. I DO NOT charge them at 1C nor Discharge them at that level. NEVER HAD A PROBLEM.

The problem with Will's post is that it is essentially anecdotal "research" with no information on usage pattern, wiring and circuit design and we all know that neglected battery systems without good design, proper wiring, periodic inspection and care, bad things WILL happen to any battery installation.

I like Will Prowse's entertaining posts, but realize he is a sensationalist and is looking for ways to fail batteries. Much of what he does and says is conjecture and not rigorous science or engineering. He got rich doing this and he has a formula that helps continue this. He has amply shown that even different batches of the same battery can have wide variation in the quality of the innards.

Properly installed and used, the BB batteries will be fine. If anyone in the Denver area wants to get rid of theirs, I will be happy to take them LOL

It is very encouraging to hear that you had a good warranty experience with them. Still, I think you’re underestimating the seriousness of what Will is showing. By your own admission you are not using your batteries near their design limits. That’s probably true of many owners, and if it works for you that’s fine. But that doesn’t take away from whether the batteries can safely meet their full design specs.

You’re right that Will isn’t considering the usage patterns, wiring, or circuit design of where the failed batteries were, but that should make no difference in the failure modes he’s showing. The whole point of the BMS in a lithium battery is to prevent the kind of thermal events those batteries show. How ever the batteries were installed or used the BMS should kick in before that kind of damage is possible. Existence of the damage suggests either the BMS failed or the batteries succumbed below their design specs. The loose wiring and poor connections suggest the latter. If you want to suggest Will faked the internals of the batteries to be sensational that would be beyond even what BB’s lawyers have tried. Even they admit the positive connection is weak, just for a bizarre reason rather than poor QA.

 

[colemj]

SO You don't watch Will's videos but know all about them. Genius.

In the context of this thread's topic, I have watched all of them.

I have also watched them occasionally since he started. I do not subscribe or watch every video he puts out.

I stand by my analysis, and don't think it is very controversial.

Mark

 

[colemj]

It seems Battleborn's poor design decisions are not limited to just the 100Ah model. It is incredible there are still people defending the design decisions this company has made. And blaming people on youtube for them.

If I had Batteborn batteries on my boat, and planning to do more than just day sail, I'd wholesale replace them with a better design. Sell them for whatever I could to help with the change, but good LFP batteries are reasonably priced today, and the peace of mind would be worth it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sQqZKlANlk

Mark

 

[dLj]

If I had Batteborn batteries on my boat, and planning to do more than just day sail, I'd wholesale replace them with a better design. Sell them for whatever I could to help with the change, but good LFP batteries are reasonably priced today, and the peace of mind would be worth it
Mark

Easy for you to say. But the 4 I have installed have been running flawlessly for almost 5 years and I've done a helava lot more than day sail.

I'm not defending the design. In fact I'm pretty irritated with the whole issue. I will start monitoring them more but unless I can measure an issue, im certainly not ripping them out and replacing them until there's a measurable issue with mine.

dj

 

[colemj]

Easy for you to say. But the 4 I have installed have been running flawlessly for almost 5 years and I've done a helava lot more than day sail.

I'm not defending the design. In fact I'm pretty irritated with the whole issue. I will start monitoring them more but unless I can measure an issue, im certainly not ripping them out and replacing them until there's a measurable issue with mine.

dj

I did say if it was me.

My opinion was that these have known design flaws regardless if they have resulted in a failure yet or not in any individual installation, and that if I was using the boat for more than day sailing where I needed to know I could rely on them, I'd just change them out to put this behind me completely.

Sort of like replacing old rigging regardless of how it currently looks.

Consider that every Batteborn failure made public occurred with batteries that were running flawlessly for years until they weren't. And every failure so far can be traced directly to the known design flaws. I'm not convinced a pending failure will demonstrate measurable issues beforehand. None of the examples did.

You might consider testing them individually through charge/discharge cycles using BB's specs (0.5C charge, 1C discharge) like Prowse and others do. This does seem to give some indication, as none of them have passed those tests - even ones that were new.

Mark

 

[dLj]

I did say if it was me.

My opinion was that these have known design flaws regardless if they have resulted in a failure yet or not in any individual installation, and that if I was using the boat for more than day sailing where I needed to know I could rely on them, I'd just change them out to put this behind me completely.

Sort of like replacing old rigging regardless of how it currently looks.

Consider that every Batteborn failure made public occurred with batteries that were running flawlessly for years until they weren't. And every failure so far can be traced directly to the known design flaws. I'm not convinced a pending failure will demonstrate measurable issues beforehand. None of the examples did.

You might consider testing them individually through charge/discharge cycles using BB's specs (0.5C charge, 1C discharge) like Prowse and others do. This does seem to give some indication, as none of them have passed those tests - even ones that were new.

Mark

The pieces of missing information are what is the percentage of batteries produced that exhibit the problem and over what time frame.

Is it a 1% failure rate in say 5 years? 5% failure rate in say 10 years? There is absolutely no information regarding failure rates and that is the major problem with the current information being produced.

In that respect @Foswick is correct in that the current Youtube videos are essentially click bait. It's not that it's technically incorrect or trying to break the batteries in unconventional ways, but it is the complete lack of actual statistical data establishing the actual risk factor. That data is what's actually needed for someone to make an informed decision of how to handle the choice of replace or not.

Knee jerk gut reactions are, well, simply that.

dj

 

[dlochner]

The pieces of missing information are what is the percentage of batteries produced that exhibit the problem and over what time frame.

Is it a 1% failure rate in say 5 years? 5% failure rate in say 10 years? There is absolutely no information regarding failure rates and that is the major problem with the current information being produced.

In that respect @Foswick is correct in that the current Youtube videos are essentially click bait. It's not that it's technically incorrect or trying to break the batteries in unconventional ways, but it is the complete lack of actual statistical data establishing the actual risk factor. That data is what's actually needed for someone to make an informed decision of how to handle the choice of replace or not.

Knee jerk gut reactions are, well, simply that.

dj

The difficulty in getting the kind of data needed is the absence of standardized testing conditions. There is too much variability in field conditions to establish any meaningful failure data. It does seem the current designs are not well suited for use conditions with high current discharges and charges that generate a lot of heat.

As for BB's reputation the latest Will Prowse video shows another really poor design. It is a short video worth watching.

When we were faced with a similar issue, replacing are pretty new Firefly batteries, we asked ourselves "If these batteries fail while we are up in the Gulf of St Lawrence and Newfoundland, how much trouble will we be in?" The answer to that question was, we'd be in deep trouble, going to LFP was a no brainer, we weren't giving Mr Murphy the opportunity to visit.

 

[High Current]

You might consider testing them individually through charge/discharge cycles using BB's specs (0.5C charge, 1C discharge) like Prowse and others do. This does seem to give some indication, as none of them have passed those tests - even ones that were new.

That seems....counterproductive. See my earlier post about practical steps one could take to minimize the chance of encountering issues.

Also, there's some value in redundancy. If you have multiple batteries in parallel or multiple banks, then you should be able to survive the loss of a single battery without losing power to your whole boat. You might not even notice if one of a 4P pack stops working. Loose/arcing connections are still not something I want on my boat, but I can understand why dj and others are not in a rush to give up an expensive item that seems to be working. Thermal monitoring, even the simple solution I suggested, should be able to provide an early warning of something going wrong before it becomes a more serious hazard. It would also help speed identification of a single battery malfunctioning in a parallel pack, which could otherwise be quite difficult to troubleshoot - or even detect.

 

[colemj]

The pieces of missing information are what is the percentage of batteries produced that exhibit the problem and over what time frame.

Is it a 1% failure rate in say 5 years? 5% failure rate in say 10 years? There is absolutely no information regarding failure rates and that is the major problem with the current information being produced.

In that respect @Foswick is correct in that the current Youtube videos are essentially click bait. It's not that it's technically incorrect or trying to break the batteries in unconventional ways, but it is the complete lack of actual statistical data establishing the actual risk factor. That data is what's actually needed for someone to make an informed decision of how to handle the choice of replace or not.

Knee jerk gut reactions are, well, simply that.

dj

The youtube videos are not click bait. Holding on to that belief is just whistling past the graveyard and unexamined hope. You can actually watch the videos without sound and make your own opinions just on seeing the insides, design, and construction. And these videos are coming from people without any skin in the game, people that have earned respect from their work, and people in different applications. All finding the same problems.

Yes, the failure rate is unknown, and will remain that way for obvious reasons. Getting failure rates on anything as a consumer is pretty much impossible because nobody buys 10,000 units of something and follows them over their lifespans for many years. I doubt manufacturers of many things know their actual failure rates because many failures go unreported to them. Yes, there are industry standards to determine mean time to failure and the like, but this is not the same as failure rates in use.

However, this reinforces my opinion about replacing because every single failure uncovered so far has been due to those specific design flaws. That in itself is statistically relevant, as otherwise the failures would be spread around multiple possible causes, including unknown causes. And it isn't one or two batteries. It started out as one battery failure, then when the attention was brought, battery failures are now coming out of the woodwork in large numbers. Before this attention, batteries that failed were just disposed of and new ones bought or replaced under warranty. People probably thought they had a one-off failure and moved on.

Without these design flaws, I doubt there would be any failures at all, or a failure rate so small as to be attributed to randomness.

Apparently, there are already lawsuits going forward. These will not advance far without a reasonable cause/effect identified, so there is something to watch for proof.

The whole thing is reminiscent of the recent Lagoon bulkhead failure, where one person uncovered a design flaw that was causing boats to break up, Lagoon stated it was a deliberate design feature and blamed the people with the problem for using the boat in unintended ways (including sailing in more than 10kts of wind), people piled onto the guy who found it and vilified his youtube as click bait, then many of those who actually took apart their boat enough to see the failure (a quite involved thing) found the failure in various stages of failing. Even those whose bulkheads had not yet shown any failures saw and understood the design flaw for what it was and how it would eventually result in failure if they continued to use the boat as they expected to. Yet people are still defending the issue as having no actual failure rate data, and just being confined to those boats that posted youtube videos, etc.

The design flaws in BB and Lagoon are similar in that they are gobsmackingly bad decisions that no engineer could understand why they were made. When the example is that bad, I personally would not feel comfortable going forward with it. My opinion - YMMV.

Turning a blind eye to facts - is, well, simply that.

Mark

 

[colemj]

That seems....counterproductive. See my earlier post about practical steps one could take to minimize the chance of encountering issues.

Also, there's some value in redundancy. If you have multiple batteries in parallel or multiple banks, then you should be able to survive the loss of a single battery without losing power to your whole boat. You might not even notice if one of a 4P pack stops working. Loose/arcing connections are still not something I want on my boat, but I can understand why dj and others are not in a rush to give up an expensive item that seems to be working. Thermal monitoring, even the simple solution I suggested, should be able to provide an early warning of something going wrong before it becomes a more serious hazard. It would also help speed identification of a single battery malfunctioning in a parallel pack, which could otherwise be quite difficult to troubleshoot - or even detect.

I did read and respond to your earlier post. I don't agree that arranging things so you are always operating far below the battery's specifications is an acceptable way to have these batteries on board. There are multiple videos showing these batteries failing at well under half their charging/discharging specs.

As for having multiple batteries in parallel for redundancy, there is a video from a guy whose BB bank of 6 batteries was not behaving properly. When he took it apart to check the individual batteries, he found that four of the six had failed. I don't want any of my batteries failing, and certainly a 67% failure rate is unacceptable to me.

Thermal monitoring may or may not catch a failure early, but so what? Why have a battery with known design defects, then hope to catch a failure early, or put so many in parallel that you hardly use them at all and hope to mitigate failure through overhead?

The way we use our boat, catching a failure early is the same as not catching it at all - there are almost no opportunities to replace them in any decent time frame. And if it happens in the middle of an ocean, I'd be unhappy that I could have prevented it by simply not having them, rather than hoping the known flaws don't rear their heads.

Mark

Edit: I apologize, I did read your post, but did not respond to it. I responded to another person who made the point of operating the batteries way below their specifications as a means to make the problem go away. But my above thoughts are still relevant to your earlier post.

 

[colemj]

Here are a few points I've been making that I'd like to understand if people contest them:

1. There are a couple of poor design decisions made with these batteries that should be considered design flaws.
2. These failures are not just in one or two batteries. Last I looked, Prowse had 20 of them, another guy 6 of them, another person 12 of them, and the comments on all of these videos contain many, many others with failed batteries. It appears that failures are occurring in all models that share these design "features".
3. All of the failed batteries shown in videos have failed specifically due to the couple of design flaws. No other batteries have failed for different or undetermined reasons.
4. All batteries that have not fully failed, including new batteries, have not been able to pass BB's specs of 0.5C charge and 1C discharge. Most of them are shutting down at a fraction of these specs.
5. AFAIK, every failure example of these batteries has occurred in a battery that was in service for years, then suddenly failed. There were no other warnings. On a few of them, the failure wasn't catastrophic enough to burn or vent, but the epoxy around the terminals charred. I suppose that could be an early warning, but it seems like not much earlier. Also on a few, they were shutting down during normal charging and discharging at low C rates. They showed no obvious outside damage, but when cut open, they were found to have loose connections and the start of melting plastic due to the design "features". I consider this a sudden failure without prior warning.

Mark

 

[dLj]

That said, if your batteries are functioning well, you can reduce the potential for further problems by:

1. Limiting current in and out of the battery
2. Making sure your connections to the positive terminal are not mechanically stressing it or transmitting vibrations.
3. Using large cables (but not so large that you stress the terminal)
4. Monitoring terminal temperatures

This is a great post!

For me, this is where I'm at and what I'll do.

First- where I'm at:

Points 2 and 3 - this is already part of my current intallation

what I'm going to do:
Point 1 - I'm not changing that. these will either work as installed or I'll have to change them out.
Point 4 - I can fairly easily monitor temperatures as I'm charging - when those batteries see the highest current. If I find any kind of anomaly, I'll assess if it is enough to simply change out a battery - which would precipitate a complete change of all four batteries. Of if the anomaly is minimal, I might add in thermocouples to monitor all temperatures over a period of time. Depending upon what that then shows, it will either be keep of replace.

Very helpful - thank you.

dj

 

[dLj]

The youtube videos are not click bait. Holding on to that belief is just whistling past the graveyard and unexamined hope. You can actually watch the videos without sound and make your own opinions just on seeing the insides, design, and construction. And these videos are coming from people without any skin in the game, people that have earned respect from their work, and people in different applications. All finding the same problems.

Yes, the failure rate is unknown, and will remain that way for obvious reasons. Getting failure rates on anything as a consumer is pretty much impossible because nobody buys 10,000 units of something and follows them over their lifespans for many years. I doubt manufacturers of many things know their actual failure rates because many failures go unreported to them. Yes, there are industry standards to determine mean time to failure and the like, but this is not the same as failure rates in use.

However, this reinforces my opinion about replacing because every single failure uncovered so far has been due to those specific design flaws. That in itself is statistically relevant, as otherwise the failures would be spread around multiple possible causes, including unknown causes. And it isn't one or two batteries. It started out as one battery failure, then when the attention was brought, battery failures are now coming out of the woodwork in large numbers. Before this attention, batteries that failed were just disposed of and new ones bought or replaced under warranty. People probably thought they had a one-off failure and moved on.

Without these design flaws, I doubt there would be any failures at all, or a failure rate so small as to be attributed to randomness.

Apparently, there are already lawsuits going forward. These will not advance far without a reasonable cause/effect identified, so there is something to watch for proof.

The whole thing is reminiscent of the recent Lagoon bulkhead failure, where one person uncovered a design flaw that was causing boats to break up, Lagoon stated it was a deliberate design feature and blamed the people with the problem for using the boat in unintended ways (including sailing in more than 10kts of wind), people piled onto the guy who found it and vilified his youtube as click bait, then many of those who actually took apart their boat enough to see the failure (a quite involved thing) found the failure in various stages of failing. Even those whose bulkheads had not yet shown any failures saw and understood the design flaw for what it was and how it would eventually result in failure if they continued to use the boat as they expected to. Yet people are still defending the issue as having no actual failure rate data, and just being confined to those boats that posted youtube videos, etc.

The design flaws in BB and Lagoon are similar in that they are gobsmackingly bad decisions that no engineer could understand why they were made. When the example is that bad, I personally would not feel comfortable going forward with it. My opinion - YMMV.

Turning a blind eye to facts - is, well, simply that.

Mark

This post is also hyperbole and your - essentially accusations - of who I am and what I'm doing are based solely on your person opinion and have nothing to do with reality or who you are throwing those accusations towards.

nuf said...

dj