Battle Born (and possibly Transporter Energy) battery problem

[colinm]

I'm not sure if that videos says, but he checked the original battery and it didn't have the plastic 'spacer', so it seems not all these batteries are made the same.

 

[merl]

I'm not sure if that videos says, but he checked the original battery and it didn't have the plastic 'spacer', so it seems not all these batteries are made the same.

No, he doesn't mention that in the vid I linked to, I've never seen an alternative build method and thought that they'd always been built with the plastic spacer, have you got a link?

 

[gasgas]

If it really overheats and catches fire you had better be at least a mile away. For one thing the fire cannot be extinguished, and it takes a long time to burn itself out plus of course the motorhome that it is in. If you breathe in the smoke the acids in the smoke dissolve your lungs. If you have a LiFpo battery and see or smell any smoke, run for the hills. Up wind as well.

 

[gasgas]

Reminds me of one job I had. Telephone Exchange Construction. I built bus bars which supplied 80v at hundreds of amps (or was it thousands?) to lots of racks of Strowger equipment. The bus bars were copper, one inch wide and a quarter of an inch thick. When I had to join one bus bar to another, first I would scrape the joint area clean with emery cloth. Then coat each area to be connected with a conductive paste. I don't know exactly what was in the paste, but it included bits of conductive grit to bite into the copper surface. Then the bars were bolted together - but as it was a long time ago I can't remember if it was copper or brass nuts and bolts I used. But they never overheated and nothing ever caught fire. That positive terminal connection method is a lot worse than appalling.
. . . . . .now I must search youtube for the make of battery I have fitted . . . . I know it's not that one. Trouble with all these Chinese ones like I have, is that they are all made in the same factory but get different labels slapped on them.
We are so used to the good quality we get with regular lead acid batteries that we are assuming that the lithium ones are the same . . . . .

 

[Costers]

Sorry I have fat fingers.

 

[will prowse]

New update on this battery:

Pretty crazy this happened after 30 cycles! Geez

 

[merl]

New update on this battery:

Pretty crazy this happened after 30 cycles! Geez

Absolutely terrible design. At 100A there's bound to be heat generated at that critical joint. The bolt will expand, the plastic will soften and deform and the resistance of the joint will rise. The raised resistance causes more heat and now you've got a runaway effect and the result is self destruction. The critical avalanche point will probably never get reached at lower currents so lighter users will probably escape the problem but ultimately BB rate the battery at 100A continuous and clearly it doesn't meet that spec.
The boating, camping and off grid communities that have bought these batteries are pretty joined up and I can see a class action law suit on the horizon if BB don't get their act together and persist with their "over current deliberate design" excuse.

 

[merl]

I'm not sure if that videos says, but he checked the original battery and it didn't have the plastic 'spacer', so it seems not all these batteries are made the same.

From what I can find it seems that the 100Ah batteries have always been built with the plastic spacer and they use/used an alternative build without the plastic spacer on the larger sized 270Ah.

 

[colinm]

From what I can find it seems that the 100Ah batteries have always been built with the plastic spacer and they use/used an alternative build without the plastic spacer on the larger sized 270Ah.

It seems very odd that they should use what appears to be thermoplastic in that way, you might get away with it if using SRBF, or SRBGF, but even then I not sure you would sandwich it in that fashion.

 

[wildebus]

New update on this battery:

Pretty crazy this happened after 30 cycles! Geez

I've been watching your updates on your Youtube Channel and it is amazing how poorly such a well regarded brand is performing and how this seems to only just be happening recently.
Have you any info on if changes have been made to the construction methods or materials? Is the Battleborn GC battery range affected in a similar way do you know? If not, any chance to compare the build of the two models?
Never seen a Battleborn in the flesh, but I know they have always been regarded as the 'go to' Lithium in the US amongst RVers so this problem is quite a surprise.

 

[Geek]

What is popular on social media has more to do with how much a brand promotes their products through 'influencers' and very little to do with how good their products are.