A recent (now deleted) thread had me looking to find the difference between slander and Libel. It, is of course, that Libel refers to defamation that occurs through written statements, while slander involves spoken defamation.

 

However, in my search, I came across this regarding Will Prowse.

 

https://dragonflyenergy.com/will-prowse-sued-by-dragonfly-energy-over-alleged-false-and-misleading-claims-about-battle-born-batteries/

 

 

Litigeous America though.

Having seen Will's videos on Battleborn i wouldnt think they would have a case... Will shows them the problems.......?

Will issued a video a day or two back saying he was being sued, but it looks to have been removed from YouTube.

Here's Louis Rossman's response.

 

 

23 minutes ago, robtheplod said:

Having seen Will's videos on Battleborn i wouldnt think they would have a case... Will shows them the problems.......?

 

But, if the link from RussT is correct, he tampered with their batteries and damaged them so as to make them fail in the tests.

 

Prowse presented his content as technical analysis while omitting critical context, misrepresenting product design and altering the batteries before testing them by removing structural components and running already-damaged units out of spec, producing a materially inaccurate portrayal of Battle Born Batteries’ real-world safety and performance.

23 minutes ago, robtheplod said:

Having seen Will's videos on Battleborn i wouldnt think they would have a case... Will shows them the problems.......?

Yeah, I have a huge amount of respect for Will Prowse. I can't see this ending well for BattleBorn.

2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

But, if the link from RussT is correct, he tampered with their batteries and damaged them so as to make them fail in the tests.

 

Prowse presented his content as technical analysis while omitting critical context, misrepresenting product design and altering the batteries before testing them by removing structural components and running already-damaged units out of spec, producing a materially inaccurate portrayal of Battle Born Batteries’ real-world safety and performance.

That is what the complainants are saying. Well they would say that, wouldn’t they. There would be unlikely to say “our batteries are dangerous but we are suing Will for pointing it out”.

1 minute ago, nicknorman said:

That is what the complainants are saying. Well they would say that, wouldn’t they. There would be unlikely to say “our batteries are dangerous but we are suing Will for pointing it out”.

 

If they have evidence to support their claim then Prowse is in trouble !

2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

But, if the link from RussT is correct, he tampered with their batteries and damaged them so as to make them fail in the tests.

 

Prowse presented his content as technical analysis while omitting critical context, misrepresenting product design and altering the batteries before testing them by removing structural components and running already-damaged units out of spec, producing a materially inaccurate portrayal of Battle Born Batteries’ real-world safety and performance.

He opened the batteries as he had received an increasing number of cases in the wider world of issues with excessive heat on the positive terminal and he was showing why this occurred (poor design/materials). He was very direct about it - unusually so. It will be interesting to see what occurs...

37 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

If they have evidence to support their claim then Prowse is in trouble !

Obviously. But I doubt they do. There is a class action in the making against battleborn, and plenty of other people and groups are sounding warnings about their batteries overheating due to poor internal connections.

1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

If they have evidence to support their claim then Prowse is in trouble !

 

Based on the videos I'd say the YouTuber has the strongest case. The 3 internal BMS cable tails were torqued onto the main external negative terminal with an intermediate piece of plastic shim. When the plastic shim melted and deformed the torque was lost on the electrical connection and that resulted in high electrical resistance, with a 99 amp current that caused very high internal battery case heat.

 

Do you know what the "tampering" claim relates to? All I saw was the YouTuber breaking open the case of a failed battery purchased new by him prior to stress testing.

 

With 1.2 million subscribers to his channel and 152 million video views that would have generated about $ 1/2 million in ad revenue, this looks like a David & Goliath contest and Will Prowse is not the David. 

 

Edited June 4Jun 4 by Gybe Ho

1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

If they have evidence to support their claim then Prowse is in trouble !

 

"If" being the operative word.

 

It will take years for such a case to be argued in a Court, in the mean time what can be useully inferred for the benefit of inland waterway boat owners? My take is that the whole lithium battery assembly industry is in its infancy equivalent to motor car manufacturing in 1915. The barriers to entry are low which attracts have-a-go chancers. Once the lid of a drop-in plastic lithium battery case is sealed any substandard internal design is obscured. Until the industry matures the best policy a narrowboat owner can adopt is to operate lithium batteries well under their rated limits and by well under I mean 50% under.

50 minutes ago, Gybe Ho said:

 

"If" being the operative word.

 

It will take years for such a case to be argued in a Court, in the mean time what can be useully inferred for the benefit of inland waterway boat owners? My take is that the whole lithium battery assembly industry is in its infancy equivalent to motor car manufacturing in 1915. The barriers to entry are low which attracts have-a-go chancers. Once the lid of a drop-in plastic lithium battery case is sealed any substandard internal design is obscured. Until the industry matures the best policy a narrowboat owner can adopt is to operate lithium batteries well under their rated limits and by well under I mean 50% under.

Or use batteries from established suppliers who are less likely to make mistakes like Battleborn by having an experienced engineering team and a robust design/qualification/QA process... 😉 

 

Unfortunately the fact that this means such suppliers (e.g. Victron) take longer to bring products to market and charge more for them -- because better quality costs money, to put it simply -- puts many cost-conscious boaters off from using them... 😞 

Edited June 4Jun 4 by IanD

33 minutes ago, IanD said:

Or use batteries from established suppliers who are less likely to make mistakes like Battleborn by having an experienced engineering team and a robust design/qualification/QA process... 😉 

 

Unfortunately the fact that this means such suppliers (e.g. Victron) take longer to bring products to market and charge more for them -- because better quality costs money, to put it simply -- puts many cost-conscious boaters off from using them... 😞 

I think I would add to that, established in the field of lithium technology. I remember in the early days of these cells one well respected company in the field of marine electronics made an awful job of assembling bare cells into a battery(I won't name them here for fear of being sued).

 

Things have obviously come a long way since then, and some valuable lessons learned along the way. It is quite telling that the marinehow to  guy says they have never advised BB for mobile or marine installs due to the internal construction, which is just not up to their standards..

Edited June 4Jun 4 by Russ T
wrong site

2 hours ago, Gybe Ho said:

Based on the videos

 

What videos ?

 

I was basing it on the written claims by Battle Born,  part of which states :

 

Prowse presented his content as technical analysis while omitting critical context, misrepresenting product design and altering the batteries before testing them by removing structural components and running already-damaged units out of spec, producing a materially inaccurate portrayal of Battle Born Batteries’ real-world safety and performance.

3 minutes ago, Russ T said:

I think I would add to that, established in the field of lithium technology. I remember in the early days of these cells one well respected company in the field of marine electronics made an awful job of assembling bare cells into a battery(I won't name them here for fear of being sued).

 

Things have obviously come a long way since then, and some valuable lessons learned along the way. It is quite telling that the marinehow to  guy says they have never advised BB for mobile or marine installs due to the internal construction, which is just not up to their standards..

It's also tempting to conclude -- given what facts have emerged so far -- that the ABC dayboat fire/explosion was possibly due to a cheap Chinese rackmount LFP battery which suffered a hardware/firmware failure, perhaps in combination with poor system design/setup. That doesn't suggest that valuable lessons have been learnt by everyone... 😞 

6 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

What videos ?

 

I was basing it on the written claims by Battle Born,  part of which states :

 

Prowse presented his content as technical analysis while omitting critical context, misrepresenting product design and altering the batteries before testing them by removing structural components and running already-damaged units out of spec, producing a materially inaccurate portrayal of Battle Born Batteries’ real-world safety and performance.

Maybe you should have watched the videos*** then, before presenting a quote from BB lawyers who can hardly be accused of being impartial or unbiased... 😉 

 

*** I did at the time they emerged, and frankly BB's excuses as to why the plastic was there in the connector assembly make absolutely no sense from an engineering point of view, as Will Prowse correctly pointed out -- which is what BB want to try and cover up, though I'm pretty sure they won't succeed.

Edited June 4Jun 4 by IanD

3 minutes ago, IanD said:

Maybe you should have watched the videos

 

what videos - no videos have been posted in this thread, we can only go on the information that has .been provided.

Edited June 4Jun 4 by Alan de Enfield

1 minute ago, IanD said:

Maybe you should have watched the videos then, before presenting a quote from BB lawyers who can certainly not be accused of being impartial... 😉 

I suppose the other thing that goes unmentioned is regular inspection of installations, re-torqueing of busbars,etc checking cables, inspecting for localised heating. At least with bare cells, not hidden in a plastic box this should be easier than a drop in battery.

3 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

what videos - no videos have been posted in this thread, we can only go on the information that has .been provided.

https://gprivate.com/6l68s

18 minutes ago, Russ T said:

I suppose the other thing that goes unmentioned is regular inspection of installations, re-torqueing of busbars,etc checking cables, inspecting for localised heating. At least with bare cells, not hidden in a plastic box this should be easier than a drop in battery.

But how many installations actually use bare cells?  Isn't a basic LiFePO4 cell only 3.2V, so any 12V battery will actually include 4 cells and internal cabling etc?

24 minutes ago, Cheese said:

But how many installations actually use bare cells?  Isn't a basic LiFePO4 cell only 3.2V, so any 12V battery will actually include 4 cells and internal cabling etc?

 

I'd say most installations in the early days comprised bare cells. With third party BMS boards from a variety of manufacturers and some (including mine), the user themselves being the BMS. 

 

 

35 minutes ago, Cheese said:

But how many installations actually use bare cells?  Isn't a basic LiFePO4 cell only 3.2V, so any 12V battery will actually include 4 cells and internal cabling etc?

Well mine does. And earlier this year I put on the electric kettle (2kw) and then after a minute or two gingerly felt all the cell terminal bolts and interconnect busbars to see if any were warm or hot. They weren’t.

37 minutes ago, Cheese said:

But how many installations actually use bare cells?  Isn't a basic LiFePO4 cell only 3.2V, so any 12V battery will actually include 4 cells and internal cabling etc?

Probably not the majority. My view is probably biased by the early adopters on here who used bare prismatic cells, including myself.

However, what I have see of the battleborns, they use numerous cylindrical cells

15 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

I'd say most installations in the early days comprised bare cells. With third party BMS boards from a variety of manufacturers and some (including mine), the user themselves being the BMS. 

 

 

Ere. Where do i get a BoilermanManagementSystem (BMS)?

7 minutes ago, Russ T said:

 

Ere. Where do i get a BoilermanManagementSystem (BMS)?

 

It's out of production. God only ever made one! 

 

 

(Probably fortunately, as it didn't work all that well....)