When I retired we sold our home and lived full-time in our motorhome. After about six months we decided to upgrade our motorhome’s power and off grid capabilities. We went with what we thought was the best. We added six 200 watt solar panels, a Victron Multi plus 3000 watt inverter, Victron solar controller and six Battle Born Batteries.
This system worked great for two years. Without being plugged in we could make coffee, run the microwave or convection oven, or run the A/C for a while.
Then we started having issues, most of the time if we tried to run any of these appliances the power would shut off and give us a low voltage error. Then we would have to start the generator to run these appliances. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I even asked the pros in person, even Battle Born, no help pointing me in a good direction.
Finally last year I bought a Makerhawk electronic load tester on Amazon. Removed all the batteries, charged them up then tested each one to try and find any issues.
At that time I found one battery that when applying any load it would shut down. Battle Born made me jump through so many hoops to get this Battery replaced under their warranty. (Which is 10 years)
Then it happened to another battery in February this year. This time the warranty process was easy. They sent me a box to ship the bad battery back in and then I received a new battery a couple weeks later.
This year the giant problems with Battle Born Batteries has come to light thanks to Will Prowse and other YouTubers. Check out Will’s YouTube channel There are tons of videos pointing out the issues. Because of the issues we had and all this information we decided to replace the six 100ah Battle Born Batteries with two 600ah Vatrer Batteries.
When I took out the Battle Born batteries I decided to get out my Makerhawk Electronic Load tester and test them. This time while drawing about 11amps I used my heat gun and found that on all four of my original batteries, the positive terminal was running between 20 and 50+ degrees hotter than the negative terminals. Click to see all the test.
To me this shows a bad connection on the positive terminal, because of how they are built. Battle Born batted 100% for us, six out of six of my $900 + dollar batteries failed early and caused lots of frustration for four years.
This time I filled out the warranty request showing pictures of each battery like the pictures above and they just sent me Four new batteries, and said that I could keep the defective batteries. Now my dilemma is what to do with all those batteries.
Can I sell them knowing what I know? If someone wants them, should I tell them about the issues? Have they fixed the problem? They seem to stand by their design, so I would say NO.
UPDATE:
I did sell my batteries, but made sure the buyers were aware of the issues.
On Marketplace “Josh” reached out to me and asked what issues I had with my batteries. I told him and then he asked if I would be willing to give him my Four bad batteries. I gave them to him, then his curiosity got the best of him. He went home and cut the top off one of them.
These batteries were in my motorhome their whole life. Going over 60,000 miles, been in cold weather (single digits a few times) and over 100 degrees a lot. They have been used, but nothing crazy. To me this is a first hand example of the construction issue with BB Batteries. I am sure that the other three will be the same. Maybe they will last longer with an easier life?
In the next post I will share how I installed these two Behemoth Batteries where the six Battle Born Batteries were.
I should send you a gold star if you read clear to the end 😊 till next time.