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Mather campground Gand Canyon NP An amazing week to be in Grand Canyon N P. The main water supply is shut down for repairs and the whole Park is almost empty. That would be Hotels, campgrounds, parking lots and South rim drive. The park is a ghost town. We are among the few dry camping in Mather Campground (only campground open). Might be 20 campers tonight. No traffic, no lines, no people. This might be a once in lifetime event to have the greater Grand Canyon N P uncrowded and as our personal playground. Doesn't get better than this.

When I saw Will's "Sparking" demo, in my mind's eye it turned from a safety one time feature into a serious "Oh Ship" issue. If an owner has BB's, I highly recommend getting a thermal temperature gun for checking the 4/0 system. It is also very useful for checking Ollie's brakes... especially if in the mountains. GJ

DIY Solar Power by Will Prowse has been around for many years. His take it apart and inspect approach is well received. Basically a common sense approach to looking at problems. He in my opinion is not the definative expert in the detailed design elements. But he is able to communicate well and calls issues as he sees them. I know of no other technician with his experience in taking apart and then making common sense reviews of hundreds of different batteries. So, is he raising the red flat on Battleborns before at least calling Dragon Fly for comment? Yea sort of I think. Was his post raising a flag that all BB owners need and should be aware of? Yep. GJ

Just to add as I have two Battleborns under my bed ( not an Oliver ) and have been following this closely. The response received to rideandfly above is the word for word response Dragonfly is sending to all queries. No doubt legal department had it ready to go. There is a lengthy discussion of issue()s) on Will's site @ https://diysolarforum.com/threads/battle-born-battery-issue.110295/

Just called BattleBorn and left a message for technical support. Had a BattleBorn battery in Ollie for years without issues. I have had such good performance out of BattleBorn batteries, just purchased two more 100AH batteries during the Black Friday sales event. Will see what they say and post.

I think BB has a problem. They should initiate a recall. In the mean time, I highly recommend inspection of the terminals and thermal temperture testing of all 12V 4/O connections. GJ

I recommend to anyone with additional questions to give BattleBorn a call to further understand their explanation.

Here's the reply from BattleBorn technical today: "Thank you for contacting us. We appreciate the opportunity to provide technical context regarding the engineering and safety of your system. We understand there are conversations circulating externally, and we want to support you with facts about how our products are engineered and certified. Regarding the concerns you raised: Battle Born Batteries have been available in the market for more than a decade. During that time, we have delivered well over 400,000 batteries into service across all major markets. Our solutions have undergone extensive third-party testing to UL standards, we operate an open production process in the United States, and we routinely provide tours, published videos, and engineering transparency. These outcomes and the long track record of safe operation speak for themselves. To address questions that have recently surfaced about terminal heating and fastener design, it is important to highlight that what some observers view as a failure is a safety device working exactly as intended. The aluminum nut used in our 100Ah packs’ positive terminal is a purpose-built thermal failsafe. It is engineered so that the plastic deforms and disconnects when excess heat is present at the terminal. This protects the internal cell structure by interrupting the current, preventing further heat buildup and thermal runaway. This safeguard exists for conditions created in the field such as loose external connections, systems operating outside specification, or uncontrolled short circuits. It is one of several intentional protective mechanisms within our packs and is necessary for our UL Listing Standards. The key takeaway is this: This design prevents heat from migrating into the cell stack, meaning it is designed to stop conditions that could otherwise create a thermal runaway event. It works as a sacrificial barrier that takes the heat event on behalf of the cells. That is the exact purpose of the feature. In cases where a pack has already experienced misuse or improper installation, visible damage at the terminal is typically the result of that safety mechanism activating. That does not mean the design is flawed. It means the protective feature served its purpose. The batteries we sell and support today use the same trusted and validated design that has been in successful field service for many years. If you are currently experiencing a specific operational issue with your system, please reply with photos of your installation so we can assist you further."

Here is Will's response to Battleborn/Dragonfly Missed that FWunder posted this🙃

BattleBorn will send me an informative document I can post here with their permission. They have sold over 400,000 batteries.

@John Dorrer Thanks for posting this dangerous safety concern. I know there are several owners of BB’s here on the forum and they will really appreciate this heads up. edit - This could really become a PR nightmare for BB, lets hope they get out in front of it super fast.

Wow! That is bad engineering. Here's a direct link to the video:

Wow! We were there in early October during the Shutdown. The only thing closed was the Visitor Center. We camped at Trailer Park in the park, run by a contracted vendor, so no issues. The views were spectacular. Thanks for sharing.

JD and Jason, Vortex must be applied with special equipment by an experienced shop. I got my inspiration from Bugeyed Driver. Vortex is similar to Line-X spray on pick-up bed liner in texture and feel (a firm rubber like finish) I chose Vortex because it is applied at a much lower temperture than Line-X (best not to heat fiberglass too much) and can be painted with automotive paint to match your hull. Bugeyed Driver estimates it increased his tongue weight by 40lbs. The coating is substantial and tough. We have been on the road five 5 week since the application and are pleased to date.. I feel Vortex is a very good solution to protect your trailer nose. Bugeyed Driver has years of experiences with his Vortex..

For certain, it’s nothing you did! 9 times out of 10, Amazon used is like new with damaged packaging. 1 of 10 times you get an item used and damaged by the previous Amazon customer! Just exchange it. I’ve purchased well over 50 Amazon used items through the years and 90% of the time they’re a great bargain. Like my Engage pickleball paddle, $220 new, $160 Like New from the ‘Engage’ store on Amazon. It came new but not in retail packaging, OMG, I can’t have that! I ordered this same humidifier Amazon used Like New at $79 (vs $136, for a $57 or 42% off savings!) and it arrived today. It looks perfect, except a prior owner wrote something in pencil on the instruction booklet. I’ll let you know when I get a chance to test it. To test it, I’ll have to hang a couple wet towels in the Oliver to create some humidity! RH today in Prescott was 20%! 😎 We will use this tool rarely but should keep it on the closet floor for when traveling east!

John, I have been keeping it on the counter next to the sink. Roger

I found this picture on another RV site, no comments, no link. I did some sluething and found the YouTube Video. Go to YouTube and search "Battleborn 12-volt battery issue" and look for the video with this picture. For those with Battleborn Lithiums, check your batteries. Be careful. This appears to have the potential for something very serious. UPDATE: Video added

Excellent rebuttal in the second video. I'm not an electrical engineer, but I can't see how this can be a "safety feature" like BB claims. Loose connections on high amperage devices create heat, heat causes cell failure and potential thermal runaway in lithium batteries.

I agree, but wonder why this just seemed to explode with the video. I have never watched that guy before, so I have no clue as to his background and knowledge.

How do they explain the amount of plastic burned, excessive heat, and cell damage? We have an Oliver Owner on Facebook who is an electrical engineer. He was dumbfounded. I think Battleborn needs to hit this head on, and not just put out, what I perceive as a protect your "Ass" statement.

My main concern regarding damaging the system would be if somehow the Ceilo inadvertently bypassed the compressor delay (not allowing high side pressures to normalize before restarting). But it's only providing commands via IR signals. It doesn't have the ability to cut power to the system like opening a circuit breaker and then turning it back on, which could defeat the compressor delay. I think an analogy may be similar to a computer. Power off the computer and it starts a shut down process protecting your data and the system. Pull the plug and you may loose everything. The Ceilo is just giving commands via IR to the motherboard. But the motherboard retains all the manufacturers protection protocols. But I'm no expert. I just watch a lot of YouTube air conditioning videos.

I'm not a electrical or mechanic engineer. They said the BattleBorn system worked as intended in the case of this battery. I'm happy they gave me this reply to post on the forum because I told them I am not able to get into the technical aspects of their product.

When I watched the video I was dumb founded. The comments are unreal. People have been bringing this to Battleborn 's attention and their response to the owners has been, " you must have damaged the batteries, your issue, not Battleborn 's. Wow.

I started the return process and have a shipping label. Mine was the same $79 which was a good deal, but only if it works! I like your thinking that most of the time the used items are like new and work. Thanks for your comment. John

I remain optimistic! Prior to total shutdown (“killing power with every cycle”), the compressor first turns off when a temperature set point is reached, the air supply fan will continue to run thirty seconds or so before turning off, the condenser fan will continue to run an additional thirty seconds, then the unit is totally powered off by the Cielo. I think this staged shutdown is by design, perhaps to prevent perceived damage(s); by no means a sudden ‘hard stop’ of all said components at once. At a predetermined set point the compressor will turn back on as power is restored via the Cielo, followed by startup of the air supply fan; by no means simultaneously and thus, allowing time for the compressor’s soft start device and respective run capacitors to engage the individual start sequences and not overload the unit’s control system. Once again, all by design. This is why it is highly advised not to use a circuit breaker to cycle an A/C off and on to help regulate temperature and/or humidity issues, in which a “Cold Started” situation will occur and likely cause damage(s) to said components. I’m a solid year in and counting!

In the case of the Cielo's, they are killing power with every cycle. I would have concern for both the mother board and start capacitor at a minimum. Both of which don't like to be prematerly knocked off power and the "Cold Started".... especially with every cycle. Point is we don't know what is going to happen until it is tested in the real world by owners that don't cook the data. As usual I agree with your statement and I appreciate your doing so. I too believe that any A/C that is short cycled will exoerience additional wear and will have a shorter life. Now the real question is it 2%? 50%? We don't know. If it's 2% sweet. If it's 50% not so sweet. We'll see in about two years or less I suspect. BTW the Soft Start Systems went thru the same learning curve. That example worked out really well for all. gj

WELL STATED WAYFINDER! Preceeding your post are several disconnects and confusing statements. Part of the confusion is that there are two different designs of our electrical systems. I am not so sure it can be differentiated for label purposes by "Old" or "New". I suspect that the selection of your OEM inverter size determines which system was used. I mention this as looking at the pictures of the 2016 vs our 2018 and the more advanced layout appears with the 3,000 watt inverter, and the more simple approach was used for the 2,000-watt inverter such as our 2018. As such, I believe the OEM inverter size is the deciding factor in which set-up an owner has. Digesting all of the above, my pea brain has summarized the two designs as: 2000-Watt Inverter Systems: May/may not have dual shore power feeds. Will have a PI Eenergy Management System (EMS) located under the rear dinette seat. The PI EMS display has a 15' cord, and as such the display can be found in several locations. In our early 2018 OE2, it is located under the street side bed. Power (City or Generator) flows into the trailer directly to the EMS. The EMS provides power noise filtering, voltage regulation, spike and surge protection. The output of the EMS goes to the Auto Transfer Switch(s) (ATS). This ATS acts as an A or B switch between two power sources. The input is either the 2,000-watt inverter or the EMS. It's output is to the PI Combo AC/DC Power Panel located under the rear dinette seat. At the time, we were stuck with Lead Acid/ATM batteries & power hungry hammer mill Air Conditioner. With the goal in mind of being able to run our air conditioner off newly installed Lithium batteries, an inverter upgrade would be desired. My intent was to do this upgrade with our 2,000-Watt inverter died. In my case the next season, our 2,000-watt Inverter failed. Perfect excuse to upgrade to a 3,000-Watt inverter. But my single 20-A ATS needed to also be upgraded to handle the additional current. A inexpensive and simple solution was to buy another 20-Amp ATS and install it with the output only going to the A/C. A simple mod. The old style EMS has a lifetime warranty. This in my opinion is a good reason not to change the 3,000Watt design below. Keeping the lifetime EMS makes sthe dual ATS approach financially advantageous. A second advantage is that the twin ATS approach greatly reduces the load and in theory increases the life of the twin ATS units. It also is not an "all your eggs in one basket as we have "Hanging Spare" gives you options should an infield failure occur. I like options. 3000-Watt Inverter Systems: May or may not have dual shore power feeds. These newer design systems bring in power from the outside port(s) direclty to the 5100 ATR. This single unit appears to have power condition and protection simular to the EMS above. It also has the power interuption and switching capability as the EMS above. It combines in one box the EMS and the ATR roles mentioned above. Thereby saving in cable, connections and weight. All good. As such the power switching must handle the extra 1,000-watts from the inverter, the switching was upgraded to the 30-A level. This new style design is more compact and from all indications is very reliable. If I had this system, there would be no consideration to going back to the older design. I would however consider carrying a spare 5100 ATR. A good $128 investment. I like options. Hope this clears up some of the fog. GJ

The charging voltage profiles for lithiums are critical, and consequently most lithium chargers have very tight tolerances, typically within 0.1 volt. PD's are considered good, and their output has been reported to be from 14.4 up to 14.6 volts. There is also tolerance of whatever measurement device was used, a typical DIY multimeter has a tolerance of 0.5%. With this information, it looks like you are safely within the margin of error, and the battery company info. However, It wouldn't hurt to measure voltage with a known precise meter for peace of mind.

I ordered the KNKA compressor model and it comes today. What's the reason for letting it stand upright for 24 hours or more. I will take your advice when it comes today. I am just wondering about the reason. Thanks. John

@johnwen, my apologies, I thought I had included the details on the Ethernet cable running from the RJ45 through jack utilizing the Furrion external shell. All of the Ethernet cables I purchased are Cable Matters products. All are shielded Cat 6A. In addition to the 20 ft. cable used inside the trailer, I purchased a 50 ft, and 2x 25 ft. cables and a single 1ft cable. I also purchased VCE CAT6A Waterproof RJ45 Coupler IP68, 10Gbps CAT6A/CAT6/CAT5E/CAT5 Female-to-Female Outdoor Ethernet Connector Shielded, Network Cable Extender for Outdoor Use 2-Pack, 5.3 in. To connect the Ethernet cable to the PoE splitter, I had to slightly trim the black plastic anti-snag protector on the 1 foot long Cat 6A able. This was necessary because of the tight fit through the watertight connector on the PoE splitter. You may have run across mentions of this issue by others online who are using this PoE Injector and Splitter. Once I trimmed the soft plastic cover over the cable release tab I was able to fit the RJ45 connector through the watertight connector on the Splitter. I chose to use the 1 foot long cable so that I could leave the splitter and the 1 foot cable connected to Starlink Mini. I find the connectors going to the Mini from the Splitter to be difficult to remove due to the watertight seals. I don't like the idea of pulling on the cables to release the Splitter from the Mini. I anticipate repeated removal of the Splitter from the Mini will result in damage to the cables on the Splitter. Replacement Splitters appear to cost about $65. At the other end of the 1 foot cable I attached one half of the VCE RJ45 couplers listed above. This way it is much easier to disconnect the Ethernet cable from the Mini without messing with the watertight connector on the Splitter again. I also installed the VCE couplers on the ends of the 50 foot and 2x 25 foot cables. This way they are like extension cords which are easily connected/dis-connected. I am impressed with the VCE couplers. They are excellent and easy to use. I bought the three longer length cables to be able to easily connect 25, 50, 75 and 100 foot long cables, as needed. I specifically want to avoid having to deal with a single 100 foot cable, which I find to be a PITA. I have not yet had a chance to use the Starlink Mini on a trip, but have only tested it with our LEII parked in our driveway. Due to tree coverage, I needed to connect at least 75 feet of Ethernet cable to position the Mini for a reasonably unobstructed view of the sky. The Mini still had some obstructions, but I was able to measure Ethernet speeds inside the trailer >100 Mbps. I sometimes saw speeds drop to the 50-75 Mbps and rise as high as 200+ Mbps. I suspect the variable is at least partially attributable to the position of Starlink satellites at the time of the speed tests. The satellites are each only in view 8-9 minutes, without obstructions. In any case, I connected my laptop to Starlink WiFi inside the trailer and was able to browse comfortably. I did not notice the occasional losses of service which I noticed in the performance data on the Starlink app. I don't recall any RV park or state park where the provided WiFi was anywhere close to the minimum speeds I have observed in our driveway. BTW, in our residence we have AT&T wired gigabit Ethernet throughout, so I have a low tolerance for poor WiFi service. I have high expectations for using the Starlink service, based on reports by others and my experience so far. At this point, I have not used any adhesive to attach the PoE Injector to the top of the frame member on which it sits. I have a small zip tie connecting it to a PEX cold water line. With the Ethernet cables attached it cannot really go anywhere. I did not want to use a more permanent method to secure the PoE Injector, until field testing on a road trip. We have our next trip scheduled in late August, so I will observe it over a 400+ mile trip. I will likely use a small strip of 3M VHB tape to fasten to the hard rubber frame covering. Good luck with your installation. If you have any questions, feel free to send me a Personal Message and I will be happy to answer.

It is my understanding that these inverter a/c units are designed for always-on cooling, wherein the fan and compressor run continuously at variable speeds for better dehumidification and energy efficiency. It will be interesting to see any differences noted in normal operation of your unit compared to that when using the Cielo in Comfy Mode.