Potential Battle Born Battery Issue

fwunder · December 2025

I posted this YouTube Video in the NuCamp Owners Facebook group and it was removed as being unrelated to NuCamp RVs. As many of you know, Will Prowse is respected and qualified. When I questioned the removal, I was removed from the Facebook group. Oh well. I have attached it here for information purposes only. Do with it what you will. I must say, it does give me pause with the two Battle Borns I have under my bed in my 400.

https://youtu.be/XP2yPY57Wjc?si=WD2KGPqWxXfwb7Jt

AnOldUR · December 2025

Just reposted to the nuCamp FB group. Hope I don't get booted.

edit:
Funny! I noticed that the post was "pending", so I sent a none Battle Born topic to the group and it was added without issue.

another edit:
The post was eventually approved and added to the Facebook nuCamp group.

fwunder · December 2025

Me thinks they are sensitive to the issue. Not good.

ckjs · December 2025

The vid: Will Prowse opens the BB case to find an assembly process failure: the nuts attaching the positive "stud" were not tightened correctly. Instead of a nice low-resistance path for charging the battery, it has a loose connection turning it into a heater. If it is, e.g., ¼ ohm, when charging at 10 amps, that would be 25 watts heating up a small piece of metal. That could get pretty hot over sustained use.
It looks like the particular battery that he opened up was misassembled, as well as a few other reported failures.

I wish Will had included a manufacturing date code of some kind, to see whether there was a bad batch with wobbly terminals. If any of you have terminals which are loose, please reach out to BattleBorn for a response.

fwunder · December 2025

Yes, I agree there should be a followup to Will's video and official comment from BB. For those interested there is a lengthy ongoing discussion @ https://diysolarforum.com/threads/battle-born-battery-issue.110295/

Bayliss · December 2025

Interesting video. Thanks for sharing. Regarding @ckjs's point, the handwritten date on the interior of the battery is "2/2/18", so that provides some helpful info (older battery). I do not know what the "A079" refers to, but it may be the installer/inspector's I.D., or a batch number. I zoomed in on the printed label, which includes the battery "Supplier Model" number and serial number (which ends in "18", possibly representing 2018), so that would be very helpful in tracking down the associated batch of batteries.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021717/uploads/editor/6t/bd44c1uwdo2w.jpg

AnOldUR · December 2025

@Bayliss
There's a new reply from Battle Born on Facebook where they claim it's an intentional safety feature. If that's the case there would be no reason to make a change in newer batteries.

"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."

Sounds a little suspect to me, but I'm no expert.

fwunder · December 2025

Yeah, the word for word from Dragonfly that is circulating states, "...The batteries we sell and support today use the same trusted and validated design that has been in successful field service for many years." This indicates the design has not changed and is either flawed or acceptable and safe. I think that is yet to be determined although the current evidence leans towards flawed and dangerous.

pthomas745 · December 2025

I went through the Will Prowse DIY Solar Forum thread about this today, and there seems to be more about this than meets the eye. Owners are showing videos of being able to completely shut off the battery by slightly moving the positive battery terminal. If there is a "heating and cooling" situation happening, would that process begin to loosen the terminal?

In the situations where owners discover the trailer power completely shut down, with no other issues with circuit breakers, fuses, and no communication from the battery, have those issues been caused by this problem? In some cases, the battery simply "comes back to life" with no real reason for the cause of the loss of power.

Other owners are saying they noted this issue on batteries from several different years, with the batteries of several different years back to back to 2018. (This has been hard to get a good handle on today).

And: the users in that group are not particularly impressed with Battleborn in general.....

fwunder · December 2025

A followup from Will Prowse. Ouch. https://youtu.be/7fD3yaRvp3o?si=aVXGgAhCV5pXmEe4

Grumpy_G · December 2025

When I was in Silicon Valley Tech we used "It's not a bug, it's a feature" as an inside joke. It's hilarious that Dragonfly/Battleborn thinks they can snow people with well-crafted statements.

dsfdogs · December 2025

Gaslighting at its finest

So sad as BB is the only lithium battery I've trusted. Hopefully they make a change to their "feature".

donmontalvo · December 2025

Think twice before buying Battle Born again...their parent company is a penny stock now...fading fast.

Lots of very good and affordable options out there (SOK, etc.), example: https://www.sokbattery.com/sk12v100h-sok-lithium-battery.html

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021717/uploads/editor/xl/ck2u49t7kzfr.png

Grumpy_G · December 2025

Battleborn had the "first mover advantage" as they were one of the first if not the first company to offer LiFePo batteries in consumer form factors suitable for use in RVs. They also used "influencers" to promote their batteries and build their reputation. Today anybody can buy a 100Ah LiFePo battery on Amazon for ~$120 or even less which certainly makes Battleborn batteries a tough sell. Personally I also disliked their marketing with "Nevada the Lithium capital of the US" and American flags on the product while their cells came from China.

bjn2 · January 9

will Prowse bought a brand new BB battery and did a series of charge/discharge cycles within spec. The plastic terminal sandwich inside failed, this time on the negative terminals. I think the engineering on these batteries is ridiculous. NuCamp should bail on their relationship pdq.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m7DSCKO-Bo

Okpete · January 9

Let’s be clear, will does not have a verifiable degree in any field. Will has shown business acumen by using self taught experiences with solar/ batteries. However,while I find his work interesting, his testing is not up to laboratory standards. Personally, l have not found Battleborn battery failure on any rv site that has reported a failure related to Prowse video. Also, the testing on lithium batteries is sporadic and all meet broad guidelines. Until there are documented failures, one should not over react. Putting your faith in a DIY guru without verifiable credibility is foolhardy.

donmontalvo · January 9

Okpete said:

Let’s be clear, will does not have a verifiable degree in any field. Will has shown business acumen by using self taught experiences with solar/ batteries. However,while I find his work interesting, his testing is not up to laboratory standards. Personally, l have not found Battleborn battery failure on any rv site that has reported a failure related to Prowse video. Also, the testing on lithium batteries is sporadic and all meet broad guidelines. Until there are documented failures, one should not over react. Putting your faith in a DIY guru without verifiable credibility is foolhardy.

My two BB batteries are not affected, confirmed using a thermal camera. I checked a bunch of my buddies’ RVs as well.

I don’t doubt this has happened, but their parent company stock plummeting into a penny stock is an even bigger reason to avoid their batteries.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021717/uploads/editor/6h/fnkhh8jyodnq.gif

qhumberd · January 10

My thoughts on why I upgraded to Lithium and did not choose BB brand is simple: they cost too much. The market is getting more mature and companies will drop off.

As far as the failures go, I suspect that the great majority of RV owners will never stress their batteries to the extent shown in the video, particularly if you don’t have an inverter. Moving a lot of current will make any battery get hot, but melting as was demonstrated would give me pause.

Lab or not, if you use the same method and discharge and charge two battery brands and one fails, that demonstrates a problem. The manufacturer should respond to reassure customers that the batteries are safe and they will stand behind their product, and not leave folks wondering.

qhumberd · January 10

And there is this 6 year old review with no mention of the plastic/ busbar loose connection issue. Was the battery from 6 years ago different??
https://youtu.be/G5E30u-66VI?si=BMwTYCsvmZtyYTAt

Grumpy_G · January 10

qhumberd said:

And there is this 6 year old review with no mention of the plastic/ busbar loose connection issue. Was the battery from 6 years ago different??
https://youtu.be/G5E30u-66VI?si=BMwTYCsvmZtyYTAt

I can't tell any difference, the older battery also has the bolt going through plastic so likely it has the same plastic washer too. The number of Battleborn batteries in use has increased significantly since then so it just happens more people experienced failures. Funny enough, a couple of months before the issue exploded all over the Internet the local Facebook Marketplace had a repaired battery where the seller stated that this was a common problem.
One thing I noted is that the early batteries had "Nevada made" and "Designed and assembled in USA" on them, this has disappeared since so possibly the change of manufacturing plant has something to do with the now more frequent failures.

B0atguy · January 11

So glad I ditched the original BB battery that came stock in our 2024 400 , especially after hearing about the latest , ummmmm , findings .
When upgrading to more AH it was NOT a very hard decision to NOT spend over 1k for each 100ah BB battery to get more AH ! Incredibly over priced battery due to marketing and influencers !
BB claim to fame was the reliability and safety that their batteries had , Hmmmm , thats ironic !

For the cost of a single 100ah BB battery , I was able to upgrade to almost 1000ah for the same price (3 Dumfume 300ah batteries). Actually , the difference in price was almost a wash since I was able to sell the "new pullout, unused " BB for almost the cost of the 3 new "cheaper" 300ah Dumfumes .

BTW, the Dumfume 300ah batteries have been performing great , and more importantly are potentially safer than BB (have 6 of them in 2 different rv's ) , They are getting great reviews all over the internet . Even by WIll Prowse. Most people are finding that these are actually 314ah batteries after teardown.

Guess I am just glad I didnt "fall" for all the hype of the BB Batteries !

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