12. Notes to the Panbo and Clark-Adventure Reviews

By the Blue Heron Tech Support Team

We have been fortunate to have a couple of our batteries reviewed and subject to a tear-downs by Ben Stein at Panbo Marine Technology Hub and by Clark Willix of Clark’s Adventure.  Both of these reviews are technically-oriented, and very sound.  In the process of their reviews, they make some observations and pose some topics we felt could benefit from further information.

Here are link’s to their reviews:

Panbo Review of Blue Heron Battery 

Clark Adventure Review of Blue Heron Battery

1.       While these reviews do a very comprehensive review and evaluation of our battery, and listing many of the features available, there are a few other design details we’d like to highlight:

(1)    Research in 2024 demonstrated designers can push longevity of a battery pack with prismatic cells another 10% to 15% if the cell compression were configured in a means that allowed a very small elastic movement in the end compression plates as pressure build in the cells.  This tends to occur later in life and leads to a more rapid degradation of the cells.  We have been ahead of the crowd in incorporation that into our designs, with specific cross section and strain ratings of banding straps.  It also requires a more rigid end plate than is being used in others’ batteries.  This required a special, proprietary design extruded shapes which we have incorporated as well.  These are among the features we have incorporated that have established the current expected life of our Extreme Series to be a 15 to 20-year battery.

(2)    Along these lines we also place thin high-density foam sheets between cells to keep a uniform pressure on all cells.  These too contribute to the longer expected life of our batteries.

(3)    Our specially designed Extreme Series battery cases are super strong with the added shaped vertical troughs, and beveled edges on the lid.  These can take two to three times the impact loading limit of regular ABS cases.

(4)    The lids are removeable with Torx screws under the rubber plugs.  The lid has a rubber gasket, so with the screws to clamp the lid, results in the IP-67 rating with a submergence rating of up to 1-meter.

(5)    The removable lids also permit service of the battery, and replacement of the BMS if that were ever needed.

(6)    We have 50% more MosFets in series for the charge and discharge channels, so devices are stressed less, and less likely to fail over the life of the battery.

(7)    The combination of high cycle-rated deep discharge cells combined with a super-high output BMS, makes these batteries your do it all battery.  Onboard a boat, or in your rugged RV, even powering high energy devices like large inverters, induction hot-plates, electric ovens, air conditioning, large screen TV’s, Starllink, bow thrusters, etc..  These batteries keep right on going.  Instead of constantly worrying about loads, what can be turned on, sequencing loads, what is the SoC, … , you start using your onboard systems as if you were at home – just turn things on when needed.  It is a lot less stressful.

(8)    Besides the temperature sensors placed on cell terminals and that act to cutoff charging if temperatures get too high, these batteries have an independent and redundant cutoff thermal switch.  This is independent of the BMS circuit logic and provides an additional level of safety in avoiding thermal runaway.

2.       In Clark’s review, he found his inverter did not switch on when connected to our battery.  In the video he speculates sensitivity of the battery to anomalies in the inverter might be the cause, or maybe not being compatible with cheap Chinese inverters.  While we encourage users to stay with better quality inverters for reliability and safety reasons, we know of no compatibility problems with any inverter on the market.  Once Clark looked into the issue further, he found his inverter to be defective.  He added a message to that effect below the review, but did not change the video once issued.

3.       Clark also in his tear-down refers to a single positive wire going from the battery pack to the battery terminal, and a single negative wire from the battery terminal to the BMS.  Actually, these are each runs of double 8AWG wire, which is oversized for this application.  Each of the double runs are wrapped in a tight silicone tape that made the runs appear to be one wire.  He recognized this later and added an overlay text to clarify this.

4.       In his wrap-up Clark notes several technical features that add to the value of the battery, such as Victron comms, external radiator, SoC scale, battery on-off switch, robust BMS and more.  And he concludes those added features are worth it for the added cost of the battery over the low-cost batteries on Amazon.  There are other indicators of value in these batteries we’d like to share as well:

-            Many of the cheap batteries are cheap because they are made with used/recycled cells.  As such they only have a useful life of up to 1 year.  At a cost of $200 to $300, their value is low, hitting the owner for $200 to $300 for a year of use.  The Blue Heron Extreme series, with 6000-cycle rated cells have an expected life of 15 years.  At that 15-year life, the 100Ah Blue Heron Extreme gives tremendous value at a cost of $53 per year, if only considering the original battery cost.

-            Many other cheap batteries are made with low cycle-rated cells, typically 1000 to 2000 cycles, which corresponds to an expected life of 1 to 4 years.  These batteries will be priced in the $300 to $400 range -- higher than the cheaper batteries made with used or recycled cells, but less than batteries that use the more expensive and high-cycle rated cells used by Blue Heron.  These batteries with low cycle-rated cells cost the owner $80 to $100 per year.  These also don’t measure up well to the excellent value of the Blue Heron Extreme, at a cost of $53/year.

-            Another aspect of value is having a battery you don’t need to worry about, vs. the inconvenience of frequent replacement, days left stranded because of a dead battery and added labor costs for frequent removal and replacement.

-            And, for dealers and manufacturers, fewer complaints and questions from customers – typically none.

-            Adding these cost-related value measures to the features outlined by Clark, makes a compelling case for Blue Heron Batteries.

5.       One comment in the Panbo review notes that many folks may not have heard of Blue Heron Battery, and that Blue Heron is a small business.  By the SBA definition of a small business, it is one with fewer than 500 employees and less than $7.5M in revenue.  By that definition nearly all the lithium battery manufacturers are small businesses.  Let me just add that Blue Heron is not a recent startup, and is structured to be here for the long term.  We have proprietary designs, a committed staff, a large base of dealers and manufacturers we supply, and have been a key player in the lithium battery business since 2010.  That is much longer than just about all the other battery companies operating today.  First as H&S Services doing lithium installs in the Caribbean, and then incorporating as Blue Heron Battery in Virginia in 2021.  Our original installation projects have lived as long as 15 years.  We are in it for the long haul.

6.       The Panbo review also raised some questions on the value-side of things, using a $/kWh measure.  That brings things to a level playing field based on capacity.  But that assumes all cells are the same expected life and doesn’t bring into consideration the accepted industry methods of grading a relative difference between cells based on cycle-rating.  The points in #3 above address the impact on value of a longer life battery.  Blue Heron’s use of long-life cells, swings the value scale in favor of Blue Heron Batteries.  They are in fact the low cost, high value option.

7.       The Panbo review also raised questions on the embedded settings in the battery BMS when operating in the Victron DVCC mode.  Ben noticed that the charge voltage pulled back to 13.8V as the battery was reaching full charge but did not, after a period of time, drop to the generally accepted long term Float value of 13.5V.  The BMS controls had the charging devices hold at 13.8V for an extended period.  In checking with the manufacturing engineering team, it seems there is an error in the firmware for this control, and it did not roll over to the 13.5V Float level as we had required in our design specification.  This was a good catch by Ben.  Although the 13.8V long term hold probably did not have an adverse effect on battery long term health, it is better to let things sit at 13.5V if no further charging is required.  We are expecting manufacturing engineering to implement this correction shortly.

We value sound outside reviews, and want users to have a complete picture on any questions raised.