EEVblog #751 - How To Debunk A Product (The Batteriser)

[Fungus]

Maybe they have finished the electronics or perhaps they are still working on it, who knows.

(raises hand)

Me! I know!!

[McBryce]

Maybe they have finished the electronics or perhaps they are still working on it, who knows.

(raises hand)

Me! I know!!

  I bet you were one of those kids who sat at the front of the classroom!

McBryce.

[Macbeth]

Maybe they have finished the electronics or perhaps they are still working on it, who knows. What interests me is how the hell you pick and place battery sleeves onto pasted up PCBs and expect them to stay upright when going through the reflow oven. Also the sleeve would have to remain dimensionally accurate to match the PCB footprint whilst being reflowed. Even if the product worked it would be an engineering nightmare to manufacture, I suspect it would take a lot of fixures and tooling just to get the manufacturing right. Yet another oversight from Batteroo.

Surely the sleeves would just be spot welded in a jig? Much like regular battery packs with nickel terminal tabs?

...though now you mention it, I wouldn't put it past batteroo to try and pick and place and reflow oven them. Just to give them another excuse as to why manufacturing is delayed..

[LabSpokane]

Maybe they have finished the electronics or perhaps they are still working on it, who knows. What interests me is how the hell you pick and place battery sleeves onto pasted up PCBs and expect them to stay upright when going through the reflow oven. Also the sleeve would have to remain dimensionally accurate to match the PCB footprint whilst being reflowed. Even if the product worked it would be an engineering nightmare to manufacture, I suspect it would take a lot of fixures and tooling just to get the manufacturing right. Yet another oversight from Batteroo.

Surely the sleeves would just be spot welded in a jig? Much like regular battery packs with nickel terminal tabs?

...though now you mention it, I wouldn't put it past batteroo to try and pick and place and reflow oven them. Just to give them another excuse as to why manufacturing is delayed..

Does anyone know if spot welding stainless to a copper trace is even possible?  I thought that they would *have* to solder the clip to the PCB. 

[janekm]

Maybe they have finished the electronics or perhaps they are still working on it, who knows. What interests me is how the hell you pick and place battery sleeves onto pasted up PCBs and expect them to stay upright when going through the reflow oven. Also the sleeve would have to remain dimensionally accurate to match the PCB footprint whilst being reflowed. Even if the product worked it would be an engineering nightmare to manufacture, I suspect it would take a lot of fixures and tooling just to get the manufacturing right. Yet another oversight from Batteroo.

Surely the sleeves would just be spot welded in a jig? Much like regular battery packs with nickel terminal tabs?

...though now you mention it, I wouldn't put it past batteroo to try and pick and place and reflow oven them. Just to give them another excuse as to why manufacturing is delayed..

Does anyone know if spot welding stainless to a copper trace is even possible?  I thought that they would *have* to solder the clip to the PCB.

It is possible (I've done it before) but the result is not very strong (unless great care is taken in adding lots of vias to the copper to strengthen it).
But the Batterizer is really the very opposite of a hard to manufacture product. The steps are:

- bog-standard PCBM & PCBA
- bog-standard metal die punching and forming (and some type of dip coating)
- solder / weld sleeve component to PCB
- Profit? (this step it seems is where they're having some trouble...)

Yes it'll need a jig for soldering the sleeve to the PCB, but that's trivial for any competent factory / contract manufacturer. We're hardly talking something as complicated as building an injection mold set here (and nobody's too surprised to see a consumer electronics product in a molded plastic case...)

For reliability, it'd make sense to use some type of selective soldering equipment to avoid the reliability issues with manual soldering:

[janekm]

Or if regular selective soldering isn't fun enough, there's always laser selective soldering:

So you'd use a solder paste dispenser (rather than screen printing, as that doesn't work after the regular components are already placed) followed by selective soldering of the sleeve held by a jig.

[LabSpokane]

Maybe they have finished the electronics or perhaps they are still working on it, who knows. What interests me is how the hell you pick and place battery sleeves onto pasted up PCBs and expect them to stay upright when going through the reflow oven. Also the sleeve would have to remain dimensionally accurate to match the PCB footprint whilst being reflowed. Even if the product worked it would be an engineering nightmare to manufacture, I suspect it would take a lot of fixures and tooling just to get the manufacturing right. Yet another oversight from Batteroo.

Surely the sleeves would just be spot welded in a jig? Much like regular battery packs with nickel terminal tabs?

...though now you mention it, I wouldn't put it past batteroo to try and pick and place and reflow oven them. Just to give them another excuse as to why manufacturing is delayed..

Does anyone know if spot welding stainless to a copper trace is even possible?  I thought that they would *have* to solder the clip to the PCB.

It is possible (I've done it before) but the result is not very strong (unless great care is taken in adding lots of vias to the copper to strengthen it).

OK, well at least I'm not the only one that drops a lot of vias into pads that get battery clips, etc. soldered onto them. 

That's the funny thing about the Batteriser.  The failure mode won't just be limited to the lousy electrical engineering - it's likely going to be the peeling of the copper pads since they're in tension when the battery is installed. 

[Galenbo]

Thank goodness for screenshots!

Your screenshots can always be redefined as fake images, as part of a conspiracy. And then be used against you, as evidence.

It'd never come to that. Even though images are removed, Facebook retains logs and metadata. Circumstantial evidence alone would suggest that the comments did exist (at least in some form) and were removed by Batteroo themselves. Removal in itself would cast severe doubt on their story and claims that the screenshots were malicious. That's also how a criminal court works, if you can cast doubt or attack someones character over one small aspect, you assume that everything else that person has said was doubtful (even if it wasn't).

You are very unaware of how framing, redefining and oppression works in my part of the world, I'm also happyly surprised of how court works in your part of the world.

[Galenbo]

Does anyone know if spot welding stainless to a copper trace is even possible?  I thought that they would *have* to solder the clip to the PCB.

The one example I saw, was a combination of a rivet-like deformation and spotwelding.

The deformation for the real-mechanic strength, and the spotwelding for the better electrical contact and to prevent corrosion, they said.

[chris_leyson]

Thanks janekm, I really liked the micro soldering video and that's the first time I've seen laser soldering.

[Brumby]

Speaking of firsts, we're still waiting on Batteroo.

[rich]

Well as of yesterday (27 June) the Batteriser+Batterise trademark application/opposition was laid to rest:

By the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board:
On May 20, 2016, Applicant filed an abandonment of its applications Serial Nos. 86571275 and 86571464. On May 23, 2016, Opposer filed a motion seeking judgment under Trademark Rule 2.135.
Trademark Rule 2.135 provides that if, in an inter partes proceeding, the applicant files an abandonment without the written consent of every adverse party to the proceeding, judgment shall be entered against the applicant.
In view thereof, and because Opposer's written consent to the abandonment is not of record, Opposer’s motion is GRANTED. Judgment is hereby entered against Applicant, the opposition is sustained and registration to Applicant is refused.1

[meeder]

So this means that they can use the name batteriser? My legal English isn't that good...

[ccs46]

So their excuse that they can't use the batteriser name is now bullshit.

Edit: Typing on phone. Fixed grammar.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Marcel_X]

I guess so!
But I guess they'll have additional delays because of this 

"At this point, we already have the Batteriser name and logo design on all of our packaging, cases, wrappers, and brochures as well as the Batteriser product itself. As a result, we will now have to redesign and retool all of these items with our new product name and logo.  We are working on minimizing the effect this change has on our shipping schedule."

They have retooled everything, threw away their original tooling... Back to the drawing board

Edit: D@mn... Misunderstood the legal stuff. So we'll be hearing about the new name soon I guess!

[rich]

So this means that they can use the name batteriser? My legal English isn't that good...

It means Batteroo abandoned the application for the trademarks 'Batterise' and 'Batteriser'.
And because Energizer didn't agree to abandoning the fight then Energizer win the opposition case by default.

Hope that clarifies things.

[ez24]

They have retooled everything, threw away their original tooling... Back to the drawing board

With all this talk of trademarks and tooling, etc.  One would think people think this is a legit project.  I think with so many people believing in this, someone should start a company selling shares in the Brooklyn Bridge.  At least you can see the bridge.

[McBryce]

Put in plain english:

On the 20th of May Batteroo abandoned their application to trademark the names. This was accepted by the trademark body, as the opposer (Energizer) didn't even bother answering the abandonment notice.

McBryce.

[rich]

Sorry, McBryce, not quite.

Energizer specifically responded to the abandonment and asked the appeal board to make a ruling. Energizer argued the ruling should go against Batterroo as Energizer did not support the abandonment.
The ruling did go against Batteroo.

somewhere higher up in this thread I posted the juicy parts of those filings.

[McBryce]

Ah, ok. From the single post above I interpreted it slightly different. But the outcome is the same. Batteroo lost.

McBryce.

[onlooker]

The is how one can actually win (the game) by losing (the legal battle).

[ChunkyPastaSauce]

Backer wrote they sent the following out in an email: "We will be announcing the new product name, unveiling our new logo and supplying further details in the coming weeks."  -  May 7

[EEVblog]

Backer wrote they sent the following out in an email: "We will be announcing the new product name, unveiling our new logo and supplying further details in the coming weeks."  -  May 7

They can't even release a name let alone a product   
I'm still waiting for my media kit. Happy to cover up the Batteroo logo in the video...

[Fungus]

So this means that they can use the name batteriser? My legal English isn't that good...

It means Batteroo lost. Energizer won.

They can't call it Batteriser.


(And I bet they're not unhappy)

[Kjelt]

Terrible name to start with. If you make a product that extends the battery life you should call it so people know what it does and means.
So "batterybooster" or the sorts would have been a more appropriate name.