NOTE on the battery capacity tester I forgot to include in the video: In Stephan's instructions in his video he says to use the internal BMS in the battery to detect the low level switch off voltage. This is best method and puts the onus on the battrey under test to do the voltage detection. This negates the need to use external 4-wrire sensing which means the battery capacity tester becomes a simple constant current load, timer, and calculator. A very simple task that should be accurate and repeatable. In fact you don't even need a dedicated battery tester, you just need a constant current load and a stopwatch and you can test capacity manually. So I have practically no doubt the capacity tester shown in the video does the job repeatably.
@@TradieTrev But if the BMS has physical low voltage dectection cutoff, isn't that point then rendered moot, because the battery is going to be doing the switching off regardless of what any load thinks. The BMS inside is going to be getting the cutoff voltage tap from the terminals, not inside the cell. Like I said in the video, you could do full charactertistic curve testing at different loads, but now you are getting really serious. And do you or do you not also test for pulse loads for example. It gets real messy. And I don't believe any of this is specified in such detail by the manufacturer in the capacity warranty? I guess the point I'm making is that Stephan's recommended method is more than good enough for a reviewer to use to get a result in good faith.
The game is about discouraging TH-camrs who do independent reviews of products they buy themselves from reviewing a particular company's product. Meanwhile, you give a tug on the leash of the "lapdog TH-camr" who gets paid by companies for reviews, making sure they suck up even more by praising every kind of junk.
I use this battery tester all the time. It works just fine. Previously I used a simple constant current circuit and a timer. I got the same results with the electronic load, but I don't have to do any calculations.
Not all reviews are good though. On this very channel there was a test of a Chinese scope and it was claimed it did not work to the rated bandwidth. However the very same model was reviewed on The Signal Path (very good channel by the way) and here the chap connected it via a proper impedance matched connection and it worked perfectly up to the rated limit.
@@Andrew-rc3vh Wow, next level clownery! Reviews and product tests, are by definition subjective and represent at first, the OPINION of the tester/creator/presenter. At best, all details are transparently presented and the process of review is explained in detail and all data is shown. SO THAT THE VIEWER CAN COME TO HIS OWN CONCLUSION! There was and never is a claim of such formats (and this type of journalism) to an objective assessment, and even to infallibility. So your opinion is just as laughably immature as the company in the video. Does your mom still wipe your bottom? One could easily think so, since you show no signs of even using your own brain to think. False, exaggerated or incorrect reviews and product presentations are simply not what they are presented as here by corps: evil, underhanded acts. If anything, these SUGGESTIONS and ADVICE are irrelevant in the vast majority of cases. You have to be an idiot not to know this, because this is even a completely banal everyday experience. If product reviews had the power that is shamefully assumed here, then not a single person would buy anything from Amazon anymore. And if you're looking for an idiot who should have listened to the bad recommendations but STILL bought something... then look in the mirror! Because most of us have had this experience. What this company is doing here will probably lead to its ruin. "All publicity, whether good or bad... is publicity!" doesn't always apply and everywhere. Sometimes ... that can and will backfire. And with batteries? You should keep the fire far away ... ;O)
Meanwhile Kings / Adventure Kings keep selling all their shit gear, including their LifePo4 battery... and they leave all their bad reviews alone.... just let them fade away.... Can anyone guess which business model is working the best? ? 😅😅😅
If I were DCS I would have gone out with some new kit and test gear to his place and worked directly with him to get to the bottom of the problem.......whosever fault it was......that would have been great PR.
@@EEVblog but changed T&G warranty to paper over it product problem, more complicated, imagine the buy washing machine, that came with 3 year guarantee, of working, and and 2 years into you owns ship of 2 year washing machine the manufactory changes there T&G, guarantee to now only 2 years old, and come with even more strings/hoops attached, you guarantee is voided if a fabric, water, soap, comes in, on, or near the guaranteed washing machine product? but that it in nut shell
The problem is, their batteries dont work as stated its down to chemisty. Theyve had a bad wrap for years amongst people in the know and much of the 4WD community.
@@Sergiu.antifascist Did you not see the SoC health estimate chart at 15:45? The green line is DCS, and note how sharply it declines while all the other batteries tested were much better
I just got the notification for this video. I haven't seen it yet, but I heard Louis Rossmann talk about it. I'm very happy to see that you picked up this story. Thank you. Give 'em hell!
Agreed about manufacturers needing to listen to reviewers to improve products, a great example in my case is Siglent, they listened to my reviews and improved their products, the best of those improvements is probably the addition of user calibration on to the SDM series multimeters based on my recommendations.
I will add to this. I had a Siglent desktop multimeter freeze up during use and would no longer boot. I think it might even have been my fault. I sent it back under warranty and they gave me zero problems fixing it. It was almost a month before warranty expiration. Thumbs up
I work as a validation engineer for a software compnay. We NEVER tell our customers they are wrong when they report problems to us. We dig in and either find the problem and fix our code or show them a workaround even if the problem is caused by something they are doing wrong. I know DCS is a much smaller company that the one I work for but in this case I feel they'd be better served by taking this type of approach rather than trying to silence Stephan. Even if Stephan is wrong in his testing, DCS have ruined their reputation and will loose customers.
My guess is they thought a “scary lawyer letter” would do the job, now they are committed. Even if the whole thing was malicious on the reviewer’s part (lets face it, none of us know the conversations that went on behind the scenes), this was a bad idea for the company. People get really pissed off when a “big” company sues a “little” guy.
@@daleatkin8927I don't know Australian law. But normally, the case can be pulled at any time... So when they found out that the scary letter doesn't work they could have just stopped...
DCS is behaving the way they are because they know they have millions of dollars worth of product out in the field that doesn’t do what’s on the tin. They can’t admit to Stefan that there is a problem, because admitting he has a problem is also admitting all of their customers potentially have the same problem, which is a can of worms on a scale that will tank the company.
It's a bigger issue then that though. If they 'win' the legal precedent makes it more likely other companies will think suing negative reviews is an option. It also makes reviewers even more wary about including even valid criticisms which means the consumer loses.
@@Ash_18037 Your concern is valid, but the idea of slander not applying when what you said is true, literally goes back to like the 1500s. So I'm somewhat optimistic it won't establish precedent of any kind, if it were to even go thru.
Customers and end users will always find ways to break things that I as an engineer want to fix as quickly as possible. While it might be embarrassing, this is the BEST thing that DCS can do, work with the customer to resolve the issues. It is also a learning exercise.
They have made a habit of selling grade C cells for grade A prices. Hard to stop cheating folks once you get used to it.. and hard to get away with it as your customer base grows... they should have swapped to more expensive cells as they got more customers.
This is covered in Dave's video! It isn't the same battery but it is the same company. If I were the TH-camr I would bring that government test up as a defense in the case.
It's a fair and reasonable review, stating facts tested by Stephan and backed by independent experts. This is nothing more than a slap suit. I personally look forward to the administrator being appointed to wind them up.
I've worked for a big multi-national in another field, we'd goofed with waterproof seal design. Worked with the customer to improve our testing and changed the design and the swallowed the cost of retrofitting the existing kit. Guess what they stayed as a customer and we sold them more stuff over the next few years.
So glad you got on board with this Dave. I just can't believe what DCS have done. One thing is for sure, they have ended their company by doing this. No one will buy their product now, seeing what they do to customers who post reviews of their products.
Thanks for making this video. I've been 4wding for 18 years, and watched Stephan for many years. He knows his stuff. I'm glad people like you and Louis Rossmann are supporting Stephan, I have a feeling DCS will regret this.
Thanks for spreading the word Dave. DCS have initiated their own downfall thinking they could use lawyers to remove any good reviews of their poor quality control and field testing. And changing the wording of their warranty after the fact without notifying customers. That alone speaks volumes to the company's attitude towards customers.
Thank you for protecting the consumers. I don't live in Australia, my sister does. I had an opportunity to work there for Atlassian right before the pandemic but I couldn't relocate from Europe. I'm glad there's honest people like you, Louis and Stephan.
Australian got way more authoritarian with the pandamic than Europe, you escape a bullet. Except in you live in the UK, in Europe, there's no chance that police will knock at your door for a mean tweet
@@Kabodanki There were 2 reasons, mainly, one is that I had to pay 5000AUD every time I went into the country because I have 2 dogs and they needed to stay in quarantine... the other is the draconian laws around VPNs, which they can add as trumped up charges to your "mean tweet" charges, just because. I was offered 245K which after taxes didn't really make it substantially greater than what I made at Amazon. Another reason is that I live in Spain and it's dirt cheap (although I'm planning to move away due to tax efficiency), also travelling to other European countries is a breeze, they speak Spanish and my wife didn't feel comfortable speaking English exclusively, etc... The stars didn't align. I now work for Oracle, bought another house here (I'm originally from Mexico and Venezuela), and looking back I made the right choice by staying. Australia would attract a lot more talent if they relaxed a little on trying to become like "1984".
@@Robert-cu9bm You can't beat Germany in that kind of stupidity. 1 - Agree with the green party to phase out nuclear and boost renewable 2 - Renewable being intermittent needs to be supported by either coal or gaz power plant 3 - Build pipelines with Russia to get cheap natural gaz ... Everything goes fine until. 5 - the pipeline got mysteriously destroyed by unknown forces 6 - Germany has to import way more expensive natural gaz from wonderful country such as the US, saudi arabia, qatar 6 bis - Germany has no port to accept NG tankers, has to ask France 7 - The US becomes the biggest natual gaz exporter in the world 8 - Germany electricity prices exploded, killing their industries 9 - The US make a green new deal that welcome European company to build things there instead (You don't need ennemies when you have friends like this). 10 - Porsches are now produced in the US. 11 - Germany needs now to expand their lignite coal mine (which is one of the worst kind of coal) 12 - Their electricity production produce a lot of carbon (when clouds goes to paris france, paris has to regulate circulation). Actually it is around 7-8x times the pollution produced by France (germany heavily lobbied against the EU listing nuclear energy as green)
A month or so ago a British manufacturer of hi end audio, threatened to sue a youtuber for a review he made for one of their products, some two years ago, if I'm not mistaken. This in a way is really hilarious...What is wrong with these DCS people?
That specific case has been ongoing since 2021..... It was found that an employee was acting as a loose canon and was rocking the boat.... It has only just been settled and an appolagy issued by the CEO himself..
So glad you picked this up….between yourself and Louis, I can’t help but think a certain business is going to cop a well deserved drop in revenue. We absolutely need the larger and non-shill channels to run with this. 👍
I also bet their A grade cells are actually C grade. Cost is about half A grade and cycle life matches the results pretty well. Anyone can purchase C grade cells, just but any from Ebay or Ali, and that's what you get. Manufacturers are always keen to offload them too.
After 15 years or more desiging automotive batteries i'd put a fair bit of money on it being high ambient temperatures during cycling that have rapidly aged the cells.....
@@maxtorque2277 , In some ways I agree... For example, under the hood of a vehicle with headers (vs manifolds) is a hot place for sure, but if you look at the data, they are failing all over, not just abusive folks with heavily modified vehicles. Sort of points to using 2nds for cells to me.
Not true; anybody looking to buy quality batteries has been better informed by this lawsuit than they might have been otherwise. We should thank DCS for calling such wide attention to the quality of their product.
Not at all. If DCS win, dubious companies win by bullying reviewers and continuing to sell their poor quality products. If Stephan wins, the consumer wins.
Will Prowse just posted his testing of this battery. The battery did very well actually and he did manage to pull 1000 amps from it and it did full capacity. But inside the battery, not so great. It's worth a watch.
And if I'm not mistaken, his teardown revealed individual cell capacity labels that did not fit with his test results. Something seems off with that company. They should be trying to get ahead of issues rather than dig themselves a deeper hole.
big help for this awareness Dave. also shopping platforms, sometimes an honest written review gets your review not displayed on the request of the seller.
The only problem I saw in the tests was he used alligator clips to connect the tester to the battery but he should have used crocodile clips instead because... well... down under. Seriously though, I was convienced he had genuine capacity problems with the batteries and did well to charactize the problem from a consumer perspective given the equipment and resources he had at his disposal. Certainly a high budget engineering effort might uncover more information about the problem but the problem appears to be real nonetheless.
DCS is going bye bye. When you search for their products, these bad reviews now come up. People would be stupid to buy DCS now. Actually very funny. STREISAND EFFECT!
DCS doesn't want to be called out for pushing crappy products... thankfully their lawsuit will just spread more awareness as to their crappy product...
I work for a (totally unrelated) vendor; your end-users help you built products and services, the customers are required to keep us engineers into the reality-checks. (= does it work as expected, anything being overlooked, anything wrong etc). The fact that DCS, irrespective of so many negative reviews, does not seem to be moving forward (= improving, explaining what did go wrong where, i.e. meaningful explanations) indicates to me that they appear to have no solid, constructive contact with whomever (presumably external) developer(s) of their product(s). Meaning, any issues will be extremely difficult for DCS to resolve as their "supplier" ain't playing ball. Hence that DCS is being so extremely hostile in this instance as they have no solution. The best solution is to support whomever DCS is attacking (Stephan Fischer in this case) and perhaps consider boycotting buying any DCS product until this matter is resolved. Strategy is nothing without intuition.
It's a slippery slope..either way I won't be doing anything differently. Negative reviews should inspire OEM'S to try harder. 🔥 Any OEM worth its salt would never commit to such vulturous depravity. KeepOnTesting!
Instead of contacting Stephan, saying "Hi, the batteries you have, we would like 'em back, we will replace them free of charge as stated in our warranty agreement, we would like those failing batteries back because we want to analyze them, see what exactly went wrong with them, so we can improve our product", no, instead, sue a small youtuber, it's easier that way . . . Who is defamating who in this case?
Bullies go after the "weak kid", They know a 1 million youtuber will fight them. This is probably not the first time they did this, but were successful in silencing their critics. This is an intimidation tactic, they are NOT going to court
@@MountainGoat9 Australia has "loser pays" law , There were no hearings on the defamation case itself. DCS will LOOSE in court, and will have to pay opponents legal bills, there by doubling their ever growing legal bills.
This is called a SLAPP lawsuit - Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. Basically you sue to keep someone quiet knowing they probably cannot defend themselves. Hiring a lawyer costs thousands of dollars, you hope to shut up someone by suing. The whole point is you never intend to go to court - you hope to bankrupt the person before then. DCS is going to stall and stall and stall to run up the legal bills hoping the guy simply runs out of money and gives up. There is no intention to go to court - you win by attrition, not on technical or legal reasons. You go to the judge and say as you can no longer defend yourself, the lawsuit is over.
But that is a very dangerous thing to try in these internet-connected days! The defendant may ring up money from amused or concerned viewers using something like GoFundMe, and you suddenly face an opponent with more money than you...
Thanks for covering this. Its been going for so long I thought you may have intentionally been avoiding it due to some of Stephens testing being flawed or some other unknown conflict
Seeing how many of those DCS batteries have apparently severe problems, the amount of advertisement of how safe and good their batteries are on their website and now the lawsuit, I 100% know what type of company DCS is: Push out a subpar product, try to make the customer belief its a great product via their portrayed "image" and if someone dares to attack that image, sue him/her. Because the real product of that company isnt the batteries they produce, but their image.
Nah, it is a legit test. However, vibration test according to Mil.Std 883 has absolutely nothing to do with performance test. It just verifies that the BMS does not fall appart during reasonable vibration. Their problem is that they got some second grade cells from some rejected batch in the factory for the cheaps. Their product, the BMS cant do anything about this.
Have already ruined. I had never heard of DCS before this video. I certainly won't ever buy any of their overpriced shyte that pretend to be batteries.
Good companies stand behind their failures. Pace soldering equipment being one of them. I purchased one of the first Pace ADS200 soldering stations. I purchased a broad array of tips for it and several of them were bad. Some were bad out of the box, others just flat out didn't perform. I did a review video on it and Pace had a field rep at my door 2 days later. It was a manufacturing defect in the tip that they were already aware of. They replaced all of my tips, even the working ones and threw in a handful of others for good measure. Even though they were aware of the problem they want the old ones back so they could do failure analysis on them. Reputable companies not only stand behind their products but are not ashamed to admit failure. What matters is what they do when it does fail. I couldn't have been more pleased with Paces response and professionalism.
If this makes it to trial and i doubt it will, the judge should play this video to the court as his closing statement before finding in favour for the defendant and awarding costs on an indemnity basis. If DCS waste all that money and time they don't deserve to be in business and they won't have a business left.
Every manufacturer should be grateful for any honest feedback on their products. Especially the bad feedback. If a company is sincere about their product and its quality, this kind of feedback is gold, because you can do all the testing you want in your RnD or Quality Department, if there is something wrong, you should thank the ones who discovered it and give him a bounty or finders fee, because you can use the insights for the benefit of your production. However, if you are a poop company and only care about making a quick buck, then suing the crap out of anything that says something bad is your obviously best solution....
or be constructive? like grant win to DCS, but not money, nor interdiction for the youtuber, just ask the youtuber to mention in his productions the generality of the phenomenon, becaause ALL car batteries are not as advertised, they ALL lose capacity fast.
@@Sergiu.antifascist Prove it. Where's your evidence? And "I'm a physicist" is not enough and you should know it, if you are indeed a scientist, like you claimed in another comment.
@@Argoon1981 i already knew it, and i don't need to prove anything. am not paid to do that. you seem to be confused about whay we do, why we say, what we owe to do and say, to us, to others... stay in your bench!
@@Sergiu.antifascistI have 40+ years as an automotive electronics development engineer,your statement is rubbish. It's common knowledge that batteries degrade over time,it shouldn't need mentioning but with a properly charged maintained battery of any construction the deterioration isn't even remotely close to the degree you are suggesting and in this case in particular it's not expected fair use for what the product claims to offer.Besides I have a perfectly serviceable 21 year old battery on my 21 year old car. DCS are just sh*thousing and it will come back to bite them on the arse.
@@user-re6yo7tj5s are you a qualified stupid? read carefully, stupid! 1. all producers make batteries that get down fast, faster than advertised 2. who sistematically and intensely attacks one company, just one company, while all are at similar fault, must be taken to justice 3. i do not care for your specific partisan beliefs, and necessities to fight certain producers. 4. you are an imbecile
Dave I respect you exponentially more than ever before. You are a good chap and excellent presenter as well as honest and truthful. Kudos for you stepping up on this important issue!
Way to go DCS!! This entire fallout from this incident will (most??) probably be your undoing as a company. The DCS lawyers must honestly (??) believe there is a case to be heard but as we all know, win, lose or draw, it's no skin off their noses and they will only be the real winners in the end. I wonder with all the negative press they've attracted, DCS now regret pulling the trigger on the lawsuit course of action. After hearing about this, I'm almost ashamed to call myself Australian. I'd love to attend the court hearing on the day for a good laugh - with an oversized bag popcorn in hand of course. Give 'em hell Stephan!!! I've put my money where my mouth is and donated some of my hard earned on your 'Go Fund Me' page 👍
Stephan can use this video in the court and win hands down the lawsuit especially using the Gov figures. If DCS won''t drop the lawsuit and apologize publicly is risking business extinction.
@@EEVblog yeah, but am not interested in defending DCS. am interested in diverging a concentrating attack, because there is the bigger problem, that all car batteries industry is at fault, or say at limitations that they do not want to declare
@@EEVblog if after me, i would use such occasion, such trial, to make acknoledge the bigger, universal problem. i would not grant money win to DCS, just ask youtubers to MENTION the universality of the problem, i would not ask them to make equal studies, that they cannot afford. meditate on my proposal!
I’m not a product reviewer as such, but I have advertised gear. The truth will set you free, if this law suit is upheld, it will be bad news for ALL content creators who make reviews.
Great video Dave, and good on you for wading in and not being intimidated by DCS bullying tactics. It may be helpful to review the capacity tester that Stefan used, it would also satisfy my curiosity!
Shareholders that own the companies own the governments. This is global. Think about the WEF and the WHO all owned by Shareholders and certain bloodlines. Just look into it don't take my word for it.
I suspect DCS test their batteries with fully balanced cells & WITHOUT the built-in BMS (as they sell them). With a BMS that has DCS defaults, it may turn off early (min & max voltage) therefore usable/measurable capacity would be reduced (compared to bypassing BMS). Stephan was told DCS tested capacity by fully discharging then only measuring while charging (not expected, this is non-standard). Check your battery capacity after a few cycles (when almost new) to compare with later results (hard to keep track of number of cycles). Results may be affected by temperature, cooling, & enclosed in case vs disassembled (in this situation it should be a minor difference). The discharge C rate will affect results. If cells are not balancing effectively & efficiently then it will reduce usable capacity (dependent on the BMS supplied & built-in by DCS when purchased). See "The Off-grid garage" videos for comparing BMS, settings, capacity tests & battery behaviour.
Louis Rossmann uploaded yesterday a video about this and its even funnier when you consider that even australian government knows how much DCS batteries suck.
The comments I was going to make have all been addressed in this video anyway. Good luck to Stefan. DCS should support people like him, not be trying to suppress them.
I agree with you. I think that DCS just committed suicide. No matter what the outcome, all of the bad data and poor business practices have come to light. They are in the spotlight now and it's not going away. I'd love to see their sales now that this has started. I would think the loss in sales would be much greater than any type of win.
23.42. “Why would a company do this?” Do you want the really honest answer to that Dave? An engineer manipulates things and will look for the solution there. A (Corporate) psychopath manipulates people…or attempts to….there, I said it!
Donated to the gofundme. Thanks for putting this on your channel. I probably would've missed this otherwise. Keep up the good work. Rossman is such a new yorker :) I hope Stephan tears them a new one...
If I had a product that behaved like the one in the Oz government test I'd be looking at revamping any possibly faulty manufacturing processes and changing any possibly related third-party contractors... Not sue the person highlighting potential issues with the design
Absolutely :) Yes different batteries are not fully comparable but I'd expect at least some commonality in the manufacturing process, especially within smaller sized companies. Great video breakdown BTW :) Louis Rossmann is the reason I'm here
You dont need lab grade equipment to tell the battery is $hit. You need lab grade equipment to detect very small capacity loss after few cycles reliably.
In this case the battery capacity tester is just a constant current load and timer. Stephan's test instruction say to discharge until the BMS inside the battery switches off, so it's the battery itself doing the cutoff detection. In this case the capcity tester is just a CC load, timer, and calculator. trivial stuff.
I remember that ExTech video. That was scary as hell. The fact that they were willing to put someone on a plane from the US to Australia to figure out what the hell happened says a lot about the company. On a semi-related note I still have my EX330 that you recommended in your ~$50 multimeter shootout. It's now my secondary meter behind my Fluke 87v but it's still a nice little meter.
Fortunately the Finnish law specifically excludes companies or associations from being the plaintiffs in alleged defamation. Even an inadvertently false claim of wrongdoing in a public medium is just tough luck for them, of course they have their own media publicity to defend. And there is the council of public media to pass non-legal judgement, which the media will readily publish.
Apparently in Australia as well, but with the exception of "companies" with 10 or less employees. So be sure that is not an exception in Finnish law as well! They likely do that to cover the case of individuals and very small groups operating as consultants or e.g. construction workers and hired by different employers for each job. EU work reforms have pushed towards that structure and protection of these is somewhat of a topic.
@@Rob2 I'm sure (criminal law, chapter 17) even sole proprietor companies are excluded. Of course the private person forming that one person company can be a plaintiff if the defamation has been aimed at him/her rather than the business.
Thanks Dave for giving this some visibility. It's awful. If you send items for reviews, you must be prepared for a negative review as well. I will share as well.
@@EEVblogStrategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. A lawsuit designed not necessarily to win, but to shut down criticism by costing the other party considerable sums of money and stress.
They should have dropped the case and issued a formal apology as the slightest smell of this going south. They're done, regardless of the court verdict. FAIL.
In my opinion Stephan was more than fair in his review videos. Despite the overwhelming evidence of the batteries not being fit for purpose he was still very clear that it was his opinion and that others may not have the same experience. He simply presented his findings and avoided any direct attacking of the company or calling for others to boycott them. I don't think there is even a slight chance DCS can win this and in reality they have already lost. I wont be at all surprised to see the company fold within the next 12 months.
channeling actions against A company, it is far from fair, when all companies in the field are the same. all electric cars are the same in this, same like all laptop producers were and are the same. the entire Li-Ion industry is overrated in technical terms. concentrating actions against ONE company, must be punished
A: This company claims it's batteries fit for high heat applications (under bonnet/ under hood). B: this company chose to brand it's batteries. He is not targeting a company, the company is targeting him over his analasys of a product of which he purchased several from them. For the purposes that they suggested the products were fit for, and, by not just him, but many others according to reviews left that their product is not fit for the intended and advertized purpose. But, please do answer me this, do you belive that a lithium chemistry is fit for high heat spplications?
You're on the money, providing the same warranty and then sticking LiFeP04 under the bonnet of a 4WD in Australia is more than overzealous, everyone else in China is doing it, but we have consumer laws here in OZ.
The most common cause of loss of capacity of large storage LiFePO4 is out of balance cells. Have a 15KWHr DCS battery, had to install my own active balancer, what happens to your cell voltage difference when you push cells to 3.5 volts?
I am sorry, but in what universe has lithium ever been rated for high heat environments? The owner in one post told Stefan to get proper test equipnent, but here is my question, does the owner of this company not understand how heat negativly affects lithium thecnologies, not only that, but, current drawn over time equals capacity... From what my grey matter tells me, this was bound to happen and was only a matter of time, I have never ever ever heard of a lithium battery holding up in any high heat environment....
They went after him because he was a little fish but well respected in the off road community which is a BIG MARKET. Most still think high cost = better product and he shattered their marketing BS so they used lawfare to silence him (which probably worked in the past with others). Most people run away from lawsuits and will just delete the video instead of fighting
I'd expect DCS already know their batteries are under-performing, so they're not going to work with him to check his testing methodology to see if he's made a mistake, they already know he's right.
Hay Dave. I totally would love seeing you thoroughly test the amazon tester but if you could test battery's that would be great too. If not a capacity test if you could analyse the electronics inside a tare down. Thanks Dave.
10-person company sues TH-camr with an opinion/data/3rd-party-analysis... I hope its thrown out and the folks at DCS can find new jobs.... The boss, that thought he could shut someone up must've thought lawyers were cheaper than buying good-quality batteries--he messed-up!
NOTE on the battery capacity tester I forgot to include in the video: In Stephan's instructions in his video he says to use the internal BMS in the battery to detect the low level switch off voltage. This is best method and puts the onus on the battrey under test to do the voltage detection. This negates the need to use external 4-wrire sensing which means the battery capacity tester becomes a simple constant current load, timer, and calculator. A very simple task that should be accurate and repeatable. In fact you don't even need a dedicated battery tester, you just need a constant current load and a stopwatch and you can test capacity manually.
So I have practically no doubt the capacity tester shown in the video does the job repeatably.
My logic is the internal resistance must be increased each discharge cycle. Thought the 4 wire method would be on point to test.
@@TradieTrev But if the BMS has physical low voltage dectection cutoff, isn't that point then rendered moot, because the battery is going to be doing the switching off regardless of what any load thinks. The BMS inside is going to be getting the cutoff voltage tap from the terminals, not inside the cell. Like I said in the video, you could do full charactertistic curve testing at different loads, but now you are getting really serious. And do you or do you not also test for pulse loads for example. It gets real messy. And I don't believe any of this is specified in such detail by the manufacturer in the capacity warranty?
I guess the point I'm making is that Stephan's recommended method is more than good enough for a reviewer to use to get a result in good faith.
@@EEVblog That's true if the BMS on the device doesn't work. Would love someone to give you a defective device.
The game is about discouraging TH-camrs who do independent reviews of products they buy themselves from reviewing a particular company's product. Meanwhile, you give a tug on the leash of the "lapdog TH-camr" who gets paid by companies for reviews, making sure they suck up even more by praising every kind of junk.
I use this battery tester all the time. It works just fine. Previously I used a simple constant current circuit and a timer. I got the same results with the electronic load, but I don't have to do any calculations.
It's kind of fun to watch a company sue themselves out of existence.
Worst PR choice ever.
Barbra Streisand. Dobedo…
DCS is a donner
Not all reviews are good though. On this very channel there was a test of a Chinese scope and it was claimed it did not work to the rated bandwidth. However the very same model was reviewed on The Signal Path (very good channel by the way) and here the chap connected it via a proper impedance matched connection and it worked perfectly up to the rated limit.
It's funny how only the companies themselves never heard of the Streisand effect.
@@Andrew-rc3vh Wow, next level clownery! Reviews and product tests, are by definition subjective and represent at first, the OPINION of the tester/creator/presenter. At best, all details are transparently presented and the process of review is explained in detail and all data is shown. SO THAT THE VIEWER CAN COME TO HIS OWN CONCLUSION!
There was and never is a claim of such formats (and this type of journalism) to an objective assessment, and even to infallibility. So your opinion is just as laughably immature as the company in the video.
Does your mom still wipe your bottom? One could easily think so, since you show no signs of even using your own brain to think. False, exaggerated or incorrect reviews and product presentations are simply not what they are presented as here by corps: evil, underhanded acts. If anything, these SUGGESTIONS and ADVICE are irrelevant in the vast majority of cases. You have to be an idiot not to know this, because this is even a completely banal everyday experience. If product reviews had the power that is shamefully assumed here, then not a single person would buy anything from Amazon anymore. And if you're looking for an idiot who should have listened to the bad recommendations but STILL bought something... then look in the mirror! Because most of us have had this experience.
What this company is doing here will probably lead to its ruin. "All publicity, whether good or bad... is publicity!" doesn't always apply and everywhere. Sometimes ... that can and will backfire. And with batteries? You should keep the fire far away ... ;O)
DCS sues TH-camr for calling their shit batteries shit.
Meanwhile Kings / Adventure Kings keep selling all their shit gear, including their LifePo4 battery... and they leave all their bad reviews alone.... just let them fade away....
Can anyone guess which business model is working the best? ? 😅😅😅
If I were DCS I would have gone out with some new kit and test gear to his place and worked directly with him to get to the bottom of the problem.......whosever fault it was......that would have been great PR.
This. Exactly.
That's what I said in the video too. This is what smart companies do.
@@EEVblog but changed T&G warranty to paper over it product problem, more complicated, imagine the buy washing machine, that came with 3 year guarantee, of working, and and 2 years into you owns ship of 2 year washing machine the manufactory changes there T&G, guarantee to now only 2 years old, and come with even more strings/hoops attached, you guarantee is voided if a fabric, water, soap, comes in, on, or near the guaranteed washing machine product? but that it in nut shell
They secretly changed the warranty information of the product, they're not interested in fixing the product because they probably can't fix it.
The problem is, their batteries dont work as stated its down to chemisty. Theyve had a bad wrap for years amongst people in the know and much of the 4WD community.
the final nail in the coffin was the fact they changed the warranty terms and claimed it had always been like that
what does DCS want to gain from this lawsuit?
it's not going to make their batteries better
Yep, no idea. Working with the reviewers and community is the only way forward.
According to Google they have a history of impossible promises going back to 2014. So I assume they never intended to make better batteries?
are you sure it is DCS that wants something?
maybe those other producers, all want something, because ALL car batteries lose capacity fast
@@Sergiu.antifascist Did you not see the SoC health estimate chart at 15:45? The green line is DCS, and note how sharply it declines while all the other batteries tested were much better
@@davidg3944 that graph i fake
Thanks for helping Stefan stand up to bullies.
I just got the notification for this video. I haven't seen it yet, but I heard Louis Rossmann talk about it. I'm very happy to see that you picked up this story. Thank you. Give 'em hell!
Louis latest video shows the results of the federal government's testing results of DCS products which show them as terrible. Well worth watching!
Agreed about manufacturers needing to listen to reviewers to improve products, a great example in my case is Siglent, they listened to my reviews and improved their products, the best of those improvements is probably the addition of user calibration on to the SDM series multimeters based on my recommendations.
This.
Excatly right 100%
Yep, it's a no-brainer good move.
Siglent has always been great. They also added customizable x axis scaling to their SDM meters when I explained them why this would be very useful.
I will add to this. I had a Siglent desktop multimeter freeze up during use and would no longer boot. I think it might even have been my fault. I sent it back under warranty and they gave me zero problems fixing it. It was almost a month before warranty expiration.
Thumbs up
I work as a validation engineer for a software compnay. We NEVER tell our customers they are wrong when they report problems to us. We dig in and either find the problem and fix our code or show them a workaround even if the problem is caused by something they are doing wrong. I know DCS is a much smaller company that the one I work for but in this case I feel they'd be better served by taking this type of approach rather than trying to silence Stephan. Even if Stephan is wrong in his testing, DCS have ruined their reputation and will loose customers.
My guess is they thought a “scary lawyer letter” would do the job, now they are committed. Even if the whole thing was malicious on the reviewer’s part (lets face it, none of us know the conversations that went on behind the scenes), this was a bad idea for the company. People get really pissed off when a “big” company sues a “little” guy.
@@daleatkin8927 In the USA, we have laws specifically against using lawsuits for intimidation.
@@daleatkin8927I don't know Australian law. But normally, the case can be pulled at any time... So when they found out that the scary letter doesn't work they could have just stopped...
DCS is behaving the way they are because they know they have millions of dollars worth of product out in the field that doesn’t do what’s on the tin. They can’t admit to Stefan that there is a problem, because admitting he has a problem is also admitting all of their customers potentially have the same problem, which is a can of worms on a scale that will tank the company.
Exactly as @beefchicken said - It’s not as simple as “just solving the problems“ because that’d probably bankrupt them
Louis Rossman showed how DCS changed the Warranty terms on their website after the fact and backdated it. Pretty sneaky.
That sounds like a legit fraud case against them...
Even if they win the case
They're fucking cooked
and deservedly so!
It's a bigger issue then that though. If they 'win' the legal precedent makes it more likely other companies will think suing negative reviews is an option. It also makes reviewers even more wary about including even valid criticisms which means the consumer loses.
@@Ash_18037hopefully they will think twice if all this sends DCS to the wall.
@@Ash_18037 It can set two precedents in one, yes, you can suppress reviews, but nobody will trust you, ever again
@@Ash_18037 Your concern is valid, but the idea of slander not applying when what you said is true, literally goes back to like the 1500s. So I'm somewhat optimistic it won't establish precedent of any kind, if it were to even go thru.
Thank you Dava! also giving this attention... keep reviews honest.
Customers and end users will always find ways to break things that I as an engineer want to fix as quickly as possible. While it might be embarrassing, this is the BEST thing that DCS can do, work with the customer to resolve the issues. It is also a learning exercise.
Absolutely. Any smart company will do this.
They have made a habit of selling grade C cells for grade A prices. Hard to stop cheating folks once you get used to it.. and hard to get away with it as your customer base grows... they should have swapped to more expensive cells as they got more customers.
Louis Rossmann showed in his last video even the Australian government rated the batteries poor 🤣 DCS is cooked.
Yep!
This is covered in Dave's video!
It isn't the same battery but it is the same company.
If I were the TH-camr I would bring that government test up as a defense in the case.
DCS is a wannabe communist fiefdom. I'm in the USA. I will make sure people here know what kind of pitiful company your are. So come and sue me!
13:50
That would be inadmissible as the govt tests were for solar powered household batteries not automotive batteries.
It's a fair and reasonable review, stating facts tested by Stephan and backed by independent experts.
This is nothing more than a slap suit. I personally look forward to the administrator being appointed to wind them up.
Hope he counter sues for mental anguish.
@@partymanau If there's a company left to sue once this is finished.....
Instead of fixing your product, you burn your brand/company down!!!
Well done DCS, and all avoidable...
I've worked for a big multi-national in another field, we'd goofed with waterproof seal design. Worked with the customer to improve our testing and changed the design and the swallowed the cost of retrofitting the existing kit. Guess what they stayed as a customer and we sold them more stuff over the next few years.
So glad you got on board with this Dave. I just can't believe what DCS have done. One thing is for sure, they have ended their company by doing this. No one will buy their product now, seeing what they do to customers who post reviews of their products.
Thanks for making this video. I've been 4wding for 18 years, and watched Stephan for many years. He knows his stuff. I'm glad people like you and Louis Rossmann are supporting Stephan, I have a feeling DCS will regret this.
Thanks for spreading the word Dave. DCS have initiated their own downfall thinking they could use lawyers to remove any good reviews of their poor quality control and field testing. And changing the wording of their warranty after the fact without notifying customers. That alone speaks volumes to the company's attitude towards customers.
DCS is about to learn what the Streisand Effect is.
Thank you for protecting the consumers. I don't live in Australia, my sister does. I had an opportunity to work there for Atlassian right before the pandemic but I couldn't relocate from Europe. I'm glad there's honest people like you, Louis and Stephan.
Australian got way more authoritarian with the pandamic than Europe, you escape a bullet. Except in you live in the UK, in Europe, there's no chance that police will knock at your door for a mean tweet
@@Kabodanki There were 2 reasons, mainly, one is that I had to pay 5000AUD every time I went into the country because I have 2 dogs and they needed to stay in quarantine... the other is the draconian laws around VPNs, which they can add as trumped up charges to your "mean tweet" charges, just because. I was offered 245K which after taxes didn't really make it substantially greater than what I made at Amazon. Another reason is that I live in Spain and it's dirt cheap (although I'm planning to move away due to tax efficiency), also travelling to other European countries is a breeze, they speak Spanish and my wife didn't feel comfortable speaking English exclusively, etc... The stars didn't align. I now work for Oracle, bought another house here (I'm originally from Mexico and Venezuela), and looking back I made the right choice by staying. Australia would attract a lot more talent if they relaxed a little on trying to become like "1984".
@Kabodanki
Umm, wrong, incorrect, back-to-front.!
@@KabodankiAs an Australian I'd like anyone who reads this to know your comment is definitely opinion not fact.
"Australia doesn't follow the laws of mathematics!" - the Prime Minister of Australia.
no surprises here...
And in australia you can charge you car at night using solar...Ozzies really do pick smart people to run it.
@@Robert-cu9bm You can't beat Germany in that kind of stupidity. 1 - Agree with the green party to phase out nuclear and boost renewable 2 - Renewable being intermittent needs to be supported by either coal or gaz power plant 3 - Build pipelines with Russia to get cheap natural gaz ... Everything goes fine until. 5 - the pipeline got mysteriously destroyed by unknown forces 6 - Germany has to import way more expensive natural gaz from wonderful country such as the US, saudi arabia, qatar 6 bis - Germany has no port to accept NG tankers, has to ask France 7 - The US becomes the biggest natual gaz exporter in the world 8 - Germany electricity prices exploded, killing their industries 9 - The US make a green new deal that welcome European company to build things there instead (You don't need ennemies when you have friends like this). 10 - Porsches are now produced in the US. 11 - Germany needs now to expand their lignite coal mine (which is one of the worst kind of coal) 12 - Their electricity production produce a lot of carbon (when clouds goes to paris france, paris has to regulate circulation). Actually it is around 7-8x times the pollution produced by France (germany heavily lobbied against the EU listing nuclear energy as green)
Not the current one, it must be said. And it wasn't the previous one, or the one before that...
@@JamesChurchill I've lost count...
They don't follow the laws of physics either. Think about it, they're on the bottom side of the Earth but they don't fall off. xD
Finished watching Louis rossman, see eev on top comments, head over to channel, eev releases video
You can’t buy this kind of efficiency
@@Jim_Bo Yep, it's included.
@@Jim_Bo the "government" data is fake
"You can’t buy this kind of efficiency" Certainly not from DCS (allegedly).
A month or so ago a British manufacturer of hi end audio, threatened to sue a youtuber for a review he made for one of their products, some two years ago, if I'm not mistaken. This in a way is really hilarious...What is wrong with these DCS people?
Just a curiosity, the English manufacturer is also named dCS (dCS audio).
@@joliforum Yes. Same name.
That specific case has been ongoing since 2021..... It was found that an employee was acting as a loose canon and was rocking the boat.... It has only just been settled and an appolagy issued by the CEO himself..
@@GapRecordingsNamibia Ha! Someone took the fall for that one. Like the CEO of this small company didn't know what was going on 😅
Oh yes, most probably so, we can only speculate, but, the "bribe" at the end of that apology made me a bit squeemish....
So glad you picked this up….between yourself and Louis, I can’t help but think a certain business is going to cop a well deserved drop in revenue. We absolutely need the larger and non-shill channels to run with this. 👍
I guess DCS thought a lawsuit would be cheaper than sourcing better quality cells....
No they just want to rip people off, but that is true for most people
I also bet their A grade cells are actually C grade. Cost is about half A grade and cycle life matches the results pretty well.
Anyone can purchase C grade cells, just but any from Ebay or Ali, and that's what you get. Manufacturers are always keen to offload them too.
or hiring real power engineers with battery expertise.
After 15 years or more desiging automotive batteries i'd put a fair bit of money on it being high ambient temperatures during cycling that have rapidly aged the cells.....
@@maxtorque2277 , In some ways I agree... For example, under the hood of a vehicle with headers (vs manifolds) is a hot place for sure, but if you look at the data, they are failing all over, not just abusive folks with heavily modified vehicles. Sort of points to using 2nds for cells to me.
The only people benefitting from this are the lawyers.
Always.
In the future lawyers will be called Freedom Brokersᵀᴹ
Billable hours are undefeated
Not true; anybody looking to buy quality batteries has been better informed by this lawsuit than they might have been otherwise. We should thank DCS for calling such wide attention to the quality of their product.
Not at all. If DCS win, dubious companies win by bullying reviewers and continuing to sell their poor quality products. If Stephan wins, the consumer wins.
I just finished watching a video from Louis Rossman and now I'm here!
yep. lol.. Rossman gave the call and Dave jumped into action. Good stuff
Do you really think anyone cares where you been and where you are now
@@ugetridofit Bro let her go.. You'll find another one
@@ugetridofit
If you don’t care that’s your protected opinion.
But DO NOT DARE assume what the rest of us care or don’t care about!
Clear?
Thank you for helping Stefan!
Will Prowse just posted his testing of this battery. The battery did very well actually and he did manage to pull 1000 amps from it and it did full capacity. But inside the battery, not so great. It's worth a watch.
"DCS battery! TH-camr Sued for Reviewing this Battery?! Let's Test It!"
And if I'm not mistaken, his teardown revealed individual cell capacity labels that did not fit with his test results. Something seems off with that company. They should be trying to get ahead of issues rather than dig themselves a deeper hole.
I hope that the backlash causes more damage than they could possibly have imagined.
Do a search for DCS, and it shows already back in 2014 they were making insane claims about their batteries.
big help for this awareness Dave. also shopping platforms, sometimes an honest written review gets your review not displayed on the request of the seller.
FINALLY! I'm super happy you took on this topic.
The only problem I saw in the tests was he used alligator clips to connect the tester to the battery but he should have used crocodile clips instead because... well... down under.
Seriously though, I was convienced he had genuine capacity problems with the batteries and did well to charactize the problem from a consumer perspective given the equipment and resources he had at his disposal. Certainly a high budget engineering effort might uncover more information about the problem but the problem appears to be real nonetheless.
Anti-alligator propaganda.
DCS is going bye bye.
When you search for their products, these bad reviews now come up. People would be stupid to buy DCS now.
Actually very funny.
STREISAND EFFECT!
DCS doesn't want to be called out for pushing crappy products... thankfully their lawsuit will just spread more awareness as to their crappy product...
I work for a (totally unrelated) vendor; your end-users help you built products and services, the customers are required to keep us engineers into the reality-checks. (= does it work as expected, anything being overlooked, anything wrong etc).
The fact that DCS, irrespective of so many negative reviews, does not seem to be moving forward (= improving, explaining what did go wrong where, i.e. meaningful explanations) indicates to me that they appear to have no solid, constructive contact with whomever (presumably external) developer(s) of their product(s).
Meaning, any issues will be extremely difficult for DCS to resolve as their "supplier" ain't playing ball. Hence that DCS is being so extremely hostile in this instance as they have no solution. The best solution is to support whomever DCS is attacking (Stephan Fischer in this case) and perhaps consider boycotting buying any DCS product until this matter is resolved. Strategy is nothing without intuition.
It's a slippery slope..either way I won't be doing anything differently.
Negative reviews should inspire OEM'S to try harder. 🔥 Any OEM worth its salt would never commit to such vulturous depravity. KeepOnTesting!
Instead of contacting Stephan, saying "Hi, the batteries you have, we would like 'em back, we will replace them free of charge as stated in our warranty agreement, we would like those failing batteries back because we want to analyze them, see what exactly went wrong with them, so we can improve our product", no, instead, sue a small youtuber, it's easier that way . . . Who is defamating who in this case?
They should show this video in court. Case closed in less than 30 minutes.
Bullies go after the "weak kid",
They know a 1 million youtuber will fight them.
This is probably not the first time they did this, but were successful in silencing their critics.
This is an intimidation tactic, they are NOT going to court
It’s already in court. Hopefully they will lose.
@@MountainGoat9 Australia has "loser pays" law ,
There were no hearings on the defamation case itself.
DCS will LOOSE in court, and will have to pay opponents legal bills,
there by doubling their ever growing legal bills.
They will loose. Even the Australian gov tested their batteries and proved that they are shyte.
Thanks for putting the spotlight on this Dave. Fight evil with truth! :fist:
This is called a SLAPP lawsuit - Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. Basically you sue to keep someone quiet knowing they probably cannot defend themselves. Hiring a lawyer costs thousands of dollars, you hope to shut up someone by suing. The whole point is you never intend to go to court - you hope to bankrupt the person before then. DCS is going to stall and stall and stall to run up the legal bills hoping the guy simply runs out of money and gives up. There is no intention to go to court - you win by attrition, not on technical or legal reasons. You go to the judge and say as you can no longer defend yourself, the lawsuit is over.
But that is a very dangerous thing to try in these internet-connected days!
The defendant may ring up money from amused or concerned viewers using something like GoFundMe, and you suddenly face an opponent with more money than you...
Great to see the big channels shining a light on this!
Thanks for covering this. Its been going for so long I thought you may have intentionally been avoiding it due to some of Stephens testing being flawed or some other unknown conflict
I only heard about it the other week, but haven't had time until today.
Thanks for taking on the fight for reviewers in general 👍Per (Denmark)
Seeing how many of those DCS batteries have apparently severe problems, the amount of advertisement of how safe and good their batteries are on their website and now the lawsuit, I 100% know what type of company DCS is:
Push out a subpar product, try to make the customer belief its a great product via their portrayed "image" and if someone dares to attack that image, sue him/her. Because the real product of that company isnt the batteries they produce, but their image.
Watching this case from Philippines with extreme interest. Commenting to affect the algorithm so it gets more eyeballs on the issue at hand.
"Tested to Military Standards" - which means "lowest possible passing criteria." Just ask anyone who has been in the service. 😆
Bullshit
Nah, it is a legit test. However, vibration test according to Mil.Std 883 has absolutely nothing to do with performance test. It just verifies that the BMS does not fall appart during reasonable vibration.
Their problem is that they got some second grade cells from some rejected batch in the factory for the cheaps. Their product, the BMS cant do anything about this.
DCS is going to ruin their reputation? Nope... That Ship Has Sailed, my Friends.
Have already ruined. I had never heard of DCS before this video. I certainly won't ever buy any of their overpriced shyte that pretend to be batteries.
Damaged Cell Sellers should accept that If you have poor cells, no BMS will fix that.
I am from Europe and I have never heard of this company. Now I know more about them than I know about local brands. Not bad from a sub-10 company.
Good companies stand behind their failures. Pace soldering equipment being one of them. I purchased one of the first Pace ADS200 soldering stations. I purchased a broad array of tips for it and several of them were bad. Some were bad out of the box, others just flat out didn't perform. I did a review video on it and Pace had a field rep at my door 2 days later. It was a manufacturing defect in the tip that they were already aware of. They replaced all of my tips, even the working ones and threw in a handful of others for good measure. Even though they were aware of the problem they want the old ones back so they could do failure analysis on them. Reputable companies not only stand behind their products but are not ashamed to admit failure. What matters is what they do when it does fail. I couldn't have been more pleased with Paces response and professionalism.
If this makes it to trial and i doubt it will, the judge should play this video to the court as his closing statement before finding in favour for the defendant and awarding costs on an indemnity basis. If DCS waste all that money and time they don't deserve to be in business and they won't have a business left.
Every manufacturer should be grateful for any honest feedback on their products. Especially the bad feedback. If a company is sincere about their product and its quality, this kind of feedback is gold, because you can do all the testing you want in your RnD or Quality Department, if there is something wrong, you should thank the ones who discovered it and give him a bounty or finders fee, because you can use the insights for the benefit of your production.
However, if you are a poop company and only care about making a quick buck, then suing the crap out of anything that says something bad is your obviously best solution....
Even if they win, they lose. The best they can hope for is a Pyrrhic victory.
or be constructive?
like grant win to DCS, but not money, nor interdiction for the youtuber, just ask the youtuber to mention in his productions the generality of the phenomenon, becaause ALL car batteries are not as advertised, they ALL lose capacity fast.
@@Sergiu.antifascist Prove it. Where's your evidence? And "I'm a physicist" is not enough and you should know it, if you are indeed a scientist, like you claimed in another comment.
@@Argoon1981 i already knew it, and i don't need to prove anything. am not paid to do that. you seem to be confused about whay we do, why we say, what we owe to do and say, to us, to others...
stay in your bench!
@@Sergiu.antifascistI have 40+ years as an automotive electronics development engineer,your statement is rubbish. It's common knowledge that batteries degrade over time,it shouldn't need mentioning but with a properly charged maintained battery of any construction the deterioration isn't even remotely close to the degree you are suggesting and in this case in particular it's not expected fair use for what the product claims to offer.Besides I have a perfectly serviceable 21 year old battery on my 21 year old car. DCS are just sh*thousing and it will come back to bite them on the arse.
@@user-re6yo7tj5s are you a qualified stupid?
read carefully, stupid!
1. all producers make batteries that get down fast, faster than advertised
2. who sistematically and intensely attacks one company, just one company, while all are at similar fault, must be taken to justice
3. i do not care for your specific partisan beliefs, and necessities to fight certain producers.
4. you are an imbecile
Dave I respect you exponentially more than ever before. You are a good chap and excellent presenter as well as honest and truthful. Kudos for you stepping up on this important issue!
How much business has this company lost over this?
Don't know, but it's a really dumb move IMO.
Massive after they survived the lawsuit. Their biggest rep has gone into hiding. Before the lawsuit no one was talking about DCS or Stefan reviews.
If I worked at DCS, I'd be already looking for a new job. Seriously.
DCS is going Bye Bye.
Wonder if they will try and claim this is due to his video rather than their lawsuit.
Given their demand to hide their failures, it's unlikely that they'll reveal that.
Way to go DCS!! This entire fallout from this incident will (most??) probably be your undoing as a company.
The DCS lawyers must honestly (??) believe there is a case to be heard but as we all know, win, lose or draw, it's no skin off their noses and they will only be the real winners in the end. I wonder with all the negative press they've attracted, DCS now regret pulling the trigger on the lawsuit course of action. After hearing about this, I'm almost ashamed to call myself Australian.
I'd love to attend the court hearing on the day for a good laugh - with an oversized bag popcorn in hand of course.
Give 'em hell Stephan!!! I've put my money where my mouth is and donated some of my hard earned on your 'Go Fund Me' page 👍
Stephan can use this video in the court and win hands down the lawsuit especially using the Gov figures. If DCS won''t drop the lawsuit and apologize publicly is risking business extinction.
Too late.
DCS is going bye bye.
the government figures will be proved to be fake
I'm just relaying news. And the government test figures aren't for the same battery so has no direct consequence.
@@EEVblog yeah, but am not interested in defending DCS. am interested in diverging a concentrating attack, because there is the bigger problem, that all car batteries industry is at fault, or say at limitations that they do not want to declare
@@EEVblog if after me, i would use such occasion, such trial, to make acknoledge the bigger, universal problem. i would not grant money win to DCS, just ask youtubers to MENTION the universality of the problem, i would not ask them to make equal studies, that they cannot afford. meditate on my proposal!
I’m not a product reviewer as such, but I have advertised gear. The truth will set you free, if this law suit is upheld, it will be bad news for ALL content creators who make reviews.
This is not going to end well for DCS. Given rossman has covered it, drawing the ire of the internet is not a smart business decision.
Great video Dave, and good on you for wading in and not being intimidated by DCS bullying tactics. It may be helpful to review the capacity tester that Stefan used, it would also satisfy my curiosity!
See my pinned comment.
this is what happens when companies are run by greedy (also selfish and very touchy) CEOs, instead of true engineers.
Shareholders that own the companies own the governments. This is global. Think about the WEF and the WHO all owned by Shareholders and certain bloodlines. Just look into it don't take my word for it.
Good video Dave ,hope more of the TH-cam community passes the word about this.
I suspect DCS test their batteries with fully balanced cells & WITHOUT the built-in BMS (as they sell them). With a BMS that has DCS defaults, it may turn off early (min & max voltage) therefore usable/measurable capacity would be reduced (compared to bypassing BMS). Stephan was told DCS tested capacity by fully discharging then only measuring while charging (not expected, this is non-standard).
Check your battery capacity after a few cycles (when almost new) to compare with later results (hard to keep track of number of cycles).
Results may be affected by temperature, cooling, & enclosed in case vs disassembled (in this situation it should be a minor difference).
The discharge C rate will affect results. If cells are not balancing effectively & efficiently then it will reduce usable capacity (dependent on the BMS supplied & built-in by DCS when purchased).
See "The Off-grid garage" videos for comparing BMS, settings, capacity tests & battery behaviour.
This is the signature move of a company that doesn’t want to sell you a good product.
Louis Rossmann uploaded yesterday a video about this and its even funnier when you consider that even australian government knows how much DCS batteries suck.
The comments I was going to make have all been addressed in this video anyway. Good luck to Stefan. DCS should support people like him, not be trying to suppress them.
Yes. He is a martial arts trainer
Here in the USA, when we see DCS, we typically think Department of Child Services.
I think you should test those batteries. I'm glad you are supporting this reviewer; you are a nice dude!
I agree with you. I think that DCS just committed suicide. No matter what the outcome, all of the bad data and poor business practices have come to light. They are in the spotlight now and it's not going away. I'd love to see their sales now that this has started. I would think the loss in sales would be much greater than any type of win.
This video is important. Thanks for making it!
23.42. “Why would a company do this?” Do you want the really honest answer to that Dave?
An engineer manipulates things and will look for the solution there.
A (Corporate) psychopath manipulates people…or attempts to….there, I said it!
Donated to the gofundme. Thanks for putting this on your channel. I probably would've missed this otherwise. Keep up the good work. Rossman is such a new yorker :) I hope Stephan tears them a new one...
If I had a product that behaved like the one in the Oz government test I'd be looking at revamping any possibly faulty manufacturing processes and changing any possibly related third-party contractors... Not sue the person highlighting potential issues with the design
Different battery though. But yeah, I'd be concerned. It does say in the report that DCS ask for the battery back for analysis.
Absolutely :) Yes different batteries are not fully comparable but I'd expect at least some commonality in the manufacturing process, especially within smaller sized companies.
Great video breakdown BTW :) Louis Rossmann is the reason I'm here
@EEVblog may be different battery but they are using the same cells.
Never heard of DCS, but now I know to not buy their products. GREAT WORK DCS..
Fire your lawyers and hire engineers
You dont need lab grade equipment to tell the battery is $hit.
You need lab grade equipment to detect very small capacity loss after few cycles reliably.
In this case the battery capacity tester is just a constant current load and timer. Stephan's test instruction say to discharge until the BMS inside the battery switches off, so it's the battery itself doing the cutoff detection. In this case the capcity tester is just a CC load, timer, and calculator. trivial stuff.
Great video and quite right that they should be thanking Stephan rather than suing him, spot on.
And they illegally rewrote and backdated the warranty terms and conditions on their website.
I remember that ExTech video. That was scary as hell. The fact that they were willing to put someone on a plane from the US to Australia to figure out what the hell happened says a lot about the company. On a semi-related note I still have my EX330 that you recommended in your ~$50 multimeter shootout. It's now my secondary meter behind my Fluke 87v but it's still a nice little meter.
Fortunately the Finnish law specifically excludes companies or associations from being the plaintiffs in alleged defamation. Even an inadvertently false claim of wrongdoing in a public medium is just tough luck for them, of course they have their own media publicity to defend. And there is the council of public media to pass non-legal judgement, which the media will readily publish.
Apparently in Australia as well, but with the exception of "companies" with 10 or less employees. So be sure that is not an exception in Finnish law as well!
They likely do that to cover the case of individuals and very small groups operating as consultants or e.g. construction workers and hired by different employers for each job.
EU work reforms have pushed towards that structure and protection of these is somewhat of a topic.
@@Rob2 I'm sure (criminal law, chapter 17) even sole proprietor companies are excluded. Of course the private person forming that one person company can be a plaintiff if the defamation has been aimed at him/her rather than the business.
Thanks Dave for giving this some visibility. It's awful. If you send items for reviews, you must be prepared for a negative review as well. I will share as well.
What's scary to think about is how many times this works and the reviewer is just intimidated into removing the video.
Thanks for covering this! Apparently the Aussie govt evaluated DCS batteries and came to v similar conclusions. Not sure if that's helpful
So is this a Australian example of a SLAP lawsuit?
What is a SLAP lawsuit?
@@EEVblogen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation
SLAPP lawsuits. Oliver does a good piece on them on 'Last week Tonight'
@@EEVblogStrategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. A lawsuit designed not necessarily to win, but to shut down criticism by costing the other party considerable sums of money and stress.
We need better anti slap like they have in some US states. They are often used to just destroy the smaller party.
@@EEVblog Basically means the lawsuit process itself is the punishment.
Which is why they go through with it even if they know they can't win.
They should have dropped the case and issued a formal apology as the slightest smell of this going south. They're done, regardless of the court verdict. FAIL.
In my opinion Stephan was more than fair in his review videos. Despite the overwhelming evidence of the batteries not being fit for purpose he was still very clear that it was his opinion and that others may not have the same experience. He simply presented his findings and avoided any direct attacking of the company or calling for others to boycott them. I don't think there is even a slight chance DCS can win this and in reality they have already lost. I wont be at all surprised to see the company fold within the next 12 months.
channeling actions against A company, it is far from fair, when all companies in the field are the same. all electric cars are the same in this, same like all laptop producers were and are the same. the entire Li-Ion industry is overrated in technical terms.
concentrating actions against ONE company, must be punished
A: This company claims it's batteries fit for high heat applications (under bonnet/ under hood).
B: this company chose to brand it's batteries.
He is not targeting a company, the company is targeting him over his analasys of a product of which he purchased several from them. For the purposes that they suggested the products were fit for, and, by not just him, but many others according to reviews left that their product is not fit for the intended and advertized purpose.
But, please do answer me this, do you belive that a lithium chemistry is fit for high heat spplications?
You're on the money, providing the same warranty and then sticking LiFeP04 under the bonnet of a 4WD in Australia is more than overzealous, everyone else in China is doing it, but we have consumer laws here in OZ.
I have three DCS batteries, all non under bonnet, all failing capacity. Highest cycle count is 105 cycles, lowest 5 cycles, all failing capacity.
The most common cause of loss of capacity of large storage LiFePO4 is out of balance cells. Have a 15KWHr DCS battery, had to install my own active balancer, what happens to your cell voltage difference when you push cells to 3.5 volts?
I am sorry, but in what universe has lithium ever been rated for high heat environments?
The owner in one post told Stefan to get proper test equipnent, but here is my question, does the owner of this company not understand how heat negativly affects lithium thecnologies, not only that, but, current drawn over time equals capacity...
From what my grey matter tells me, this was bound to happen and was only a matter of time, I have never ever ever heard of a lithium battery holding up in any high heat environment....
They went after him because he was a little fish but well respected in the off road community which is a BIG MARKET. Most still think high cost = better product and he shattered their marketing BS so they used lawfare to silence him (which probably worked in the past with others). Most people run away from lawsuits and will just delete the video instead of fighting
I'd expect DCS already know their batteries are under-performing, so they're not going to work with him to check his testing methodology to see if he's made a mistake, they already know he's right.
We will need a list of all of the BOYCOTTING we need to do.
I have the capacity tester with the red fan. I'd love for you to do a review of several of these devices.
Hay Dave. I totally would love seeing you thoroughly test the amazon tester but if you could test battery's that would be great too. If not a capacity test if you could analyse the electronics inside a tare down. Thanks Dave.
10-person company sues TH-camr with an opinion/data/3rd-party-analysis... I hope its thrown out and the folks at DCS can find new jobs.... The boss, that thought he could shut someone up must've thought lawyers were cheaper than buying good-quality batteries--he messed-up!