Good day guys, I haven't posted something for a while and really haven't had the time. A very interesting problem arose on my FreedomWon 10/8 & due to the sheer frustration of trying to get support I made a decision to get intrusive with the unit & I voided the warranty. More on the warranty a little later and in general I hope that this thread opens up a very worthwhile conversation on warranties and what are they really worth. Even more interesting is the South Africa Battery assemblers as I call them. Let's face it, the raw Lithium is processed in China and made into prismatic cells and then shipped away to our shores as either an assembled battery unit or finds itself on the assembly line here in SA via FreedomWon factory or other well known SA battery manufacturers. The Local guys here then have a factory to a build those prismatic cells into a production unit & pair it with a BMS and then sell this finished product.

Now here is starts to get interesting: How long will these businesses stay relevant because it's a very tough market. The Chinese have the technology to process lithium, they also have the R & D to produce BMS controllers and let's face it their manufacturing costs are a fraction of what can be done here in SA. We now start to see Lithium batteries starting to reach Lead Acid pricing for the first time and sales on the market in general have dried up.

I have evaluated and deployed locally built as well as Chinese LV & HV batteries is mass. I myself used to build batteries. I'm sorry to say the undercut and the affordability of buying a production Chinese imported battery makes this a no brainer.

I hope there are more people out there that can add more perspective to this starting thread. Will add more details on the problem I had, the support that was offered and the steps I took to take matters into my own hands to salvage my battery and get it healthy again.

Some pics attached as I needed to balance a cell that was quite far off the others...

Orion bms a active balancer or passive?.

Did the cells get out of balance badly?

The Orion is in a different class to any other BMS out there. I have worked on multiple other BMSs. That BMS is made in the USA and it's a very polished specimen in terms of hardware and software. It's even used in the HV batteries to power up the Toyota Prius EV. Btw I'm not sure it's an OEM of the Prius but I do see documentation to supports it's applied use.

My battery got very ill due to my home being completely off-grid and not reaching 100% regularly to float. The first issue that I had was that Cell 1 had a massively weird difference in internal resistance to the others. Then when you charge it the Cell would peak crazily fast and during the discharge the opposite would happen. I logged a ticket and got some remote support but the particular service tech was adjusting software to fix what was very likely to me a physical hardware fault. You can fix hardware problems with software. You can maybe mask the problem but you can't fix it.

I then left it for a week or so & FW basically tried to close the ticket saying it was fixed. I knew the only issue that can arise as these symptoms are a loose cell sensing cable and the cell was not in balance.

The hardware of the 10/8 is on another planet quality wise. FW package this battery to a high level of quality. It's in a powder coated high gloss 3mm metal enclosure and the cells are very well protected inside a plastic types of rigid case with insulation covers. I wanted to remove the entire unit to get at the offensive cell. It's probably possible but given the welded topology and the fact they actually use 2 X 100ah cells laser welded with aluminium studs made that proposition almost impossible to deassemble the entire unit. So all I had to play with was the Harness or 16 cells and a slow charger...

Sorry will add more info later...

I had a Freedom Won Lite Home 10/8 installed in May 2021. Towards the end of 2025 I noticed that it discharges normally until about 48%, and then the SoC suddenly drops to 10%. And then it will charge normally until about 55%, stay there for a while, and suddenly jump to 100%. So I basically had half of the original capacity.

In January 2026 I contacted the original installer, who logged a call with Freedom Won. The installer came to my house with his laptop and the Freedom Won guy connected remotely to diagnose. He said there were 3 cells at a lower voltage. He updated the firmware and said I should monitor it for a week or so.

There was no improvement, so at the beginning of February the installer took the battery to Freedom Won's offices (no small feat because the battery weighs almost 100kg and is mounted on a wall). Freedom Won had it for 4 weeks, and they replaced all the cells and the BMS. So now I basically have a new battery in the old box.

The only cost to me was the installer's fees. So I think Freedom Won's support is pretty good (albeit a bit slow). They responded each time the installer asked for an update.

9 hours ago, Steve87 said:

The Orion is in a different class to any other BMS out there. I have worked on multiple other BMSs. That BMS is made in the USA and it's a very polished specimen in terms of hardware and software. It's even used in the HV batteries to power up the Toyota Prius EV. Btw I'm not sure it's an OEM of the Prius but I do see documentation to supports it's applied use.

My battery got very ill due to my home being completely off-grid and not reaching 100% regularly to float. The first issue that I had was that Cell 1 had a massively weird difference in internal resistance to the others. Then when you charge it the Cell would peak crazily fast and during the discharge the opposite would happen. I logged a ticket and got some remote support but the particular service tech was adjusting software to fix what was very likely to me a physical hardware fault. You can fix hardware problems with software. You can maybe mask the problem but you can't fix it.

I then left it for a week or so & FW basically tried to close the ticket saying it was fixed. I knew the only issue that can arise as these symptoms are a loose cell sensing cable and the cell was not in balance.

The hardware of the 10/8 is on another planet quality wise. FW package this battery to a high level of quality. It's in a powder coated high gloss 3mm metal enclosure and the cells are very well protected inside a plastic types of rigid case with insulation covers. I wanted to remove the entire unit to get at the offensive cell. It's probably possible but given the welded topology and the fact they actually use 2 X 100ah cells laser welded with aluminium studs made that proposition almost impossible to deassemble the entire unit. So all I had to play with was the Harness or 16 cells and a slow charger...

Sorry will add more info later...

Looking forward to the continuation of this story with bated breath... especially as I also go through my own issue with FW but more specifically in relation to an eTower BMU.

@Bernardf your point is well noted & I don't disagree with you. I followed the same steps as you but unfortunately being off-grid I could not wait for 4 weeks and lose 10kWh of capacity. The same prospect arises for their HV batteries and the lightest one is +-400kg. So the concept of remove and take to service centre is not so straightforward for a logistics perspective. They usually visit the site with technicians and service and sort out on site.

In the past there was no issue with requiring assistance like this and they offered it willingly to all locations countrywide. Lately there has been the combination of refuting the warranty and wanting to get the customer to pay for travel and logistics to their site location as well boarding and lodging charges added in a quotation for such repair and evaluation. I have also seen on occasions that replacement of the LV & HV Orion BMSs be quoted prior to on site evaluation between R60k all the way up to R250k. Some have not been my installations but one of them was and the customer paid the R250k up front replacement costs before an onsite inspection was carried out on the equipment.

The Orion is great and all the bells and whistles but is this not becoming an Achilles heal for the end user. The Typical HV topology of BAU/ BCU / BMU doesn't cost R250k, this in the case of a Chinese production battery imported. In contrast it's along the lines of R35K maximum. It also does the same job & it's components are serviceable and repairable component wise. It's also adopted from the Chinese EV market.

I'm was a massive FW supporter and still am to a much lesser degree but unfortunately the market is shifting and in my humble opinion FW and other local OEMs will find it very hard to stay relevant in these modern times with the production Chinese equipment imported from the Motherland.

Edited yesterday at 05:541 day by Steve87

@Moffat the Etower is a Chinese import and has a PACE BMS so it's considered in my book as any normal Chinese import. I have never had to log a support call for one and I honestly try not to promote it because it's cheaper to buy the exact same product cheaper in the market that doesn't have the FW badge. I hope that they offer you support and that is swift enough and not 3 weeks worth.

Further to my posts really what I'm trying to say here and we have already seen it in the automobile market: Are the Chinese starting to gain respect and market share and how do we try to still support & protect the local market. We talking about local content and jobs. Shein and Temu case in point.

FW & others the honeymoon is over unfortunately....I don't have all the answers and don't even have relevant questions to analyse something like this but it's fascinating to watch unfold almost in front of our eyes.

@Steve87 for the sake of the local markets on the African continent and in particular South Africa, I certainly hope and pray FW and all others in various sectors pull up their socks. Just off the top of my head it made me think of the demise of Nokia and Blackberry vs how Apple came and decimated the market landscape in the mobile sector. We unfortunately then become beholden to external suppliers and this effectively means no jobs for our local people and markets save for scraps.

2 hours ago, Steve87 said:

@Bernardf your point is well noted & I don't disagree with you. I followed the same steps as you but unfortunately being off-grid I could not wait for 4 weeks and lose 10kWh of capacity. The same prospect arises for their HV batteries and the lightest one is +-400kg. So the concept of remove and take to service centre is not so straightforward for a logistics perspective. They usually visit the site with technicians and service and sort out on site.

In the past there was no issue with requiring assistance like this and they offered it willingly to all locations countrywide. Lately there has been the combination of refuting the warranty and wanting to get the customer to pay for travel and logistics to their site location as well boarding and lodging charges added in a quotation for such repair and evaluation. I have also seen on occasions that replacement of the LV & HV Orion BMSs be quoted prior to on site evaluation between R60k all the way up to R250k. Some have not been my installations but one of them was and the customer paid the R250k up front replacement costs before an onsite inspection was carried out on the equipment.

The Orion is great and all the bells and whistles but is this not becoming an Achilles heal for the end user. The Typical HV topology of BAU/ BCU / BMU doesn't cost R250k, this in the case of a Chinese production battery imported. In contrast it's along the lines of R35K maximum. It also does the same job & it's components are serviceable and repairable component wise. It's also adopted from the Chinese EV market.

I'm was a massive FW supporter and still am to a much lesser degree but unfortunately the market is shifting and in my humble opinion FW and other local OEMs will find it very hard to stay relevant in these modern times with the production Chinese equipment imported from the Motherland.

@Steve87 I'm in the same boat with you in terms of having to remove the battery and cart it off back to manufacturer, moreso as I'm not in South Africa. The cross-border logistics and time become not only tedious but also very expensive both in time and transportation. FW does have a local distributor but because I bought the battery directly from FW through the PowerForumStore they were not wiling to assist (rightfully or wrongly so), that's another story. Fortunately, to be fair to FW when they had a tech coming to their distributor he took the time and sorted my issue within half a day, which I was very grateful for and also on warranty. So I've not entirely lost faith in FW and do recommend their timeous attendance, on the whole, of their tech support team and professionalism.

Just glad you managed to get a favourable outcome in the end. Politics aside it's important where you buy equipment and people forget that post sales support and lifecycle and probably the 2 most important aspects of any piece of technical equipment purchase.

Living in a remote cross border location can complicate life for you even further.