Ice Storm Power Outage — Pro Power Onboard to the Rescue!

MJDore · Feb 22, 2023

Power outage for 2+ hours here in Northern IL due to the ice storm moving across the Upper Midwest. Gave me a chance to tryout the truck’s pro power onboard. I was able to run extension cords from a bed outlet for 4 space heaters and several strands of LED lights in the kids’ rooms, all from one outlet. Was pulling around 2600 watts on the 3600 watt outlet. Ran it for probably an hour and lost only 1% state of charge on a cold battery. Really cool tech. Was about to try one of our refrigerators when the power came back on. Boo.

jazzmanmonty · Feb 22, 2023

I was hoping that snow and ice would hit a bit more south in Will County so I could test mine and get a day off, but noo. I'm stuck with rain. Just rain. And power.

biers · Feb 22, 2023

“Boo”

That’s how I feel too. I’ve got my generator panel installed but we only lose power for about an hour every 2-3 years. How can I save the day when our utility district is so damn reliable! Guess I’ll have to move to CA or TX

MJDore · Feb 22, 2023

It was a lot quieter than my neighbor’s generator, that’s for sure.

wiffleballpractice · Feb 23, 2023

Glad that the truck came to save the day!

Assuming I am reading correctly and you were using a single 120v outlet with 1 extension cord, I would suggest using 2 extension cords next time. 2600 W or ~22 amps is not safe to run on most typical 120V extension cords. I'm frankly surprised the truck allows this given that it provides 5-20p outlets.

Above is moot if you were using the 30amp 240V outlet with some sort of splitter on the end.

luebri · Feb 23, 2023

wiffleballpractice said:
Glad that the truck came to save the day!

Assuming I am reading correctly and you were using a single 120v outlet with 1 extension cord, I would suggest using 2 extension cords next time. 2600 W or ~22 amps is not safe to run on most typical 120V extension cords. I'm frankly surprised the truck allows this given that it provides 5-20p outlets.

Above is moot if you were using the 30amp 240V outlet with some sort of splitter on the end.

That is how I read it too. If that is the case, that means Ford lets a user draw > 15 amps using 120v pro power but we are not allowed to charge at more than 12 amps at 120v even if using the appropriate outlet and charger. Got it. Makes sense.

Maquis · Feb 23, 2023

luebri said:
That is how I read it too. If that is the case, that means Ford lets a user draw > 15 amps using 120v pro power but we are not allowed to charge at more than 12 amps at 120v even if using the appropriate outlet and charger. Got it. Makes sense.

The truck is in control and knows what it can deliver via ProPower.
It has no idea how crappy the wiring is feeding it’s charger.
Two vastly different scenarios.

jimfigler · Feb 23, 2023

Are not most space heaters 1500w ? So not to overload a 15amp outlet? So 4 space heaters would 6000w

frautumn · Feb 23, 2023

jimfigler said:
Are not most space heaters 1500w ? So not to overload a 15amp outlet? So 4 space heaters would 6000w

Most of mine have the option to run in low power mode which uses about half the energy, maybe the OP was doing the same. Still would be too much for a single 120V extension cord though.

MJDore · Feb 23, 2023

wiffleballpractice said:
Glad that the truck came to save the day!

Assuming I am reading correctly and you were using a single 120v outlet with 1 extension cord, I would suggest using 2 extension cords next time. 2600 W or ~22 amps is not safe to run on most typical 120V extension cords. I'm frankly surprised the truck allows this given that it provides 5-20p outlets.

Above is moot if you were using the 30amp 240V outlet with some sort of splitter on the end.

Two extension cords in the end

MJDore · Feb 23, 2023

jimfigler said:
Are not most space heaters 1500w ? So not to overload a 15amp outlet? So 4 space heaters would 6000w

Before going to two cords, this is what they were drawing

Ford F-150 Lightning Ice Storm Power Outage — Pro Power Onboard to the Rescue! ACE0DB85-FB7F-4932-AF52-9E36D5844EE3

luebri · Feb 23, 2023

So the truck allowed you to draw 2690W on a single 15amp extension cord before you smartly switched to 2 cords am I understanding this correctly?

luebri · Feb 23, 2023

Maquis said:
The truck is in control and knows what it can deliver via ProPower.
It has no idea how crappy the wiring is feeding it’s charger.
Two vastly different scenarios.

Genuinely curious the difference here, because it is not clicking with me.

I just tested this... and the truck will pull up to 3600 watts on a single 20 amp outlet in the bed of the truck. Furthermore I can easily plug a 15amp extension cord into that and dongle multiple devices off it.

I ran a simple 15-amp "Y" style extension cord from one outlet from the bed of the truck to a space heater and a pizza oven. Sustained draw over 3100w on 15amp rated wire (extension cord). Something that by the way could easily be done in a power outage like OP apparently originally did which is run as much as you can off one extension cord. It's much easier to sneak 1 cord thru a weather strip exterior door than 2!

So why is that more "protected" and less dangerous than a user that wants to charge using an EVSE at 16A / 120V on a dedicated 12/3 wired 20 amp breaker?!?

The "truck is in control" of protecting itself. It however is not preventing users from being stupid with the cabling of the output power. So why does it care if the user is being stupid with the input power?

Electrical wires get hot and can start fires if overrated on either side of the equation? What am I missing?

MJDore · Feb 23, 2023

luebri said:
Genuinely curious the difference here, because it is not clicking with me.

I just tested this... and the truck will pull up to 3600 watts on a single 20 amp outlet in the bed of the truck. Furthermore I can easily plug a 15amp extension cord into that and dongle multiple devices off it.

I ran a simple 15-amp "Y" style extension cord from one outlet from the bed of the truck to a space heater and a pizza oven. Sustained draw over 3100w on 15amp rated wire (extension cord). Something that by the way could easily be done in a power outage like OP apparently originally did which is run as much as you can off one extension cord. It's much easier to sneak 1 cord thru a weather strip exterior door than 2!

So why is that more "protected" and less dangerous than a user that wants to charge using an EVSE at 16A / 120V on a dedicated 12/3 wired 20 amp breaker?!?

The "truck is in control" of protecting itself. It however is not preventing users from being stupid with the cabling of the output power. So why does it care if the user is being stupid with the input power?

Electrical wires get hot and can start fires if overrated on either side of the equation? What am I missing?

The pic is showing one extension cord with power strip on the end, yes. The draw you see was 3 small space heaters and some LED light strands. I eventually went to two extension cords out of necessity rather than intellect, as you suggested.

wiffleballpractice · Feb 24, 2023

Didn't really mean to kick off so much anxiety here, just wanted to reduce some potential risk of fire in the future.

The way this is protected in your home is by having a breaker set for the houses wiring, but you could use a 15 amp extension cord on a 20 amp outlet in your home and achieve this same result. My concern is that this is a fair bit more than 20 amps on a single 5-20p outlet, and it looks like the truck might let you draw as much as 30 amps on a normal extension cord from the bed outlets, which is a really bad idea. They should really have 15 or 20 amp breakers somewhere in the system; I'd put them on pairs of 120 outlets.

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