LVB Charging: Is there a way to force it to keep the battery charged?

[Storx]

I am curious if anyone has figured out a way or possibly a setting i can change to make the truck keep the LVB at a higher voltage?

I ask this, because i just bought a Viofo A329T dashcam setup and after installing it this week, the next moring my truck wouldn't turn on. I checked the 12v battery, because i think its the stock one from 2022 still and the voltage was very low, so i removed it and charged the battery up and the truck responded just fine afterwards as if nothing happened. The very next morning the battery was dead again with low voltage, so i recharged it again and took it to be tested at the parts store, which they said it was still in good condition. When i installed the battery back in the truck, i left the dash cam unhooked and the last 2 days its been just fine, no more dead battery in the morning.

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[jamelski]

Nope ford LVB charge protocol is draconian

 

[carys98]

If you have a 2022 with the original battery it’s probably time to replace it.

 

[chriserx]

Most people will add a maintainer, you can also throttle your charge rate like I did. That being said if your battery is dead in a day with a dash cam it's probably time for a new battery.

 

[fhteagle]

Nope ford LVB charge protocol is draconian

Nope ford LVB charge protocol is idiotic.

FIFY.

 

[Storx]

Let it sit in the driveway running for an hour, that'll get it back to 100%. That's how mine works anyway. I use the cabin 120v to power my dash cams, the lvb is just way too small for an electron hungry camera/dvr system, I have twin cams front/rear.

I thought the interior outlets run off the LVB.

 

[Storx]

Most people will add a maintainer, you can also throttle your charge rate like I did. That being said if your battery is dead in a day with a dash cam it's probably time for a new battery.

I don't think that is true, our battery is just so tiny in capacity. The dash cam i bought says with 3 channels it will consume about 8 watts of power. When i put a meter on it, its pulling around 680mA in parking mode.

Our battery is rated for 30ah usable, so doing the math the dash cam will deplete the battery in 22ish hours in a perfect condition, but with it being aged its going to be less. I just didn't expect this, i didn't realize how much power these 4k dash cams consume.

 

[RickLightning]

I don't think that is true, our battery is just so tiny in capacity. The dash cam i bought says with 3 channels it will consume about 8 watts of power. When i put a meter on it, its pulling around 680mA in parking mode.

Our battery is rated for 30ah usable, so doing the math the dash cam will deplete the battery in 22ish hours in a perfect condition, but with it being aged its going to be less. I just didn't expect this, i didn't realize how much power these 4k dash cams consume.

Dashcams require their own battery supply, or the capability to shutdown when the 12v voltage reaches a certain point.

 

[Storx]

120v outlets not the lvb 12v outlets.

That is the ones im talking about. I was under the understanding the interior 120v outlets were fed power from the LVB circuit. I read that a while back somewhere, maybe they were wrong?

I should honestly just go check for myself, but does your 120v outlets come on automatically or stay on all the time? How are you powering it via the 120v if you dont mind sharing.

 

[Storx]

I have a 25ym that allows me to leave ppob on with key off. Ppob is fed by the dc to ac inverter.

Curious if this is a setting i can enable with FORscan. I been wanting to play around with it to turn off the 30 minute timeout.

 

[mr.Magoo]

When i put a meter on it, its pulling around 680mA in parking mode.

That seems like an awful lot for parking mode ? Mine (Thinkware U3000) draws about that number in "driving mode" and close to zero in parking mode (thanks to the radar function).

I have a left over b130x battery if you're interested and live in warmer climates, wouldn't recommend "dash cam batteries" if you live in cold climates, they're lithium based and get depleted and won't recharge in the winter (which is why I changed my setup).

 

[chl]

I am curious if anyone has figured out a way or possibly a setting i can change to make the truck keep the LVB at a higher voltage?

I ask this, because i just bought a Viofo A329T dashcam setup and after installing it this week, the next moring my truck wouldn't turn on. I checked the 12v battery, because i think its the stock one from 2022 still and the voltage was very low, so i removed it and charged the battery up and the truck responded just fine afterwards as if nothing happened. The very next morning the battery was dead again with low voltage, so i recharged it again and took it to be tested at the parts store, which they said it was still in good condition. When i installed the battery back in the truck, i left the dash cam unhooked and the last 2 days its been just fine, no more dead battery in the morning.

I haven't heard of any software setting that could fix the problem - Ford certainly could tweak things, but don't hold your breath.

Clearly your web cam is draining the battery.
If it is the original from 2022, replace it under warranty of you still can.

When you get the new one, also buy a $40 battery maintainer and keep the truck on it as much as possible when not being driven.

Right now, that is the only sure fire solution.

See these threads for more info:

Different ways to charge up the battery to get OTAs from the Mach-e forum:

https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/how-to-get-failed-otas-to-install.29749/

Also several posts here about putting trickle chargers on the battery and how to make it easier by adding a trickle charger wire:

https://www.f150lightningforum.com/forum/threads/charging-12v-battery.16979/

If you want details about AGM batteries:

https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/how-to-recondition-service-your-12v-battery.11069/

 

[chl]

Curious if this is a setting i can enable with FORscan. I been wanting to play around with it to turn off the 30 minute timeout.

If I have the 30min timer off with the truck menu, it seems to stay off the next time I use the truck sometimes, other times it seems to go back to the default shut down.
Wish I could figure out why.

 

[chl]

I don't think that is true, our battery is just so tiny in capacity. The dash cam i bought says with 3 channels it will consume about 8 watts of power. When i put a meter on it, its pulling around 680mA in parking mode.

Our battery is rated for 30ah usable, so doing the math the dash cam will deplete the battery in 22ish hours in a perfect condition, but with it being aged its going to be less. I just didn't expect this, i didn't realize how much power these 4k dash cams consume.

22ish hours - some math error there I think.
My truck 12v is a 35Ah AGM battery.

If it were fully charged the 35Ah / .68A = 51.5 ish hours, but of course that's if you fully depleted a fully charged battery with only the web cam load of 8.16Watts (12v x .68A).

However, the general problem with the system is the truck does not keep the 35Ah battery fully charged.

A battery maintainer is your best bet.

There is a built in algorithm that uses the DC-DC converter (taking energy from the HVB) to charge the 12v battery when it gets too low, but the threshold is 40% for 48 hours.

Now Ford could change that programming so the 12v battery is always kept at 100% but I haven't heard of any FORscan tweak that would do it. It would need an FDRS system and Ford programmers because I am sure multiple modules would be involved, so I think we can forget that idea, alas.

 

[SFsparkie]

For my dash cams the power is run through a low voltage relay set to turn off the power at 12.7V. For the driveway at home the truck is connected to a AGM battery maintainer via a connector in the charge port. Camera runs all night in the driveway but only a few hours at a parking lot.

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