FCSP and HIS save the day... Or the night?

[Aminorjourney]

Fridays are always our busiest night from my work point of view, as we are uploading our TEN News Round Up Show over at TransportEvolved. Since COVID, we've based the studio in my spare room, so when the Internet has a bad day, we do too.

Last night, I'd just finished uploading an episode when I noticed YouTube had done a bad thing with the transcoding (which it does sometimes), so I rushed upstairs, re-started a render, and was about 1/2 way through when the power went out.

Turns out someone took a corner badly, took out a couple of power poles, and blocked the road. They took the power out for 14/15 hours.

F150 Lightning was a champ with our Home Integration System. Yes, I had to manually start it, but it stayed on through the night, kept the house cool, the water running, and got us through the morning showers and breakfast. Used about 33 kWh all told by the time the power came back on, split between some yesterday and some today.

Don't think the poor bugger who had a bad day will be driving their car any more though. I just hope they're all safe. 14/15 hours without mains power is nothing compared to what could happen in a crash like this. Nobody deserves that.

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[Sirkillz]

So you used about 25 percent of the battery assuming you have an ER battery. Was that conservative or just normal use and do you know about what was being powered and for how long?

 

[Aminorjourney]

So you used about 25 percent of the battery assuming you have an ER battery. Was that conservative or just normal use and do you know about what was being powered and for how long?

Good questions.

So, I want to be completely honest. My house is *not* normal.

It's 2,000 square feet, and we have two completely separate heat pump systems: one for the house itself (heat and cool) plus one AC only system for our server room... where we house all the servers for Transport Evolved and our house. (It's basically a closet converted into a server/mechanical room).

We consume (on average) about 70-140 kWh a day, but that includes:

2x Video Servers on during work hours (for video editing etc)
1x house server
3x company servers (little Mac minis running web servers)

We also have off-grid water and sewerage, with the well system having a well pump and a reservoir pump. We also have a 15 kWp solar array, so in the height of summer, we're easily peaking at 80-90 kWh generated.

Everything at the house is also electric, and during work days, I'm charging up at LEAST one EV (between 30 kWh and 40 kWh) and often two. (My Video editor is a 70-mile round trip away and doesn't have at-home charging)

BUT yesterday into today:

1x AC for the server room running constantly for 74ºF - when the main video servers are off, it's pretty efficient. Last night, all but one server was in low power or off.

1x Heat pump for the house. Probably average about 4 kWh of consumption during the 14-15 hr power cut.

Well pump likely ran at night, and ran this morning for 2x showers etc, as well as the reservoir pump. I don't think the 'farm' irrigation system kicked in. We would have also heated the water. (We have a 10x20 greenhouse, livestock, vegetables etc). Our home server was running, but it's low power. This morning, we both had a non-cooked breakfast, but we ran the electric kettle and espresso machine for tea/coffee.

If we had to run the house in "normal" work day mode, without charging anyone's car, we'd likely use up most a battery.

If we ran it like we did overnight into this morning, we'd likely have lasted a few days. It was 85% SOC when the power went off, and about 55% SOC when finished. Looks like the truck put 39.1 kWh back in when it charged back up, so ~39-40 kWh used for 15 hours.

----

I should *also* note that we have a 320A supply at the house, and 4x Level 2 charging stations:

1x FCSP on a 100A (80A)circuit. Right now, I've limited the truck to 40A because I want to see if it helps the FCSP last longer and not overheat as much.
1x Span Drive on a 60A (48A)circuit)
2xOpenEvse on a shared 60A (48A) circuit)

 

[MaintGrl]

Sounds like the Lightning . . stepped up to the plate, and knocked a homer....

 

[Runaway Tractor]

It's satisfying and all. I feel the same way when I power the whole house all day with ProPower.

But the way I read this is "Ford's two biggest pieces of crap (FCSP and HIS) with multiple fatal design flaws requiring multiple replacements and endless problems actually functioned by only after intervening with manual steps you shouldn't have to do."

 

[SFsparkie]

Great story thanks for sharing the Lightning’s possibilities. As a retired electrician I can appreciate managing your “not normal” house with a 320A (76.8Kw) service.

 

[chl]

Fridays are always our busiest night from my work point of view, as we are uploading our TEN News Round Up Show over at TransportEvolved. Since COVID, we've based the studio in my spare room, so when the Internet has a bad day, we do too.

Last night, I'd just finished uploading an episode when I noticed YouTube had done a bad thing with the transcoding (which it does sometimes), so I rushed upstairs, re-started a render, and was about 1/2 way through when the power went out.

Turns out someone took a corner badly, took out a couple of power poles, and blocked the road. They took the power out for 14/15 hours.

F150 Lightning was a champ with our Home Integration System. Yes, I had to manually start it, but it stayed on through the night, kept the house cool, the water running, and got us through the morning showers and breakfast. Used about 33 kWh all told by the time the power came back on, split between some yesterday and some today.

Don't think the poor bugger who had a bad day will be driving their car any more though. I just hope they're all safe. 14/15 hours without mains power is nothing compared to what could happen in a crash like this. Nobody deserves that.

A similar thing happened around here, truck hit pole knocked it down and we lost power for several hours a few years ago.

Glad your HIS is working now, except for the automatic transfer feature.

So you used 40kWh in 15 hours.
40kWh/15h = 2.7kW per hour (approx) average
at 240V that's 2700/240=11.25A on average

Maybe you had some peak usage that required a significantly higher current?
Did your peak load ever exceed 7.2kW?

If not, then your house could just as easily have used the PPOB bed outlet through a $400 manual transfer switch.

My understanding was the HIS can provide a max of 40A (9.6kW).

I considered my household "emergency backup" loads and determined I could easily power them with the PPOB 7.2kW output.

Unless I run the coffee pot (1kW) AND the microwave (1.2kW on HIGH) at the same time, I find I uses less than 1kW for everything else most of the time. The refrigerator when cooling pushes it up to just over 1kW total.

So I figured the HIS 9.6kW output was overkill for my needs, and using the PPOB with a $400 transfer switch would suffice.

You might consider that as a backup of your HIS backup, if the HIS ever gets problematic again, eh?

 

[MidAtlanticLightningClub]

It's satisfying and all. I feel the same way when I power the whole house all day with ProPower.

But the way I read this is "Ford's two biggest pieces of crap (FCSP and HIS) with multiple fatal design flaws requiring multiple replacements and endless problems actually functioned by only after intervening with manual steps you shouldn't have to do."

True but it still powered the house even if the switch had to be flipped manually.

 

[Jim Lewis]

We had a power outage last night and my truck and HIS unit almost provided backup power. I think the problem was that when I last plugged in the charger head, I didn't properly seat the charger head in the truck port. I popped open the garage door to see what the truck was attempting to do with the power out. The truck charging port LEDs were all green and the highest lit one was flashing, usually a sure indication that the truck is about to transfer power, but nothing happened.

I figured it just need the old unplug/replug trick, but I didn't have my phone or fob with me. I couldn't unlock the charger port and remove the charger head. Then the grid power came on again.

I've never tried to remove the charger head from the truck charging port before when the truck was actively trying to transfer power. Has the charging port always locked up like that before or is it a feature of the recent PT 25.8.5 update that locks the charging port when DCFC charging? Backup power transfer is a little like DCFC in reverse so it would seem provident to lock the charging port to avoid unfortunate accidents. What's the official word from @Ford Motor Company on this, Brian?

 

[Aminorjourney]

A similar thing happened around here, truck hit pole knocked it down and we lost power for several hours a few years ago.

Glad your HIS is working now, except for the automatic transfer feature.

So you used 40kWh in 15 hours.
40kWh/15h = 2.7kW per hour (approx) average
at 240V that's 2700/240=11.25A on average

Maybe you had some peak usage that required a significantly higher current?
Did your peak load ever exceed 7.2kW?

If not, then your house could just as easily have used the PPOB bed outlet through a $400 manual transfer switch.

My understanding was the HIS can provide a max of 40A (9.6kW).

I considered my household "emergency backup" loads and determined I could easily power them with the PPOB 7.2kW output.

Unless I run the coffee pot (1kW) AND the microwave (1.2kW on HIGH) at the same time, I find I uses less than 1kW for everything else most of the time. The refrigerator when cooling pushes it up to just over 1kW total.

So I figured the HIS 9.6kW output was overkill for my needs, and using the PPOB with a $400 transfer switch would suffice.

You might consider that as a backup of your HIS backup, if the HIS ever gets problematic again, eh?

Yeah, the well pump and heat pump and heater together really do push 9.5 kW.

 

[Aminorjourney]

We had a power outage last night and my truck and HIS unit almost provided backup power. I think the problem was that when I last plugged in the charger head, I didn't properly seat the charger head in the truck port. I popped open the garage door to see what the truck was attempting to do with the power out. The truck charging port LEDs were all green and the highest lit one was flashing, usually a sure indication that the truck is about to transfer power, but nothing happened.

I figured it just need the old unplug/replug trick, but I didn't have my phone or fob with me. I couldn't unlock the charger port and remove the charger head. Then the grid power came on again.

I've never tried to remove the charger head from the truck charging port before when the truck was actively trying to transfer power. Has the charging port always locked up like that before or is it a feature of the recent PT 25.8.5 update that locks the charging port when DCFC charging? Backup power transfer is a little like DCFC in reverse so it would seem provident to lock the charging port to avoid unfortunate accidents. What's the official word from @Ford Motor Company on this, Brian?

If the charging station is pulling power - and your ring by the charge port is green - then you'll have it locked onto the vehicle, because you're pulling power DIRECTLY from the battery pack. You really *do not* want to arc those DC pins at that kind of voltage (and potential current)

 

[Jim Lewis]

You really *do not* want to arc those DC pins at that kind of voltage (and potential current)

Yes, pushing the UNLOCK button on the charging port should stop BPT. IIRC, it did in the past. I think I used to stop BPT tests that way. What I think has happened now is that PT 25.8.5 truly LOCKS the charging port and now, without a PAAK or a fob, the port UNLOCK won’t work, same as for DCFC. So, only a knowledgeable, “authorized“ person can stop DCFC or BPT and remove the charging head. But mine was a one-shot experiment.

 

[RLXXI]

If the charging station is pulling power - and your ring by the charge port is green - then you'll have it locked onto the vehicle, because you're pulling power DIRECTLY from the battery pack. You really *do not* want to arc those DC pins at that kind of voltage (and potential current)

This^.

I got a mild dose of a dc arc flash once upon a time, 100A 51.2v. Lets say I never want to experience that close call again holy crap what a zap.

 

[Aminorjourney]

We did publish our video on it:

 

[K6CCC]

I got a mild dose of a dc arc flash once upon a time, 100A 51.2v. Lets say I never want to experience that close call again holy crap what a zap.

Yea, you don't want to mess with it. Many years ago, one of my co-workers was adding another shelf of batteries to one of our station battery banks. That was four 190 AH 12 volt batteries in series. So 48 volts at 190 AH with a short circuit potential of a couple thousand amps. Due to an oops, he had a 1/4 inch bolt through one lug on a #2 AWG cable that he was hooking up to one end of the string, and the other end of that cable was laying across the other end of the string. So he shorted that battery string with a two foot long piece of #2 cable with his fingers holding the bolt. Most of the bolt vaporized instantly (while he was holding onto it). He ended up with 3rd degree burns on his finger and thumb, and got to know the fine docs at the Grossman Burn Center far better than you really want to need to.

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