FCSP RS485 port access Success!

[Aminorjourney]

Thank you Brian.
You might also look on this forum and others for posts about problems with the HIS, I know I have seen some others saying it stops working intermittently.

I vaguely remember that Ford was doing a survey about the HIS - it was mentioned on one of the threads.

A suggestion I have is for Ford to license other home backup system makers to use the Ford battery access programs and certify their systems.

For example the Sigenergy V2X:

https://www.sigenergy.com/en/index/v2x_compatibility

Now it could be that Ford has an exclusive deal with Delta/Sun Run to use their set up. But if not, opening it up to competition would be a win-win for Ford and us Lightning owners, eh?

Chris

This 100% - Get Rid of silly, problematic Bluetooth thing too. Sure, it's worked in the lab, but I would conservatively say 90% of people with that system don't have it reliably working.

Sponsored

 

[chl]

This 100% - Get Rid of silly, problematic Bluetooth thing too. Sure, it's worked in the lab, but I would conservatively say 90% of people with that system don't have it reliably working.

Yes, Bluetooth is old tech and problematic.

While the wifi to the FCSP was a bit iffy when I first got it, when I changed to a new wifi router, no problems since, so why use blue tooth anyway? Either hard wire it to the LAN or use the wifi.

Go figure...

 

[ktom]

thinking out loud.

it seems that the FCSP and HIS must be communicating over the rs485. I believe this thread started with debugging/reverse engineering this port to figure a way to tell the truck to turn on the DC backfeed through the charger.

Doing this does one truly functional thing, allows us an alternative to using the abusively costly sunrun (possibly flakey as well) solution. Depending on Ford/Sunrun to provide help is painful if not completely useless. Ford software leaves A LOT to be desired. Doing this also means that we are sourcing our own inverters and the control mechanisms needed.

Finding these solutions and information satisfies our techy need to figure things out and wrest some control from the Ford service people. Depending on your point of view, wresting control from Ford might be a very functional thing to achieve.

The FCSP install spec says that the wires from the DC backfeed ports are to be 8 guage. This size of wire is large enough to reliably support 30A. The 240V outlet in the truck bed is rated at 30A. I had initially hoped that we could extract more current from the DC backfeed through the charger, but upon reading the install spec closer, it would appear that is not the case.

Aside from the techy side of our natures, the simplest solution, which has been mentioned before, is the cable from the truck to a switch in the house.

I love the idea of booting Ford and Sunrun from this solution but the KISS principle is getting my attention.

comments? is there some other consideration i am missing ?

 

[cjueden]

The DC side is running at ~400 nominal so 8AWG would be ~11kw - ~12kw

The 30 amp plug on the back of the truck is more functional cheaper and faster to implement. Yes!
Fun. No
And doesn't integrate into home assistant

 

[chl]

The 30 amp plug on the back of the truck is more functional cheaper and faster to implement. Yes!

Agreed, what I did with a GENERAC 6853, some wire, generator inlet box and cable, all for under $600 - it's manual, but if the truck is there, so am I.

Sponsored