Preconditioning for DC Fast Charging

[TaxmanHog]

I tried that today to see how it would work, and it didn’t. Exterior temps were 5-7° and I left with the pack at 17° as shown in my Carscanner app. The EA station was 36 miles away, and the battery was only 30° when I arrived. The battery coolant inlet never went above 30°, so it wasn’t pushing warm coolant from the immersion heater to the battery.

Any ideas? I was using the built-in navigation instead of CarPlay and selected the EA station from the list of chargers in the search window.

That is odd, though with it being so cold, I imagine you left EHEAT on, but if experimenting in the future, try turning it off as long as you can tolerate the cold, maybe more hot glycol will reach the HVB

BTW, how long was the DCFC session, I would expect the initial 15-30 minutes were ar low KW for energy going directly to the PTC to bring the HVB up to temp.

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[TomB985]

That is odd, though with it being so cold, I imagine you left EHEAT on, but if experimenting in the future, try turning it off as long as you can tolerate the cold, maybe more hot glycol will reach the HVB

BTW, how long was the DCFC session, I would expect the initial 15-30 minutes were ar low KW for energy going directly to the PTC to bring the HVB up to temp.

I didn’t need to charge this time. I’m sitting in the car wash a mile from another charger and just tried shutting the heat off. The coolant heater completely shut off even though nav is still set to the charger. Battery is at 28°.

 

[mr.Magoo]

I tried to set a DC fast charger as my destination the other day and I noted the same exact thing.

You can watch the heater kW and figure out what it's doing, when using the cabin-heater it "never" (that I've seen anyway) use more than 4-5kW and when it's heating the battery it's using around 9kW.
Additionally, the "outgoing" temperature is regulated around 50F (if memory serves me right) and upwards of 90-100 when heating the battery.
Lastly, you can look at the diverter valves and see which one and how much they're open.

In my case there was no attempt by the truck to heat the battery, despite setting an EV-Go charger as my destination with about a 25min drive there and around 55% SoC at the time I set it.

 

[TaxmanHog]

I tried to set a DC fast charger as my destination the other day and I noted the same exact thing.

You can watch the heater kW and figure out what it's doing, when using the cabin-heater it "never" (that I've seen anyway) use more than 4-5kW and when it's heating the battery it's using around 9kW.
Additionally, the "outgoing" temperature is regulated around 50F (if memory serves me right) and upwards of 90-100 when heating the battery.
Lastly, you can look at the diverter valves and see which one and how much they're open.

In my case there was no attempt by the truck to heat the battery, despite setting an EV-Go charger as my destination with about a 25min drive there and around 55% SoC at the time I set it.

Have you seen the diverter valve switch in the past when within 18-20 miles of the DCFC station?

 

[mr.Magoo]

Have you seen the diverter valve switch in the past when within 18-20 miles of the DCFC station?

I have not tried to use the onboard nav for a fast charger before, this was a test as I wanted to see how the system worked.

But I do have logs showing heating of the battery when plugged in (even on a L1 charger where it's using more of the HVB).

 

[mparz00]

After trying this multiple times, I communicated with Ford directly and was told the Lightning does not have this feature, only the Mach-e.

 

[TaxmanHog]

After trying this multiple times, I communicated with Ford directly and was told the Lightning does not have this feature, only the Mach-e.

https://www.f150lightningforum.com/...ta-software-update-released.13570/post-295660

Oddly, we Lightnings never had a 3.6.2 that I recall, though we had a 3.5.2 that brought PAAK to many of us MY22 owners along with potentially the mysterious enroute preconditioning to the DCFC stations.

The MME had a 3.6.2 and they also have a FAQ reference for the MME which the CSR is likely speaking about, it would ne nice if @Ford Motor Company came up with a reference page and maybe confirm which prior OTA brought us this feature.

 

[djwildstar]

Exterior temps were 5-7° and I left with the pack at 17° as shown in my Carscanner app. The EA station was 36 miles away, and the battery was only 30° when I arrived. The battery coolant inlet never went above 30° […] Any ideas?

Sorry, no good ideas. Ford has explicitly stated that if a fast charger is set as the next waypoint in Sync Navigation, then the truck will start preconditioning the battery at 18 miles from he charger. I do not have OBD2 data traces showing how this preconditioning works.

Some thoughts:

• 30F may be the minimum temperature for battery charging — depending on the exact chemistry, the minimum temperature for charging is somewhere around 0C.
• If you’re coming in for charging, I’m sure the battery management system wants to spend as little energy as possible pre-conditioning, so warming the pack from 17F to 30F might count as “pre-conditioning”.
• Roughly speaking, it takes about 0.25kWh of thermal energy to raise the temperature of an ER battery pack by 1C (1.8F). I would expect resistive electric heaters to be close to 100% efficient.
• I’m pretty sure Ford uses a 5kW resistive heater in the coolant loop (and one in each loop for 10kW total in Max Tow trucks).
• To accurately determine if the truck is applying battery heat, consider monitoring the high-voltage battery coolant heater power (HvbCHP, header 0x7e6, mode+PID 0x2248de) directly.
• I’m not 100% sure where the sensors are placed in the coolant loop, but I have observed that coolant temperature, high-voltage battery inlet temperature, and battery temperature all typically show different values.

 

[mparz00]

This is under Ford's public charging website, which applies to all Ford EV's - https://www.ford.com/support/how-to...-mustang-mach-e-battery-for-dc-fast-charging/

 

[TaxmanHog]

This is under Ford's public charging website, which applies to all Ford EV's - https://www.ford.com/support/how-to...-mustang-mach-e-battery-for-dc-fast-charging/

F150 Lightning is -NOT- mentioned on the page, hence my opinion that the Ford customer service rep's misguided statement to the poster above that it's not a feature in the truck.

It would be nice if that page stated "All Ford EV's" or the models the procedure applies to.

I gave them a piece of my mind on the matter but they're not hearing about it..... FFS

 

[TomB985]

Some thoughts:

• 30F may be the minimum temperature for battery charging — depending on the exact chemistry, the minimum temperature for charging is somewhere around 0C.
• If you’re coming in for charging, I’m sure the battery management system wants to spend as little energy as possible pre-conditioning, so warming the pack from 17F to 30F might count as “pre-conditioning”.
• Roughly speaking, it takes about 0.25kWh of thermal energy to raise the temperature of an ER battery pack by 1C (1.8F). I would expect resistive electric heaters to be close to 100% efficient.
• I’m pretty sure Ford uses a 5kW resistive heater in the coolant loop (and one in each loop for 10kW total in Max Tow trucks).
• To accurately determine if the truck is applying battery heat, consider monitoring the high-voltage battery coolant heater power (HvbCHP, header 0x7e6, mode+PID 0x2248de) directly.
• I’m not 100% sure where the sensors are placed in the coolant loop, but I have observed that coolant temperature, high-voltage battery inlet temperature, and battery temperature all typically show different values.

Max Tow trucks get a second refrigerant system with the added compressor, but I don't know the liquid cooling system is different. My truck doesn't have the Max Tow package, and I'm sure the heater is more than 5 kW. It regularly spikes to 11 kW on cold startup before coming down to maintain temperature as needed. I was pulling between 7-8 kW to maintain cabin temp in -10* weather last weekend.

My 2019 Model 3 only had a 5 kW heater, and it struggled to keep up when temperatures got below 10*. The Lightning seems to do as well as my much-better Model Y's heat pump, but uses a lot more power.

 

[TaxmanHog]

Max Tow trucks get a second refrigerant system with the added compressor, but I don't know the liquid cooling system is the same. My truck doesn't have the Max Tow package, and I'm sure the heater is more than 5 kW. It regularly spikes to 11 kW on cold startup before coming down to maintain temperature as needed. I was pulling between 7-8 kW to maintain cabin temp in -10* weather last weekend.

My 2019 Model 3 only had a 5 kW heater, and it struggled to keep up when temperatures got below 10*. The Lightning seems to do as well as my much-better Model Y's heat pump, but uses a lot more power.

Agreed, I've seen it peak to as high as 18 KW on my Emporia Vue2.
Today-----------------------------------------------------------Monday

 

[djwildstar]

Max Tow trucks get a second refrigerant system with the added compressor, but I don't know the liquid cooling system is different. My truck doesn't have the Max Tow package, and I'm sure the heater is more than 5 kW. It regularly spikes to 11 kW on cold startup before coming down to maintain temperature as needed. I was pulling between 7-8 kW to maintain cabin temp in -10* weather last weekend. [...] The Lightning seems to do as well as my much-better Model Y's heat pump, but uses a lot more power.

Thanks for the information -- I have a Max Tow truck, the other person who has provided detailed OBD2 data traces also has Max Tow, and the only teardown I've seen has been a Max Tow vehicle, so the heater difference was a guess on my part. Since you've observed 11kW, I'm going to assume that all Lightnings have 10kW (nominal) heater.

The Max Tow trucks have two compressors and two refrigerant loops. They also have two primary coolant loops, one for the motors (which also serves the other high-voltage electronics including the on-board chargers, 120V and 240V inverters, and DC-to-DC converters), and one for the high-voltage batteries. I had assumed that non-Max Tow trucks have a single loop, but it could be that all trucks have two loops, or that a different option (9.6kW Pro Power?) determines the single- versus dual-loop decision. I do know that Max Tow requires 9.6kW Pro Power, so there is some sort of interaction there.

Overall, a heat-pump system should provide the same amount of heat while using somewhere between 1/2 and 1/3rd the electrical power of a resistive heater.

 

[djwildstar]

Agreed, I've seen it peak to as high as 18 KW on my Emporia Vue2.

I'm not familiar with Vue2 -- is that 18kW charging power to the truck's on-board charger, charging power delivered to the battery, or thermal power (heat) applied to the battery?

 

[TaxmanHog]

I'm not familiar with Vue2 -- is that 18kW charging power to the truck's on-board charger, charging power delivered to the battery, or thermal power (heat) applied to the battery?

Total energy consumed via my FCSP, be it remote start, battery charging, departure time / pre-conditioning. I have observed various measures of energy flow at different process stages.

https://shop.emporiaenergy.com/products/gen-2-emporia-vue-whole-home-energy-monitor

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