Pro Power reserve limit fails

[dmd3home]

I'm still on the east coast, away from my truck....will work on this when I get back next week. I have been watching my truck remotely though and was disappointed when it went into " battery saver mode". I do have a battery maintainer on the 12v and am not sure why it would go into this mode....to save the 12v? It's fine! To save the traction battery? Until now I could see it and it hadn't dropped a single percent in 3 weeks. Now, I can't see anything as the app stops providing info. Strange setup. My Tesla app shows that yes, the car is "asleep", but still provides basic info. The Ford app says to "Start vehicle manually" ??? Right! A little hard from 1500 miles away!

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[chl]

I'm still on the east coast, away from my truck....will work on this when I get back next week. I have been watching my truck remotely though and was disappointed when it went into " battery saver mode". I do have a battery maintainer on the 12v and am not sure why it would go into this mode....to save the 12v? It's fine! To save the traction battery? Until now I could see it and it hadn't dropped a single percent in 3 weeks. Now, I can't see anything as the app stops providing info. Strange setup. My Tesla app shows that yes, the car is "asleep", but still provides basic info. The Ford app says to "Start vehicle manually" ??? Right! A little hard from 1500 miles away!

Thanks for replying.

I have not had the PPOB shut down early the last three time I used it under the same circumstances as before. The Ford person asked me about it, if anything was different, I just said no, but that one of the forum members said it could be somewhat random and intermittent.

Anyway I will keep trying.

If your maintainer is connected down stream of the BMS sensor on the negative side, then it should be keeping the 12V battery topped off if the truck is OFF.

But checking it remotely will use some extra 12v energy and could drain the battery more than just being off - maybe the maintainer can't replace that fast enough? If the battery was weak, the maintainer might not be able to compensate.

The battery saver mode indicates the 12v battery SOC has gotten low. But I haven't heard of that happening when the truck is OFF and on a maintainer. Never happened to me even when my truck was OFF for several days in a row.

I put mine on a maintainer about 6 months after I got the truck after the first OTA failure and it is on it every day the whole time the truck is not being used, so it was kind of new when I started using the maintainer.

There are so many possibilities though so it is hard to nail down why you are having this issue.

Always something, eh?

 

[dmd3home]

Thanks. Yes, my 12v battery maintainer is downstream of the bms and is always plugged in when I'm not driving my truck so I highly doubt the voltage is low and opening the app 1x or 2x per week could hardly deplete the 12v enough to require battery saver mode. I did run into this same thing a year ago when I was traveling too.....so, I'm guessing the algorithm is not looking at battery voltage but is based on time. But we're off the main subject of PPOB shutting down before the reserve setting. I'll be on that in a week or so. Thanks.

 

[EVpower]

@dmd3home , @chi I've been following this thread closely as we have already experienced 6 hours of utility outages this year. PPOB has become very important to us. I have run three extended tests of 6 hours or more from around 70% HV SOC without the Lightning shutting off PPOB or itself. ('23 MY Lariat ER)

Can you be sure that the low voltage battery in the trucks with the shut off problem is able to support all the truck systems? I'm aware that both of you are using a battery maintainer. I've had several UPS AGM batteries fail when under full load, but accepted the float charge O.K. The battery draw during the last OTA software updates may have been the end of reliable life for the 12-volt battery.

When the OEM LV battery in my Lightning hit 23 months after the manufacturer, I started to experience an odd list of problems. The battery still tested over 380 cold cranking amps. Those issues disappeared when the battery was replaced.

Steve

 

[dmd3home]

You make a good point. The 12v battery could be at the center of all this. In fact, This whole problem began immediately after that Blue Cruise/Sirius 25.2xxxx update (as mentioned earlier) back in Feb or March (?)......during that update there was a motor/pump on the right side of the rear differential that ran (very loudly) for 40 mins throughout the whole update (I posted a video of it at the beginning of this thread). ((Why was that motor/pump running anyway? What is it?)) If that motor/pump was running off the 12v, and I suspect it was, in spite of being on the maintainer at the time (a tiny current source compared to the draw) I have suspected from the beginning that the 12v was drawn down too low and corrupted the update causing this whole problem. It has been a problem ever since that day. And, the 12v is 3 years old. Maybe that update actually destroyed my 12v battery. But, I certainly have driven the truck many times since then with no problems and have had no indications of there being a 12v battery problem. I will load test my 12v and investigate further when I return to CA. However, I am surprised at your statement about you load testing your battery and that it tested at 380A.....I don't recall the required specs, but 380A seems like it would be sufficient for a battery that small. That wouldn't seem to warrant a battery replacement. What is there on our trucks that draws any significant current? Certainly 380 CCA should be sufficient for our use. Very strange! I still suspect though that that motor/pump running for 40 mins likely drew the 12v too low and the update was corrupted....causing these problems. But maybe it wiped out my 12v battery as well.

 

[chl]

@dmd3home , @chi I've been following this thread closely as we have already experienced 6 hours of utility outages this year. PPOB has become very important to us. I have run three extended tests of 6 hours or more from around 70% HV SOC without the Lightning shutting off PPOB or itself. ('23 MY Lariat ER)

Can you be sure that the low voltage battery in the trucks with the shut off problem is able to support all the truck systems? I'm aware that both of you are using a battery maintainer. I've had several UPS AGM batteries fail when under full load, but accepted the float charge O.K. The battery draw during the last OTA software updates may have been the end of reliable life for the 12-volt battery.

When the OEM LV battery in my Lightning hit 23 months after the manufacturer, I started to experience an odd list of problems. The battery still tested over 380 cold cranking amps. Those issues disappeared when the battery was replaced.

Steve

Yes, I wondered if it could have been the 12v battery because even though I have it on a maintainer most of the time, the test I did was with the truck OFF and not on the maintainer for over 3 hours.

I did turn the truck ON before the shut down, which should have eliminated a 12v battery problem since the DC-DC converter would be active. But maybe that was not enough because of the long time without it?

It is a possibility.

Since then I have run the PPOB several times now with the truck ON since the initial early shut down and it has not shut down early.

----details of the time if shut off early on me---

The first time it happened was when I was testing the PPOB when truck of OFF tweak I did with Forscan, I did not have the battery maintainer on while doing that test, I ran it for 3 hours or more without trouble but then I happened to look outside and see the Frunk had opened all by itself. I thought maybe the 12v battery got weak and the Frunk opened, so I went to the truck and turned it ON, and at that point the DC-DC would be running.

I also checked the truck shut down timer and it was off - it seems to turn off when using PPOB, though I have been able to toggle it on and off while running PPOB. After toggling it on then off, it says PPOB will run until the reserve is met.

Some time later the PPOB shut off - the reserve had not been met:

"...I set the reserve at 119 miles because it would take forever to go down from over 200 miles to anything lower. Our house emergency circuits don't use more than 1kW unless I run the microwave or have the coffee pot on, then we barely get to 1.5kW and only briefly.
So far, nothing unusual at 197 miles and still hovering around 90% SOC.
If it cuts off before the 119 mile threshold, then we'll know the update screwed the pooch....
...when it got to 191 miles range and 87% SOC, the PPOB shut OFF..."

From my 2 posts about it beginning with https://www.f150lightningforum.com/forum/threads/pro-power-reserve-limit-fails.35984/post-669701 .

I wondered if the Forscan tweak and running with the truck off had cause the issue, so I tested it again with the truck on and using the workaround of the "nearest station" instead of a mileage reserve. It defaulted to 10mi - the FORD app said 0 miles. It still does that, tried it today. But it did not shut down during a 1-1/2 hour test.

-----end of details----

But with the truck ON so far it has not shut off the PPOB early, unless I am forgetting something...?

So maybe it was a 12v battery problem.

I did not notice any "Battery Saver" warning but maybe I missed it?

Today I have run it from about 1pm to 6:30pm and then from about 8:00pm to now after 10pm, no issues.

I think tomorrow I'll try it with the truck OFF with no 12v maintainer and see if that causes a premature shut down.

 

[Gimme_my_MME]

Has every early shut down been when using PPOB with the truck off?

 

[dmd3home]

No, in fact, my truck, a 2023 pro, REQUIRES the truck to be "running" in order to use PPOB.
And that is an interesting point. Obviously, with the truck "running" there is greater drain on the 12v battery....screens are on, I have to turn the headlights off, audio, Bluetooth, etc. But others, who have made the Forscan mod to change the truck "on" requirement have also had this issue. But, still, the 12v battery could be the problem. Research is continuing! Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[chl]

Has every early shut down been when using PPOB with the truck off?

Not for the other people with the problem, but they may have older weaker batteries.

I am going to try using PPOB with the truck off while Ford is able to monitor it and see what happens after a few hours.

Not a fan of running down the 12v battery but for the sake of the experiment, I'll do it.

To use PPOB with the truck OFF you have to tweak our 2023's with FORscan which I did.
The others have not as far as I recall so the tweak is not the issue.
But a low SOC on the 12v could be.

 

[chl]

No, in fact, my truck, a 2023 pro, REQUIRES the truck to be "running" in order to use PPOB.
And that is an interesting point. Obviously, with the truck "running" there is greater drain on the 12v battery....screens are on, I have to turn the headlights off, audio, Bluetooth, etc. But others, who have made the Forscan mod to change the truck "on" requirement have also had this issue. But, still, the 12v battery could be the problem. Research is continuing! Thanks for your thoughts.

Greater drain, but the DC-DC converter is also on to compensate - of course we know it doesn't do a great job keeping the 12v healthy given all the 12v battery failures.

Both the DC-DC converter AND the inverters for the PPOB get their energy from the HVB, so during PPOB use, the energy to the DC-DC converter might be limited - wires have a capacity limit.

This doesn't seem to be widely reported problem with the PPOB, just the three of us so far, so that's a wrinkle in the theory, but still worth a try.

I told Ford about it and I am going to test the theory by running PPOB with the truck OFF today sometime and see what happens.

 

[EVpower]

I'll add to my post#79. I tested the OEM 12-volt battery I replaced in January after charging it overnight. It still showed good on the battery tester. When this battery was in the truck, I measured charge/discharge currents of up to 40 amps. This morning with the truck on, the replacement battery would discharge at 17 amps, dropping to 6 amps within a few minutes.

My Lightning is a '23 without the option of having PPOB on with the truck off.

Steve

 

[EVpower]

correction to post 86…make that charge at 17 amps and dropping to 6 amps within a few minutes.

Steve

 

[chl]

correction to post 86…make that charge at 17 amps and dropping to 6 amps within a few minutes.

Steve

Yes people have measured even higher amps when the battery is further discharged which is one reason they 'burn out' early - too high current after too low SOC.

I read somewhere that for a 35AH AGM the max charge current is optimally 10.5A.

There is a FORscan tweak for our 2023 trucks to enable PPOB with truck OFF: see my post above at https://www.f150lightningforum.com/forum/threads/pro-power-reserve-limit-fails.35984/post-669498

Anyway, back to the issue...

I have been running the truck with PPOB and the truck OFF since about 2pm today, still no premature shut off.

The FORD app does NOT keep accurate track of the HVB percentage, but it does adjust the mileage number.

I was refreshing the APP and the mileage would change, but then I lost communication with the truck for a brief period of time 15 minutes or so for an unknown reason.

I started at 90% HVB and that number did not change until I accidentally touched the "CLIMATE" button in the FORD app, which shut the PPOB off. I went out to the truck and turned the truck ON and the heated seat was on HIGH.

The HVB percentage was actually 85% at that time - the APP had never changed from 90%.

I restarted PPOB, set it to stay ON with truck OFF, turned the truck OFF locked it and continued the test.

I had manually set the reserve at 120 miles. The range started at 220 miles with 90%.

Still running without any problems.

Looks like I am not going to be able to recreate the original premature shut down of PPOB I had in April.
It has already run a lot longer than it did back then.

Maybe if I now turn ON the truck, the initial battery drain will kick in and shutdown the PPOB, going to try that now.

To be continued.

 

[chl]

Turned truck ON PPOB still running fine for now.

 

[chl]

Well it shut down at about 9:50pm, as if the 30 minute shut down timer was back ON.
Not at the reserve it shut down at 207 miles and 83% - the reserve was set to 120 miles but...

I didn't check that the 30 minute power down timer was still OFF.
It has always gone OFF whenever I am using PPOB by default, but maybe when I restarted the truck it turned ON?

Hmmm...

I just went and checked how the power down time works when PPOB in the bed is ON with something plugged in and the power down timer defaults to off.

So that was not an issue.

Seems like I got an example of the premature shutdown of the PPOB for Ford to analyze now!

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