12v oopsie…. Left car plugged into an EVSE that was itself unplugged

[Ahlarict]

We had a few hours without power yesterday, so I flipped the breaker on my EVSE circuit to run my generator. Power came on, I turned off the generator, and forgot to reenergize the EVSE circuit. Car sat overnight this way. It fired a warning of an electrical drain last night around 9pm. Then reported to my app that an alarm had been triggered because it detected a door had been opened around 4am. It’s unresponsive right now. App reports it’s in “battery saver mode” and the car won’t react to the key, app, door code, or a 12v trickle charger attached to the front backup leads…. Any suggestions?

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[B177y]

We had a few hours without power yesterday, so I flipped the breaker on my EVSE circuit to run my generator. Power came on, I turned off the generator, and forgot to reenergize the EVSE circuit. Car sat overnight this way. It fired a warning of an electrical drain last night around 9pm. Then reported to my app that an alarm had been triggered because it detected a door had been opened around 4am. It’s unresponsive right now. App reports it’s in “battery saver mode” and the car won’t react to the key, app, door code, or a 12v trickle charger attached to the front backup leads…. Any suggestions?

Try more than a "trickle charger" on the front bumper leads. That should be a jumper box or jumper cables, I didn't know if a "trickle charger" will be able to pop the frunk.

 

[Ahlarict]

Try more than a "trickle charger" on the front bumper leads. That should be a jumper box or jumper cables, I didn't know if a "trickle charger" will be able to pop the frunk.

My lawnmower’s battery did the trick!

 

[B177y]

If you have a set of jumper cables, you could likely get the car started by jumping it with the lawnmower battery, then drive or keep the car "running" for an hour or so to charge off of the HVB.

 

[zvez]

My lawnmower’s battery did the trick!

also keep in mind for those pigtails to work to open frunk battery has to be nearly dead. Some people who've had a not quite dead battery have repeatedly hit the door open button to kill the rest of the battery voltage to enable the pigtails to work.

 

[ipca204]

Try more than a "trickle charger" on the front bumper leads. That should be a jumper box or jumper cables, I didn't know if a "trickle charger" will be able to pop the frunk.

spot on..trickle charger won't work

 

[Ahlarict]

And some of y'all laughed at me when I suggested having my jump-starter accessible from the outside of the car somehow (instead of having it locked uselessly in my frunk) ;-)

Only problem I'm now having is my adaptive suspension threw a code (likely "low voltage", duh!) that has disabled some driving modes and wants me to make a service appointment to clear. Ugh. Mongoose time?

 

[B177y]

Let it run for a few hours to charge the battery on its own, assuming that your HVB is charged sufficiently. Make sure that you're in "run" and not "accessory mode".

Or now is the time to use that trickle charger or a normal charger if you have one. Let it go overnight (or longer). Charge it using the jump posts so that the BMS stays calibrated if you use the charger. If you remove the battery to charge it, reset the BMS when you re-connect.

If it was me, I'd disconnect the battery completely, charge fully on the battery posts directly, and reconnect when fully charged then reset the BMS. This should reset all of the modules from the 12 volt being disconnected and reset the BMS so that it calibrates to your fully charged battery.

The BMS reset took me a couple of tries until I got the battery icon to flash. Use a 1 second cadence for each step seems to be the secret sauce.

---

BMS RESET (I forget who to credit with this, it's from someone on the F150Lightningforum):

Press the start button without stepping on the brake (Accessory mode).

Flash the highbeams with the stalk 5 times, and then step on the brake pedal 3 times, and after that check the red battery icon on the instrument panel to see that it flashes three times.

Then press the start button again to turn the truck (or Mach-e) off.

Turn truck (MME) back on and drive away.

 

[fkyct]

We had a few hours without power yesterday, so I flipped the breaker on my EVSE circuit to run my generator. Power came on, I turned off the generator, and forgot to reenergize the EVSE circuit. Car sat overnight this way. It fired a warning of an electrical drain last night around 9pm. Then reported to my app that an alarm had been triggered because it detected a door had been opened around 4am. It’s unresponsive right now. App reports it’s in “battery saver mode” and the car won’t react to the key, app, door code, or a 12v trickle charger attached to the front backup leads…. Any suggestions?

I had a similar event with my Lightning last week. I had it parked for 10 days with my OBD2 device plugged in. I got an alarm alert at midnight. My neighbor told me the hazard flashers were going off but no horn. When I went to the truck shortly afterwards, the battery still must have had some power because I used the door pillar keypad to open unlock the truck.

When the door was opened none of the interior lights came on and the dash and center screens did not come alive. When I hit the Start button everything came alive again. I let it run for about 15 minutes.

THE NEXT DAY I got in the truck and 5 minutes after driving it the center screen displayed the dreaded "Powertrain Malfunction, Power Reduced" with a Yellow Wrench. Power was still showing 100% available and it drove fine. After about 20 minutes the Wrench went out and has remained out for several days.

I have a service visit scheduled for later tis week because of the Powertrain Malfunction is still on my Ford Pass and I want them to check codes to make sure nothing else is causing it.

I suspect this was all caused by the 12V battery being drained with the OBD2 device plugged in.

What are your thoughts?

 

[Ahlarict]

I had a similar event with my Lightning last week. I had it parked for 10 days with my OBD2 device plugged in. I got an alarm alert at midnight. My neighbor told me the hazard flashers were going off but no horn. When I went to the truck shortly afterwards, the battery still must have had some power because I used the door pillar keypad to open unlock the truck.

When the door was opened none of the interior lights came on and the dash and center screens did not come alive. When I hit the Start button everything came alive again. I let it run for about 15 minutes.

THE NEXT DAY I got in the truck and 5 minutes after driving it the center screen displayed the dreaded "Powertrain Malfunction, Power Reduced" with a Yellow Wrench. Power was still showing 100% available and it drove fine. After about 20 minutes the Wrench went out and has remained out for several days.

I have a service visit scheduled for later tis week because of the Powertrain Malfunction is still on my Ford Pass and I want them to check codes to make sure nothing else is causing it.

I suspect this was all caused by the 12V battery being drained with the OBD2 device plugged in.

What are your thoughts?

Sounds like you got there 60 minutes before I did I tried the door code but al I got was one faint flicker of a dot when I tapped it! Our garage shares a wall with our master bedroom, so if that horn had made a squeak we'd have heard it...

Let's go in and have them clear the friggin' code, then charge Ford for the service then hopefully Ford'll get off their butts and tweak their 12v drain logic to oh, I dunno, tap into that massive traction battery occasionally to forestall costly goat rodeos like this?

EDIT
I just keyed it on after disconnecting that trickle charger that'd been connected to it all night - Wrench is gone! When I told my wife, she said "aww... maybe it just needed a little time..." As good a hypothesis as any, I guess! Service appointment cancelled.

 

[Maquis]

Your event had nothing to do with having an unpowered EVSE plugged in.

 

[Ahlarict]

Your event had nothing to do with having an unpowered EVSE plugged in.

Interesting theory, care to explain? I'm not in a hurry to perform any testing to confirm or refute, though, but there are no parasitic devices that I've installed to explain the sudden drain.

 

[Maquis]

Interesting theory, care to explain? I'm not in a hurry to perform any testing to confirm or refute, though, but there are no parasitic devices that I've installed to explain the sudden drain.

There’s nothing in an unpowered EVSE to drain the battery. People who use the schedule in the EVSE for charging have this situation all the time.

 

[Ahlarict]

Now I see your line of reasoning here. Perhaps some capacitors in my Grizzl-e Duo were able to power something that tricked Mach-e into spinning while trying to initiate the charging cycle?

 

[Sikkun]

When I hit the Start button everything came alive again. I let it run for about 15 minutes.

Need to run it much longer than 15 minutes to make up for the battery drain.

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