Mach-e Housepower

[SteveJo]

I just installed a small transfer panel to switch a few critical circuits, i.e., furnace, refrigerator, Wi-Fi, TiVo, TV. These pull a maximum of about 1500 watts continuous. The Mach-e provides power from its LVB via a 2000 watt inverter. The HVB keeps the LVB charged while the car is totally off. Coincidently, we had a two hour power failure last evening which interrupted our TV viewing for only 10 minutes...the time it took to plug-in inverter, etc.

Inverter System Equipment Costs:

$360.39 Huntkey 30 Amp 6 Circuits Transfer Kit
$190.01 XWJNE 2000W Power Inverter 12V to 110V Pure Sine Wave
$ 70.98 2awg wiring; 150 amp switched inline fuse
$ 13.77 Linkstyle 1000A Pure Copper Jumper Cables Boost Clamps
$ 8.92 Camco (55165) Heavy Duty RV Dogbone Electrical Adapter
Available 50' 600w (14amp) Heavy Duty Extension Cord
----------
$644.17

 

[RickMachE]

How long will that run for?

 

[ohmslaw]

Do you know the rating of the onboard charger from HV to battery. Sure hope it’s at least 2000 watts (assuming the battery will have enough charge to compensate for converter losses etc)

 

[TheVirtualTim]

That's a 35 amp hour AGM 12v battery. That wont be able to power much in your house. There is a charger that will maintain the 12v from the high-voltage battery but it wont be able to keep up with the rate of drain.

The F-150 Lightning can do this but that's because it has an onboard inverter that can supply up to 9.6kW from the high-voltage battery pack. The Mach-E doesn't have that.

 

[SteveJo]

... There is a charger that will maintain the 12v from the high-voltage battery but it wont be able to keep up with the rate of drain.

My testing and actual usage shows the LVB gets down to the low 10's before the HVB kicks in with 14+ to recharge. BTW, not trying to power much except keeping the food frozen and me NOT.

 

[dtbaker61]

I just installed a small transfer panel to switch a few critical circuits, i.e., furnace, refrigerator, Wi-Fi, TiVo, TV. These pull a maximum of about 1500 watts continuous. The Mach-e provides power from its LVB via a 2000 watt inverter. The HVB keeps the LVB charged while the car is totally off. Coincidently, we had a two hour power failure last evening which interrupted our TV viewing for only 10 minutes...the time it took to plug-in inverter, etc.

Inverter System Equipment Costs:

$360.39 Huntkey 30 Amp 6 Circuits Transfer Kit
$190.01 XWJNE 2000W Power Inverter 12V to 110V Pure Sine Wave
$ 70.98 2awg wiring; 150 amp switched inline fuse
$ 13.77 Linkstyle 1000A Pure Copper Jumper Cables Boost Clamps
$ 8.92 Camco (55165) Heavy Duty RV Dogbone Electrical Adapter
Available 50' 600w (14amp) Heavy Duty Extension Cord
----------
$644.17

yup!
....and you 'can' do it even cheaper if you just backfeed the nearest 110v outlet as long as you manually turn off your 'main' breaker, and all other 240v load circuits that you don't want to try and power up.

be aware that the on board dc-dc has a limit of 160amps to keep the LVB charged, and MME has to be 'on' for best results.

https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...120vac-power-from-lvb-connection-points.7317/

my next project under the frunk will be to improve the connection points to something better than jumper cable clamps.

 

[dtbaker61]

My testing and actual usage shows the LVB gets down to the low 10's before the HVB kicks in with 14+ to recharge. BTW, not trying to power much except keeping the food frozen and me NOT.

this is why you should turn MME 'on', and disable timeout. then the dc-dc will maintain LVB at 14.

 

[ARK]

Well this is certainly one way to stress test your 12v battery for any potential issues, lol.

Creative set up, OP.

 

[Mach-Lee]

FYI to anyone considering this, the maximum safe inverter size for the Mach-E is 1200W. That is also the maximum safe continuous wattage you can run.

Using an inverter larger than 1200W could cause the DC/DC converter to overload beyond its 160A peak absolute maximum output. You must consider the inverter efficiency and overload margin in your amperage calculations. For example, a 1200W inverter running with a 115% overload (1380W) operating at 75% efficiency (1840W input) will draw 153A, just under the absolute maximum output of 160A. Using this size will ensure the inverter will shut down on overload before 160A input is ever exceeded. This is important to avoid damage to the very expensive DC/DC converter module or the electrical system of your Mach-E. This usage is not approved by Ford, and may void your warranty if electronic modules are damaged by dirty input spikes of the inverter. I would avoid using a cheap Chinese model found on Amazon for this reason, try to find a model that is FCC certified which ensures proper input filtering is present.

Check the spec sheet of the inverter and make sure the maximum rated input amperage is less than about 130A (about 80% of 160A). Remember the inverter can draw more than that during an overload before shutting down, hence the headroom. You should also consider that the car will use some power (maybe 10A) when turned on at idle, which has to come out of the 160A budget as well.

Models I would recommend:
https://samlexamerica.com/products/1000-watt-pure-sine-wave-inverter-pst-1000f-12/
https://samlexamerica.com/products/1000-watt-pure-sine-wave-inverter-ntx-1000-12/

 

[jennq]

wow, just wow. learning a lot. thanks engineers/scientists/et al. and ready for my Lightning

 

[Jimrpa]

So something I've always wondered - suppose you actually DO have an extended power outage (say Texas), and need power at your home. You then decide to power your home from your electric vehicle. What happens when you end up drawing your car battery and your utility still hasn't restored your electricity? I'd still rather get a generator or some other type of backup system that doesn't rely on draining my only form of transportation.

 

[dtbaker61]

So something I've always wondered - suppose you actually DO have an extended power outage (say Texas), and need power at your home. You then decide to power your home from your electric vehicle. What happens when you end up drawing your car battery and your utility still hasn't restored your electricity? I'd still rather get a generator or some other type of backup system that doesn't rely on draining my only form of transportation.

well.... I consider power from an EV to be a 'stopgap' measure to extend the time of dealing with an outage without buying an independent Generator and/or batteries that you seldom if ever use. basically, just buying a $300 inverter is all you need to have 'critical' power for refrigerator, phone, circ pumps, etc. No need for a $3k generator, or a $20k 'Powerwall'.

i.e. without adding ANY energy, I could run critical loads in my house for .... at least two weeks from my MME sr battery. Certainly enough for dealing with planned rolling brownouts during peak usage times, and re-charging the MME off-peak the next day.

'long term' outages are a different matter... but all you'd really need to add is enough PV modules to fire up a small 120v inverter, a couple batteries as a buffer, and charge the MME battery pack at level 1 charge during the days. lvl 1 charger is less than 1500 watts, so all you would need is 2 kW of Solar, charge controller, and a 2kw inverter (at a minimum) to charge the MME batteries back up 'enough' for critical loads and run after the sun goes down.... as long as there was a little sun.

basically... the whole idea is to avoid buying a bunch of battery you seldom use since you've got a giant pack available in the vehicle.

 

[dtbaker61]

FYI to anyone considering this, the maximum safe inverter size for the Mach-E is 1200W. That is also the maximum safe continuous wattage you can run.

the continuous load max from the MME dc-dc may well be somewhere between 1200 and 2000 watts.... but I am talking about 'critical loads' to back up a house likely to hover around 200-300 watts between a refrigerator, phone and computer charger, a couple lights etc. I would expect an occasional load of 1000-1500 watts to run a microwave/coffeemaker/etc for a minute or two.... NOT trying to run air conditioning or space heaters.

or at a job site, running maybe 2 or 3 cordless tool batter chargers... 100-200 watts.

yes we will need to be aware of the continuous load limits.... but why not take advantage of all the energy stored in a BEV without buying a bunch of stationary batteries to sit on a shelf in the garage?

as long as all the 'big' loads are off the table in an Emergency/Brownout, using a BEV battery pack seems like an elegant way to handle it with very little expense.

 

[Jimrpa]

I guess I’m extremely fortunate in that I live in an area that very rarely has power outages and the longest outage we had was less than a day. Over the years, I’ve occasionally thought of buying a small Honda generator, but I’ve never been able to make the case for one. My home is heated/cooled by a heat pump, so it’s not doing anything there. About all it could do is run my refrigerator. Maybe keep my phone charged. Not worth the bother to have another piece of crap to maintain.

 

[HuntingPudel]

I guess I’m extremely fortunate in that I live in an area that very rarely has power outages and the longest outage we had was less than a day. Over the years, I’ve occasionally thought of buying a small Honda generator, but I’ve never been able to make the case for one. My home is heated/cooled by a heat pump, so it’s not doing anything there. About all it could do is run my refrigerator. Maybe keep my phone charged. Not worth the bother to have another piece of crap to maintain.

Heh, and if you need to charge your phone you can aleays plug it into the car and turn the car on. ??

Sponsored