Vehicle Power Down Timer

[JJR]

I just Chatted with Ford about this.
I don't drive my MME much so in order to keep the LVB charged I turn the car on in the garage for 12 hours or so once a week.
To do this I turn off the VPDT. There is a slider to do this.
The problem I have encountered numerous time is that when I slide the setting to the off position, two seconds later the slider moves back to the on position.
I play this game of going from on to off three or four time before the slider finally stays off.
I thought the problem was that I was pressing the slider rather than "sliding" it, but that's not it.

Sponsored

 

[RickMachE]

The car must be running to turn off the timer. If you power down, it will reset.

I would not do what you're doing. I would buy a Battery Tender and hook it up to the jump posts. Running the car for 12 hours to charge the battery is crazy IMO.

 

[JJR]

Yes, the MME is "on" through all this.
I've heard about a battery tender but I'd rather not have to buy another piece of equipment that draws current and has another power cord or two to deal with when I can use the current I have already paid for in the HVB.

 

[RickMachE]

Yes, the MME is "on" through all this.
I've heard about a battery tender but I'd rather not have to buy another piece of equipment that draws current and has another power cord or two to deal with when I can use the current I have already paid for in the HVB.

Whatever works for you, but you're using a whole lot more power to charge the 12v battery with the car running than a Battery Tender would use.

 

[JJR]

Whatever works for you, but you're using a whole lot more power to charge the 12v battery with the car running than a Battery Tender would use.

That’s the problem with not driving. One factor is the HVB health. Using the energy from the HVB to charge the LVB has its benefits.

 

[milepost1]

The car must be running to turn off the timer. If you power down, it will reset.

I would not do what you're doing. I would buy a Battery Tender and hook it up to the jump posts. Running the car for 12 hours to charge the battery is crazy IMO.

My biggest complaint is I have to do any Battery tending at all. With 91kW would think it could keep 12v battery topped off. 91kW does nothing for me if 12v is drained. And not easy to jump if you can't get damn door open, even if you can it is a process. Done way to many times. 50k car and I have to spend another 150$ to overcome poor design of 12v.

 

[bbulkow]

My biggest complaint is I have to do any Battery tending at all. With 91kW would think it could keep 12v battery topped off. 91kW does nothing for me if 12v is drained. And not easy to jump if you can't get damn door open, even if you can it is a process. Done way to many times. 50k car and I have to spend another 150$ to overcome poor design of 12v.

I agree with you about needing a battery tender. And having to unplug or remove from posts when i want to drive. Blech.

Let's turn this into the form of a question.

At what point of not driving does one need to mind the 12v? A week? A month? 3 months? Roughly, i know ymmv...

What happens if you don't (for a fully sw updated car)?

A bunch of alerts, or a dead car that needs 12v to pop the frunk, get into the cabin, turn on car? And buy a new 12v battery sooner?

And, why?

There is a huge hvb right there. Having the car check every few hours and apply a little charge seems like a fix that went in a while ago?

 

[JJR]

This isn’t backed by any research but I believe that when the LVB drops below 12.1v the HVB will connect and keep the voltage from dropping further and issue a warning message.
What I don’t understand is why the LVB stops receiving current when the HVB has reached its limit. If my L2 charger is plugged in why stop charging the LVB. Why not become a battery tender.
As far as how long does the car sit until the LVB drops to trigger the warning message; my experience is about 3 weeks.
There’s connectivity from the IoT that sucks up energy.

 

[Mach-Lee]

At what point of not driving does one need to mind the 12v? A week? A month? 3 months? Roughly, i know ymmv...

I would say if you have to park the car longer than a month you should disconnect the 12V battery or put it on a battery tender. The longest I've parked my car is two weeks and the LVB was still above 50% when I got back to it. No issues. That's how it should be if everything is working right and you don't have 12V drains.

What I don’t understand is why the LVB stops receiving current when the HVB has reached its limit. If my L2 charger is plugged in why stop charging the LVB. Why not become a battery tender.

Because you would have about a 300W constant draw from the wall to keep the car awake and the 12V battery charging. It would be the same as leaving a 300W light bulb running 24/7, which wastes a lot of electricity. The car goes to sleep after it's done charging and only wakes up if the 12V battery gets too low, which is the proper way to handle that on an EV.

If you only get a battery message after the car has been sitting for 3 weeks, I'd say that's normal and you can probably ignore it. No further action is necessary unless you are getting that message more than once every two weeks. If so, then you need to follow this to fix the cause: Thread 'Troubleshooting "Electrical System Drain Service Required" Message'

Also, leaving the car on for 12 hours once a week is excessive. I would say 2-4 hours every two weeks. Or just let the car take car of it itself.

 

[Dustus]

I was under the impression that if you are connected to a L2 charger it would tend the battery but I could be wrong. I haven't let mine sit long enough to test it.

 

[Sikkun]

I was under the impression that if you are connected to a L2 charger it would tend the battery but I could be wrong. I haven't let mine sit long enough to test it.

It charges the 12v when the HVB is charging. But once the care is done charging, it doesn’t. (Unless you have a software error and your car never stops charging).

 

[Dustus]

It charges the 12v when the HVB is charging. But once the care is done charging, it doesn’t. (Unless you have a software error and your car never stops charging).

Going back to the OPs issue, rather than start the car, could you say set your charge limit low and then weekly bump it up 5% and tell the car to charge again? Would it recharge the LVB during that charge session?

After saying this, not sure it would work as I had to physically go to my car and wake it up last time I tried to change my charge levels. The app wouldn't hold any changes until I did that.

 

[Sikkun]

Going back to the OPs issue, rather than start the car, could you say set your charge limit low and then weekly bump it up 5% and tell the car to charge again? Would it recharge the LVB during that charge session?

Would work better if you used a L1 charger because it’ll take longer letting the 12v charge more.

You could also get it down to say 10% and just let it slow charge for the 3-4 days and that will charge the 12v nicely. But you’ll need to do it again in a couple weeks.

Granted even if you don’t want to go the battery tender route. I don’t think you need to run it 12 hours to get it back up to a decent charge anyway. Pretty sure 30min-1hr is sufficient.

 

[milepost1]

I would say if you have to park the car longer than a month you should disconnect the 12V battery or put it on a battery tender. The longest I've parked my car is two weeks and the LVB was still above 50% when I got back to it. No issues. That's how it should be if everything is working right and you don't have 12V drains.



Because you would have about a 300W constant draw from the wall to keep the car awake and the 12V battery charging. It would be the same as leaving a 300W light bulb running 24/7, which wastes a lot of electricity. The car goes to sleep after it's done charging and only wakes up if the 12V battery gets too low, which is the proper way to handle that on an EV.

If you only get a battery message after the car has been sitting for 3 weeks, I'd say that's normal and you can probably ignore it. No further action is necessary unless you are getting that message more than once every two weeks. If so, then you need to follow this to fix the cause: Thread 'Troubleshooting "Electrical System Drain Service Required" Message'

Also, leaving the car on for 12 hours once a week is excessive. I would say 2-4 hours every two weeks. Or just let the car take car of it itself.

If it "wakes up" to charge battery. Couldn't it wake up charge 12v and then go back to sleep? Wether plugged in or not? Don't really need whole car running continuesly for it to monitor 12v, or even to charge 12v.
Question. So when charging car 300w are wasted just keeping car awake?

 

[generaltso]

My biggest complaint is I have to do any Battery tending at all. With 91kW would think it could keep 12v battery topped off. 91kW does nothing for me if 12v is drained. And not easy to jump if you can't get damn door open, even if you can it is a process. Done way to many times. 50k car and I have to spend another 150$ to overcome poor design of 12v.

It’s a trade-off. My EV9 does keep the 12V battery topped off by charging it with the HVB up to 3 times a day. A light on the dash even illuminates to show when this is happening. But this also means that the HVB loses 1% SOC every 2-3 days. Is that better than Ford’s strategy? Maybe. But it also sure was nice that that the MME had almost zero vampire drain when parked.

Sponsored