Factory battery ongoing issues

[Kanuck]

I can't speak for the PB trucks, so this is coming from the view point of my ICE truck. Everything has went well since installing the H8 battery in my truck, all OTA's have flowed without aid of a charger. But still I only drive the truck about 12 miles a day on average. I can always tell when my soc has dropped below 75% as the ASS system ceases to function, especially in the morning after sitting over night on cold nights. I believe the net effect of the charging system was leaving the truck in an SOC deficit every day and cumulatively over a week or so allowing it to drop drop down due to the short trips, remote start, heated seats and so forth. A half hour drive would always restore the charge, and ASS would function again.
Both the PCM and BCM are in control of the charging system function on the ICE trucks. I believe that Ford has addressed the charging system issues / algorithms with the latest updates to these modules. Since updating these in February. ASS works every time as soon as the truck reaches operating temperature, no matter how long it was parked. On remote start the idle speed is now 1300 where it was previously 1200. You can also hear the alternator working much harder after a remote start warm up as you walk up to the truck. And lastly after cold start and during the first few minutes of driving, and just about until operating temperatures is reached the the truck maintains a lower gear than necessary in order to keep the engine RPM up, thus additional charge thru the warmup cycle.
Something has changed, exactly what, I don't know. But this has all happened since the pcm and bcm updates.

I guess I am in for a FDRS session as I believe I have both updates showing in FDRS.

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[Gros Ventre]

What you keep missing, Is that often, There is little to no amperage behind that 15v. I've got literally 100's of recorded cycles where the truck spent the ENTIRE runtime above 15v and I didn't receive any charge. I will agree with you, As a pure charging comment, 15v is very high, but Ford isn't necessarily charging with it. As evident by the fan 5 thing. While voltage is higher with the fan on 5, the battery doesn't necessarily charge more or faster. I cant even say I notice an SOC change all things being equal.

Where in your experience, Which mind you isn't wrong, THIS battery, With THIS chemistry, charging like THIS does THIS is how things have been forever, and still is. Thats basic battery charging theory. However, Thats not what Ford is doing for whatever reason.

Do I agree with you that in the past did Ford possibly have a bad batch of batteries? Probaby. That coupled with the long lot stays when they couldn't get parts hurts even more. Since Ford says with an active truck you get a month before no start due to battery drain.But to say that still, 3 years later, people are still suffering from a bad batch of batteries, No. Just No. Ford will sell in upwards of 4 MILLION ICE 2021+ F150's by the end of the year. We will say conservatively, 25 batteries per layer (This figure is high as no packaging was included on a 48x48 pallet). Say 4 layers. (Prolly would only have been 2 or 3) So thats 100 batteries per skid. Now the standard max per semi trailer is 50 skids. Thats 800 semis of batteries. So we are talking THOUSANDS of batches of batteries. While its easy to say that the Ford battery is probably inferior to most if not all name brand aftermarket batteries, Its not a battery issue. not in 2022's or 2023's. Obviously there will be outlier with bad batteries, Its mass production, shit happens.

Just no, Not a battery issue. Can a different battery ;tsetup, chemistry, ect solve the problem? Absolutely. Will this work for everyone, No.

Ford could fix this right now, with a simple OTA. It aggravates me to no end that i'm about to put solar on my truck to keep this battery healthy when a free OTA would fix this permanently.

What you don't understand is that at 15VDC of course there is very little current going in, but current is still going in, charging and overcharging. The current into a lead acid battery is proportional to the state of charge versus the applied voltage. Once you reach full charge, there is no point in keeping a voltage higher than the full charge value. Further, if you do you begin damaging the battery. It's that simple, and that is the problem with the voltages I read. The only way they could have a system voltage of 15VDC and not be charging is if there were a separate battery circuit with current control. They do not have that.

 

[scott011422]

You are wrong and you are not. If we are talking about 100% charged batteries, Then i agree with you 100% . However, None of our batteries, Unless you made adjustments with the SOC value, are 100% charged. So the 15v isn't overcharging anything.

As far as the current control, The PB does have that in the DC/DC converter. I don't have trends on that, But I know it is on demand.

Some days, I can start my truck and the battery is at say 12.3v and drive it home at 15v and the battery is still at 12.3v, obviously no charging happened. Other days i'll get home and the battery will be 12.4 or 12.5. Same drive, same voltage.

As far as the 15v goes from Ford just in general, I have no idea. Why bump up the voltage when the fan is 5 or above? Why drop the voltage if you get out of the seat? Do the non PB do this too?

 

[Snakebitten]

While I have no clue how Ford has the battery current controlled on the Powerboost, I am certain that they have sensors and PIDs that are labeled with logical names, and those PIDs report values that match those labels.

Specifically, they have a PID for the LV Battery Current. It is measured in AMPs. And it reports both positive and negative integers. As well as 0.

And of course there's a PID for voltage, as well.

When the PID for SOC (Ford's proprietary value for SOC, in my opinion) is lower than 80%, the PID for current can be more than a "trickle". But if/when that value for SOC is 80% or more, that PID for current is almost always just a trickle.

The Voltage PID is far less consistent on my truck. I have seen that PID hit 15V. But I see 14.7 as the most common high mark when the SOC is below ~80%. And since I often externally raise the SOC to 80%+, I see voltage in the 12.7-13.4 range a lot on this truck.

I obviously didn't get one of the bad "batch" of batteries on my 2022. But I'm doubtful that a Motorcraft battery today deserves the reputation of Premium quality, that it once had in the industry.

 

[scott011422]

You know, Ford does not manage the AUX battery. Its only monitored, current only i believe. Maybe Ford ups the voltage to 15v to account for voltage drop to help charge this battery??

 

[Snakebitten]

Well since the auxiliary battery is connected to the AGM, isn't it subjected to the exact same battery management strategy as the AGM?

Or put another way, isn't the 12V battery really a combination of both batteries regardless?
No differently than if they were both under the hood side by side.

The only time they are 2 independent 12V sources is the brief moment that the ICE needs a 12V starter event.

 

[Gros Ventre]

You are wrong and you are not. If we are talking about 100% charged batteries, Then i agree with you 100% . However, None of our batteries, Unless you made adjustments with the SOC value, are 100% charged. So the 15v isn't overcharging anything.

As far as the current control, The PB does have that in the DC/DC converter. I don't have trends on that, But I know it is on demand.

Some days, I can start my truck and the battery is at say 12.3v and drive it home at 15v and the battery is still at 12.3v, obviously no charging happened. Other days i'll get home and the battery will be 12.4 or 12.5. Same drive, same voltage.

As far as the 15v goes from Ford just in general, I have no idea. Why bump up the voltage when the fan is 5 or above? Why drop the voltage if you get out of the seat? Do the non PB do this too?

I'm sorry my friend, you're on the wrong planet. I have measured 12VDC battery terminal voltage versus the overall system voltage. They are the same value. There is no separate "current controller." The bottom line remains that the current into a battery being charged is proportional to the difference between the state of charge and applied voltage. This is an exponentially decreasing current. Just because the current value may be only 0.1A doesn't mean it isn't overcharging. What happens in a battery being overcharged is it eventually begins evaporating away the water fraction of the electrolyte along with damaging the active material.

 

[scott011422]

Well since the auxiliary battery is connected to the AGM, isn't it subjected to the exact same battery management strategy as the AGM?

Or put another way, isn't the 12V battery really a combination of both batteries regardless?
No differently than if they were both under the hood side by side.

The only time they are 2 independent 12V sources is the brief moment that the ICE needs a 12V starter event.

That is correct. There is a passive coil sensor thing on the aux, But otherwise yes.

I was just thinking about the long length of cables and voltage drop, Was just a thought.

 

[scott011422]

I'm sorry my friend, you're on the wrong planet. I have measured 12VDC battery terminal voltage versus the overall system voltage. They are the same value. There is no separate "current controller." The bottom line remains that the current into a battery being charged is proportional to the difference between the state of charge and applied voltage. This is an exponentially decreasing current. Just because the current value may be only 0.1A doesn't mean it isn't overcharging. What happens in a battery being overcharged is it eventually begins evaporating away the water fraction of the electrolyte along with damaging the active material.

Nobody said anything about the voltages being different. Or a seperate "Current Controller"

AGAIN, on a fully charged battery, You are right. However, we are not talking about fully charged batteries. 15v at 0.1A is NOT overcharging a 30% SOC AGM.

If our batteries were fully charged, Everything you are saying is correct, and this thread and all others like this thread wouldn't be needed.. GETTING our batteries charged and maintaining them once they are are 2 totally different things.

 

[Bryan Simon]

way too much theorIzing going on here.
my 21 XLT 301 is now on the third battery.
Had one replaced at 18 mo, and I replaced again at 2 weeks beyond 3 yr.
ASS worked for awhile, then half-assed worked a lot longer (would not restart after stopping)(could this be safety?).
H8 installed and everything is working, windows not misbehaving.
I just want the damned thing to work as intended without babysitting.
98 Chev, 66 ElCamino, 65 Ranchero can all sit unattended for 6 mo and still work just fine.
My old Ranger (‘05 bought new) once sat 8 months and still started. 15 yrs and sold it with the 3rd battery that was replaced before the 2nd failed.

 

[Snakebitten]

Theorizing is forum nature.
It's the fuel that can lead (eventually) to solutions that anyone/everyone can benefit from.

There's nothing wrong with the percentage of folks that benefit from it while ignoring the theorizing, of course.

And although I too enjoy the simplicity of my more "analog" vehicles, there's nothing we can do about the direction the automotive industry is taking regarding technology. They are never going to manufacture another vehicle without it. So theorizing is here forever.

I am admittedly an addict.

 

[KTM753]

I just want the damned thing to work as intended without babysitting.

You have 3 choices:

1.) Live with the current state of your F-150

2.) buy a different vehicle, or perhaps drive one of your old ones.

3.) Read this forum "theorizing" with an open mind and maybe figure out a fix... have you updated your PCM with the latest software? I read a post earlier that advised that battery charging was better after update.

But a forum is literally a place for discussion by definition...

 

[HammaMan]

Based on what I've seen briefly monitoring the "SOC" variable, its calculation includes the aux batt if it's present. I have seen the SOC variable go from 87% to 100% in less than 15 minutes as the LFP batt gobbled up power (under-hood was already fully charged). The under-hood battery uses a shunt to measure the current while the aux battery has a current transformer, that doesn't really matter though. Below is some battery usage info regarding how much energy is consumed for a given circumstance. For those with continued issues, it's probably due to the proximity of the truck to the key fob and it constantly getting woken up. Even with welcome lighting disabled, there is still a BCM wakeup occurring, it's just using 1/5th of the power.

I had to disable welcome lighting on my mach-e because my phone would trigger it from 40' away. While I don't carry my keys in my pocket indoors, my phone does move around and simply picking up my phone and looking at it was enough to trigger the lighting wakeup to the point that it'd low-power sync almost daily.

F150 specific energy costs when tested...

 

[Snakebitten]

Based on what I've seen briefly monitoring the "SOC" variable, its calculation includes the aux batt if it's present. I have seen the SOC variable go from 87% to 100% in less than 15 minutes as the LFP batt gobbled up power (under-hood was already fully charged). The under-hood battery uses a shunt to measure the current while the aux battery has a current transformer, that doesn't really matter though. Below is some battery usage info regarding how much energy is consumed for a given circumstance. For those with continued issues, it's probably due to the proximity of the truck to the key fob and it constantly getting woken up. Even with welcome lighting disabled, there is still a BCM wakeup occurring, it's just using 1/5th of the power.

I had to disable welcome lighting on my mach-e because my phone would trigger it from 40' away. While I don't carry my keys in my pocket indoors, my phone does move around and simply picking up my phone and looking at it was enough to trigger the lighting wakeup to the point that it'd low-power sync almost daily.

F150 specific energy costs when tested...

Funny you should mention it.
The Mach-E gets parked close to the RV because of the location of the L2 charger.
When my truck is parked similarly close, it sits quietly and calmly dormant even though the FOB is just inside the RV.
But the Phone-As-A-Key absolutely tortures the poor Mach-E and wakes it up while I'm sitting in the Lazyboy.

I turn Bluetooth off on the phone when I get in bed, just so the car can get some sleep while I'm attempting to as well. ?

 

[Gros Ventre]

Nobody said anything about the voltages being different. Or a seperate "Current Controller"

AGAIN, on a fully charged battery, You are right. However, we are not talking about fully charged batteries. 15v at 0.1A is NOT overcharging a 30% SOC AGM.

If our batteries were fully charged, Everything you are saying is correct, and this thread and all others like this thread wouldn't be needed.. GETTING our batteries charged and maintaining them once they are are 2 totally different things.

Once again you are blowing smoke... If the state of charge is 30% and the applied terminal voltage is 15VDC... the current into the battery will be well above 0.1 amps. Unless there is a means to control the current applied the electro-chemistry will determine the current in, given any specific applied voltage. Having measured both system and battery terminal voltages, they are the same. Hence I conclude that Ford did not install some kind of separate battery controller. If you control the system voltage to the temperature adjusted voltage that will charge or maintain the battery, your statement above is wrong. A battery that is fully charged is "floated" with neither ingoing nor outgoing current (and a battery can be floated at any state of charge). Your words about charging and then maintaining a battery charged are just wrong.

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