Testing an Aux batt solution...

[tsigwing]

This is exactly what an entrepreneurial person would do. I've thought about having a friend 3d print a battery box with provisions for the OEM battery along with my X2 to run parallel in the same enclosure. It probably wouldn't take much work, but I doubt very many people want to spend $200 on a battery and another $50-70 on a battery box.

I certainly would have, especially if it was built well enough to route the cables in side the box. I had to loop mine outside the box and then through the top with extenders. Seems to work fine and is hidden and protected by the seat, but doesn't look OEM.

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[Jmitchelltfo]

I certainly would have, especially if it was built well enough to route the cables in side the box. I had to loop mine outside the box and then through the top with extenders. Seems to work fine and is hidden and protected by the seat, but doesn't look OEM.

You and I would definitely be the minority. If I had the battery box printed for a less expensive LFP, or a larger AGM that is where the big sales would happen.

Most of the people on the facebook group still think that a LFP will burn through the floor of our pickups due to how our "alternator isn't meant to charge AGM and lithium together". They want to lecture me about lithium, but don't even realize that their pickup has a DC/DC charger for the 12v system. LOL

Seems to be a much more educated crowd on this forum, but I'm sure there are plenty of people watching our experience to make sure we don't damage anything before they make the decision to run LFP.

I have run LFP on kayaks to power electronics for 5+ years, so I am confident that they are safe.

 

[Snakebitten]

It probably wouldn't take much work, but I doubt very many people want to spend $200 on a battery and another $50-70 on a battery box.

I bet that's chump change to some folks for eliminating the frustration once and for all?
But we have seen plenty of examples of fellas swearing off Ford products for the rest of their life, and trading away while taking $THOUSANDS hit for depreciation. So....... ??

I certainly would have, especially if it was built well enough to route the cables in side the box. I had to loop mine outside the box and then through the top with extenders. Seems to work fine and is hidden and protected by the seat, but doesn't look OEM.

That OEM underseat storage looks oem to me. ? It's a truck! There's all kinds of man-stuff in a man's unseat storage. I think the LFP kinda looks cool under there.

 

[FaaWrenchBndr]

The point is, I didn't need to do any topping off, ever again.

ok……wonderful

 

[Davexxxx]

ok……wonderful

Its been kinda fascinating, to see how resistant people are, to following simple directions.

I was right here, with everyone else, in real time, talking about the deep sleep warnings, system reboots and other battery crap that was happening to my truck and I waited a month, before reporting the success of the reset, because I didn't want to get people's hopes up, or spread b.s.

It worked. Once and done, for a minimum of 10 months straight.

 

[Snakebitten]

I wish these batteries could talk.
I'm pretty sure we would find that they are all living very different lives.

Some would be confused to hear that others aren't getting enough to eat. And others would be shocked to hear that there are batteries that get fed well daily.

Plenty of variables for runtime, ambients, and battery health. My 3 year old OEM Motorcraft is still in the truck because I protected it early on from getting too injured with the 2022 anemic charging strategy.

My point being is that I don't believe everyone needs to do what I do.

 

[Davexxxx]

I wish these batteries could talk.
I'm pretty sure we would find that they are all living very different lives.

Some would be confused to hear that others aren't getting enough to eat. And others would be shocked to hear that there are batteries that get fed well daily.

Plenty of variables for runtime, ambients, and battery health. My 3 year old OEM Motorcraft is still in the truck because I protected it early on from getting too injured with the 2022 anemic charging strategy.

My point being is that I don't believe everyone needs to do what I do.

This is very true, climate, garaged, or not, frequency and length of travel, which gadgets are enabled, even model yr and trim levels, as well as how long it sat before delivery, can all affect what happens to the batts.

I didn't want to do forscan and while I would have if it hadn't worked, I didn't buy the monitor you use either.

Because it worked

 

[RyanStroeder]

I certainly would have, especially if it was built well enough to route the cables in side the box. I had to loop mine outside the box and then through the top with extenders. Seems to work fine and is hidden and protected by the seat, but doesn't look OEM.

I think there's a good business case that if someone was to sell the full solution (cabling, underseat box, LFP etc...) with a great install video, they would have success

 

[HammaMan]

????

Keep the suggestions come'n. I'd already designed a 50ah batt that'd fit into the factory space on one of my tangent sidequests. Lack of BMS options at the time froze it. Also came up with a way to use LFP under-hood w/out killing the batt too. I keep waiting for others to figure it out but the chinese don't innovate like we do. Only their mega companies do any innovation. They seem to listen to youtubers pretty good though on the smaller companies.

Turns out the slim batt I got and shared initially disappeared some time ago from being made so only those who bought the slim 3" version can do the batt box mod

 

[Snakebitten]

I could easily mod the auxiliary box to accept the LFP I have. It's almost identical in size/dimensions to the one you have.
And I did INTEND to do the mod initially. But then in my haste to get the LFP in the truck before modifying the enclosure, I discovered the LFP sits secure and happy in the KingRanch underseat storage just fine.

I can return the truck to oem in 5 minutes total. ?

 

[johnnyvol]

I've been watching this thread closely and decided to go the LFP route. My battery arrived last week and while it will fit in the oem box with modification, I don't want to do that.

I also keep my rear seats folded up and keep the under seat storage folded down. The amount of open space is surprising. Anywho, that means I can't put the battery in the under seat storage either.

So, I'm going to make a custom, 3d printed battery enclosure to fit where the oem enclosure is now. It'll take me a while to get it done.

First thing I'll do is take out everything that's there now to get measurements of the oem enclosure and mount points. (If anyone has that info or knows where to get it feel free to save me the trouble.)

It'll take me a while to get it done.

Then it'll be design and prototyping. I'll be making it to fit the battery I purchased, but the basic design should be easily modified for size.

I will not be trying to monetize this or sell the design. This is just me doing something I'm interested in. So if any of you have any design ideas throw them out here.

It'll take me a while to get it done.

I'll take photos and all that other stuff people like to see as I go along. If there's enough interest I'll start my own thread.

It'll take me a while to get it done.

 

[Snakebitten]

Sounds great!

Looking forward to your work

 

[dochawk]

I wish these batteries could talk.

and you don't even have teenagers using the truck for it to snitch on!



tomorrow I pull the fuel injectors on the '98 F-150 that was once my father's, to deal with the really bad fuel that I had put in it. Extra Techron just ain't doing it. (but it was a good color for a barrel aged whiskey . . .)

Unfortunately, this may also solve the P1701/4 lean fuel warning that comes on heavy throttle while cold.

You see, when my wife's maverick comes, this one then passes to little brother, who will teach teenagers to drive in it . . .

 

[hpwjr]

I came home yesterday from a five day trip to Montana for a wedding, and found my truck sleeping deeply—11.9 volts. I put the truck on the charger overnight. I already had on the agenda to install the LFP battery, so I put it in this morning. It’s the X2 from Batteries Plus. I just went out to check voltage after the truck had been sitting for around an hour. 13.20 volts!! This mod works! I wound up putting it in parallel to the existing AGM. I put heavy duty Velcro on the back and the X2 sticks great to the carpet, so it won’t slide around. Very happy. Ford needs to get an oem solution to this battery drain issue.

 

[HammaMan]

Here's a sample of what the 30ah LFP can do. I probably had 60 board deployments during a new board installation / configuration I've been working on and doors/welcome lighting turning on and off for hours, truck never entered low power mode. See that little tail of a dip overnight? That's the LFP fully charging the primary AGM. If I go run the truck for 5 minutes the LFP will be back up to 100% as it'll instantly eat 30 amps topping back up.

Closer look at the 2 drives and sitting...

Did 2 20 minute drives fan 5 and it sat overnight, the first 20m drive I was in the truck for ~4hrs with several opens/closes board deployment etc as I was working out of it.

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