Does Anyone Drive an EB Infrequently and for Short Trips With No Battery Charge Issues?

[Packer Bill]

I put my Tremor with the AGM with 65 miles on OD onto a noco genius 5 and it took 2+ days to stop blinking!!!

My Maverick is 2 years old and I recently put my NOCO 5 on my EFB battery and it took 26 hours to get a solid green light. And I thought that was unusually long until I read your post.

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[MakinDoForNow]

My Maverick is 2 years old and I recently put my NOCO 5 on my EFB battery and it took 26 hours to get a solid green light. And I thought that was unusually long until I read your post.

I wish I had checked my voltage before I started but it must have been really low. It did spend a long time with a very slow blink. My battery is an AGM which are more sensitive to overcharging. So last 2+/-% can take several hours from what I've read. Then maybe my noco went into automatic recovery mode but the recovery button was not lit up?

 

[Jman79]

Regularity use a maintainer if you want battery to last, PERIOD! pretty much all cars nowadays. AGM's are excellent long life batteries if taken care of with some designed to last 10-12 years but depending on use even with proper care expected life can be 2-4 years. This is extract from excellent brand battery warranty NOTE THE >14 day requirement...
Allowing Prolonged storage (>14 days) of vehicles with fuel injection computers, alarms, GPS and other
electrical devices that require continuous battery power to support active memories; this power drain must be offset with a maintenance-float
charger, periodic charging or disconnecting the Battery to prevent irreversible damage to the Battery plates.

Not surprising that cars are following a trend already set by most other tech, never truly being off. Smart phones didn't get really decent battery life or built in battery saver tech until about 10 years into their existence.

Not great, but also not surprising.

 

[Bob The Builder]

Sometimes my Maverick will sit for a week or more without driving and it will go into what I call "Battery Saver Mode" as opposed to a "Deep Sleep Mode". Not sure if this is correct terminology and if it is, it is being used in the right context, but in what I refer to as saver mode the interior lights will not come on when the door is opened but the truck will start right up and the battery will start charging at 15.4V or thereabouts.

Auto Start Stop has not functioned since the third or so day I have owned the truck. At first I was concerned about that, not the fact I lost A.S.S. but why. Turns out A.S.S. needs at least 70% SOC on the battery to function and my battery, it appears, never quite gets lo that level. It seems to top off at around 12.65V whatever that translates to in terms of SOC.

I have given up trying to figure things out with this. Everything I read says AGM batteries should be charged at no more than around 14.75V give or take, yet the truck alternator charges at around 15.4V. Even when my battery is at 12.65V it is still not enough to engage the A.S.S. even though it appears that 12.65V should be giving the battery a SOC above the 70% threshold.

Battery Saver mode is engaged at below 12V reading no load. This is below the 50% SOC AGM conventional wisdom says one will start to see battery degradation and accelerated failure.

 

[Packer Bill]

For a flooded battery, 12.6 to 12.7 volts is 100% charged. For the AGM battery, 12.8 to 12.9 volts is 100% charged. These numbers are read 30 minutes after the truck turned off and no load on the battery.

I do know that others have reported their flooded battery 100% charged and read 12.65 volts. I have the EFB type in my ECO Mav and I have to put my NOCO charger on it once a week.

 

[colinl]

Sometimes my Maverick will sit for a week or more without driving and it will go into what I call "Battery Saver Mode" as opposed to a "Deep Sleep Mode". Not sure if this is correct terminology and if it is, it is being used in the right context, but in what I refer to as saver mode the interior lights will not come on when the door is opened but the truck will start right up and the battery will start charging at 15.4V or thereabouts.

Auto Start Stop has not functioned since the third or so day I have owned the truck. At first I was concerned about that, not the fact I lost A.S.S. but why. Turns out A.S.S. needs at least 70% SOC on the battery to function and my battery, it appears, never quite gets lo that level. It seems to top off at around 12.65V whatever that translates to in terms of SOC.

I have given up trying to figure things out with this. Everything I read says AGM batteries should be charged at no more than around 14.75V give or take, yet the truck alternator charges at around 15.4V. Even when my battery is at 12.65V it is still not enough to engage the A.S.S. even though it appears that 12.65V should be giving the battery a SOC above the 70% threshold.

Battery Saver mode is engaged at below 12V reading no load. This is below the 50% SOC AGM conventional wisdom says one will start to see battery degradation and accelerated failure.

did you try resetting the Battery Monitoring System? it will fix that issue, unless your battery actually is failing.

mine was doing the same, and it did fix it. takes 30 seconds.

 

[Old Man]

Modern cars never go to sleep but are always doing something. I drive mine short distances a couple of times a week and get messages on my Ford app that it is shutting down remote services to save the battery while it is sitting in the garage. My last 3 cars always needed a battery tender to keep the batteries up (VW and 2 Wranglers). I just accept that as what is needed for new cars with low mileage. Every 3 weeks I go for a 30 - 40 minute highway drive to recharge.

Just like some roads are getting electric charging built into them to charge EVs driving on them, maybe garages should have a trickle charger built into the floor.

 

[Bob The Builder]

did you try resetting the Battery Monitoring System? it will fix that issue, unless your battery actually is failing.

mine was doing the same, and it did fix it. takes 30 seconds.

I have not but I have the directions on a post-it ready to go. Do you do it before or after the battery is given a charge? Thanx.

 

[colinl]

I have not but I have the directions on a post-it ready to go. Do you do it before or after the battery is given a charge? Thanx.

any time is a good time. (edit: the forum thinks it's smarter than me, automatically formatting the numbers... incorrectly )


Resetting the Battery Sensor


When you install a new battery, reset the battery sensor by doing the following:

1. Switch the ignition on, and leave the engine off.

Note: Complete Steps 2 and 3 within 10 seconds.

2. Flash the high beam headlamps five times, ending with the high beams off.

3. Press and release the brake pedal three times.
The battery warning lamp flashes three times to confirm that the reset is successful.

 

[Bob The Builder]

any time is a good time. (edit: the forum thinks it's smarter than me, automatically formatting the numbers... incorrectly )


Resetting the Battery Sensor


When you install a new battery, reset the battery sensor by doing the following:

1. Switch the ignition on, and leave the engine off.

Note: Complete Steps 2 and 3 within 10 seconds.

2. Flash the high beam headlamps five times, ending with the high beams off.

3. Press and release the brake pedal three times.
The battery warning lamp flashes three times to confirm that the reset is successful.

After a half dozen tries of doing something wrong, I finally got the battery icon to blink 3 times. I think I was rubbing the top of my head in a CCW rotation instead of CW.

Now we shall see what difference it makes. Thanx!!

 

[23grayXLT84]

Ford and many other OEMs I think limit SOC to 80% and for a standard non-AGM type battery that is about 12.45V depending where you look for that info. Only way to get 100% is for a trickle charger but that will be short lived because little to no charging from the DC/DC will happen since the BMS senses higher than 80%. Either way a good idea to maintain once in a while.

There are a few scenarios that could cause issues
1) Poor quality batteries that discharge / have trouble holding charge and the BMS / charging system can't keep up so eventually over time it leads to no start or deep sleep
2) Overall poor charging algorithm
3) Perhaps a defective BMS ($70 part ?)which might not throw any codes, but its defective enough to report false information to the rest of the system.

MTC and FB groups are littered with these issues. Ford is doing absolutely nothing about it.
I called a dealer just for fun and service advisor acted like they have never heard of "deep sleep" or of any 12V battery problems...

 

[Gschaef]

Only way to get 100% is for a trickle charger but that will be short lived because little to no charging from the DC/DC will happen since the BMS senses higher than 80%

All good information. Could you expand on above quote? Specifically why this is short lived? I’m at the point where I’m ready to accept the need for a trickle charger if it will solve most of these issues.

 

[23grayXLT84]

All good information. Could you expand on above quote? Specifically why this is short lived? I’m at the point where I’m ready to accept the need for a trickle charger if it will solve most of these issues.

I am not expert just a theory from gathering info from various sources.
Ford considers the battery fully charged at 80% or ~12.45v. This likely means that if you charge to 100% using a charger, while driving little to no charging will occur since BMS sees battery above 80%. So you will deplete from your 100% charged down to 80% rather fast.

Regardless, I think putting it on a charger is a good idea, though might seem like a waste of time based on my statement above but anytime an acid battery is not at 100% you being the process of sulfation which over time causes loss of capacity.

think of trickle charging as "conditioning" your battery.

 

[paneubert]

I wish I had checked my voltage before I started but it must have been really low. It did spend a long time with a very slow blink. My battery is an AGM which are more sensitive to overcharging. So last 2+/-% can take several hours from what I've read. Then maybe my noco went into automatic recovery mode but the recovery button was not lit up?

Mine is at 12.2V as of about half an hour ago. Has not been driven since yesterday.

I put my NOCO 5 on it around 5 PM. Initial reading was the "25% charged" light level. Did not stick around to see if it jumped to 50% shortly after or not. Will leave it overnight and see what it reads at about 8 AM. That will be at about 15 hours on the trickle charger.

Last time I did this I connected directly to the positive and negative posts of the battery (between the BMS and the negative post). 13.1V right after I disconnected it about 12 hours later (did not wait for it to claim it was done), 12.75V the next morning (no usage between, so more of true value of the actual battery voltage), 12.55V about 24 hours later after I did a couple really short drives.

This time I connected to the positive terminal, but instead of putting negative between the BMS and battery, I connected the negative of the NOCO 5 to the "Ground" post that is bolted to the frame and has a wire running to the BMS and then the negative battery post. I am curious to see if this results in any different charging profile or final voltage/charge. Will the BMS throttle the NOCO 5 so that the battery only charges to 80%? Or will the NOCO 5 keep pumping juice until it feels the battery is charged to 100%. We will see......

 

[23grayXLT84]

BMS won't throttle instead will likely report high voltage next time you drive without need for any charging until you eventually fall below that magic 80% give or take.

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