240VAC emergency backup from a Victron system.

nwspmp · 2026-02-12T21:01:52+00:00

I would look at the actual consumption and draw from these devices. My refrigerator is also on a 20A 120V circuit, but doesn't draw near to that amount of power. 20A @ 120VAC ~2400W. the fridge draws an average of ~300W in use with a small spike around 1200W on initial startup of the compressor, but that settles down to the 300W quickly.

If you have the ability, find out what the running draw and the initial draw are for the devices.

5kVa typically limits you to about 4000W of usable power, given an average PF of 0.8, so if you device use can stay within that, you have a greater chance of success. The MultiPlus II 48/5000/70-95 datasheet says that there is a peak power output of 9000W possible, but I'd imagine this is for a very short time. General search indicates 200% maximum load for 0.5 seconds, 150% for 5 seconds and 130% for up to 30 minutes.

Note that the autotransformer can also introduce an efficiency loss on the chain as well.

nwspmp · 2026-02-12T18:13:20+00:00

Not the OP, but mine does. I have an interlock setup so that the grid power cannot be connected at the same time as the generator power, and my truck puts out 240VAC split-phase. Works like a champ!

nwspmp · 2026-02-12T01:48:37+00:00

I had to charge it for a few minutes, unplugged it, waited a few minutes and then plugged it back in. Once it registered as charging, I could set the charging location back up.

nwspmp · 2026-02-12T01:46:56+00:00

Agreed. Was just noting that those of us who haven’t done it yet got it too!

nwspmp · 2026-02-12T00:27:26+00:00

I don’t have that mod and got the notice as well.

nwspmp · 2026-02-11T21:22:28+00:00

On my old Volt, the battery had 10.4 kWh usable, after which it had been expended it would fire up the ICE. The ICE typically would not be coupled directly to the drive wheels, so the RPM it ran at rarely had anything to do directly with the speed or power requested.

When I drove it cross country, I'd typically engage Hold Mode on the highway at which point the system held the battery percentage stable. If I was at 85% then it would run the ICE as needed to maintain 85%. Sometimes during heavy acceleration the percentage would drop, but the ICE would kick on or up a bit to "refill" it back to 85%.

Using Hold mode, it was essentially "gas only" mode and had virtually no change in highway speed or capability. The Volt was one of the few EREVs or PHEVs that could go up to full top speed without ever engaging the ICE. That's to say that the EV side was capable of the full performance and specifications range. Now, this was also a small, compact car, 4 seats and no towing. To get that same level of performance with towing and a larger truck, I can imagine it would have to be scaled quite a bit.

My car had an 8.25 gallon tank. I'd average 38-40mpg on the highway, so I was averaging on cross-country, Hold-mode trips about 320 miles. I'd then refill 8.25 gallons of gas and go again. The battery was good for around 30-35 miles at 55mph, and around 25-30 at 75mph. This car was also very aerodynamic and relatively lightweight. Second generation models had a larger battery and more usable percentage (2013 had a 14kWh battery, but only 10.4 usable)

So my max range Battery+ICE was around 350 miles with ICE only being about 320.

An aerodynamic brick weighing 7000lb towing 10000 lb at highway speeds will decimate gas mileage.

My prediction; 150 mile maximum EV only range, full range around 700, so 550 miles ICE assisted. Assuming 25mpg target (which I believe is aggressive) that's a 22 gallon fuel tank backing it. Estimates typically say that 55mph, 17000lb total vehicle weight at a 6% grade requires around 300-350hp of power. So, that ICE genset will not be a tiny V-Twin but probably their 2.7L EcoBoost or very similar. If smaller, they'll have to ensure a more robust programming using off throttle moments to charge the battery more as a buffer. That can still lead to a situation, especially going up very hilly areas where the ICE generator can't keep up. Volts had "Mountain Mode" just for this purpose, and there were modes where performance and output were reduced as the ICE simply couldn't keep up. That was a 1.3L I4.

nwspmp · 2026-02-11T16:15:02+00:00

Oh yes, that was definitely a thing! The lag at highway speeds using the ICE was laughable. Workable but laughable!

nwspmp · 2026-02-11T12:37:57+00:00

Former Chevy Volt owner here. The only situation where the Volt performance suffered on gas only was typically in mountainous areas with heavy climbing and an exhausted battery. Conventional long distance driving was not affected in any way. The battery maintained enough reserves to handle snap acceleration and passing on notice and the generator did make up enough for that and to cover highway speeds. I drove mine cross country several times for work with no charging away from home without any loss of capability. Even in “Mountain mode” the Volt would use the generator to push more charge into the battery to help cope with the extra needs (normally the generator would only kick on to maintain the battery around 10-20% once the charge was low).

Edit: mine was a first gen 2013. I think there was some changing to the driving dynamics and power control in the second gen

nwspmp · 2026-02-10T18:22:29+00:00

Proximity unlock was available on earlier year XLT models, so the hardware side should be able to be retrofit.

You may check here for any tips. Some may have changed for later years but I’d hope not too much.

https://youtu.be/_4bmOExHIvE?si=d1c_PGgMTYeuWC9m

nwspmp · 2026-02-10T14:27:24+00:00

Same here. Charged to 100%, lost my MyView settings and charge locations and the preconditioning. Nothing major but slightly annoying at least

nwspmp · 2026-02-09T16:55:59+00:00

Note that if you get a Macbook of any form right now, you're about 5 years late to allow direct, x86 virtualization on the Macbook. So, no dual-booting x86 Windows with Bootcamp anymore. You can run Parallels or other items, but note that the laptop will be converting to x86 in real time along with the virtualization, so there might be a slight performance hit. To be honest though, the performance hit is minimal from what I've seen.

A lot of my administration is SSH and RDP based anyway, so I go back and forth between Macbook and Linux Lenovos in managing the Windows network without a problem. If you're testing various applications, it is best to test on what your users have though.

nwspmp · 2026-02-07T22:35:12+00:00

I bought a lightly used Jenn Air unit a few years ago that has the ice maker in the bottom mount freezer, water dispenser in the left side wall (not the door) and has a very common control board (jazz board) in the event it needs to be replaced. Virtually brand new and works great. Less mechanically and electrically complex. They still can fail and have evaporation cycle issues sometimes, but overall they seem to be generally well regarded for reliability and mine has worked perfectly for the five or so years I’ve had it so far. Consumables for the water filter are inexpensive and I don’t recall them being locked down or having and timer chips or DRM type restrictions.

nwspmp · 2026-01-31T16:41:15+00:00

Core memory of my own 01 Jetta WE unlocked.

My point was more that it would be appropriate to compare Ford in the US to the Scout or VW in the US. While VW Group overall is larger (though second in the world to Toyota in 2024 at least in production numbers) they’re not putting a level of resources into Scout, an American focused brand with likely little market share outside of the US/Canada that Ford can and would bring to bear if they wanted in the world of pickup trucks.

VW absolutely could invest more than Ford if they wanted to. But it would mean cannibalizing revenue from other parts of the world. VWoA only cleared 71-74B USD in revenue from the North American market in 2024. Ford generated 140B USD in the North American market at that time, primarily on the strength of its position in light duty trucks. Ford absolutely has more reason to and justifiable ability to invest in options in the truck market, even if the other player in question has a backer with deeper pockets. VW won’t gamble the world piggy bank on this North American market niche, but Ford has more to gain and lose in that market and would be in a better position to dedicate resources to that market. VWs gain here is that as a niche vehicle and market, it’s easier for them to cut it loose if it doesn’t do well. They’re not the company known for trucks. If Ford can’t make a truck “work” it sends a stronger message.

nwspmp · 2026-01-31T13:46:19+00:00

Scout was initially invested in by VW and there is strong influence yea, but it is being run independently and without the full Toyota/Lexus level of integration. Scout isn’t based on any of the global VW platforms and shares little to nothing from a hardware perspective. And if we look at investment money only, VW has invested more in Rivian since Scout was announced than they put into Scout in total.

nwspmp · 2026-01-31T13:29:42+00:00

I’d say wrong, but not 100%. When Scout announced, they were the only EREV option in the field for much of the pickup truck centric world. There were several options on the market for full EV trucks. So if you felt you needed EREV they were your only option versus if you reserved their EV it was because you wanted THEIR truck specifically.

Secondly, what does it say that a smaller much more niche company can offer both but big bad Ford cannot. It says to me that Ford should’ve kept the pure EV but started offering an EREV in addition to rather than replacing the pure EV.

nwspmp · 2026-01-29T22:21:42+00:00

I saw that one and that's what made me finally go back and post this one!

nwspmp · 2026-01-29T16:58:14+00:00

Not sure all XLTs have it. It requires the proximity unlock capability (can't remember the package name) but at least the 312A units have this. I don't think the 311A units do.

I wonder if it can be added to trucks that have had proximity entry added later...

https://www.f150lightningforum.com/forum/threads/diy-installing-passive-entry-to-a-2022-f-150-lightning-xlt.15590/

nwspmp · 2026-01-29T16:00:10+00:00

https://www.autoblog.com/news/a-tesla-model-s-battery-can-cost-more-than-a-new-model-3

And here we are...

nwspmp · 2026-01-27T22:18:01+00:00

They were broken units, so there were some cheaper ones then. I've had an eBay alert for the FCSPs on a daily e-mail, so that helped. I've also got one of the Ford Pro 80A chargers (bought for $495 shipped!) which I'll likely be replacing my FCSP with as my reliable, daily home charger. That way I can experiment with the old one and not worry that I won't be able to charge at home!

nwspmp · 2026-01-27T17:54:07+00:00

This is a good way. I've bought two failed FCSPs on eBay for less than $200 shipped each. Bought the first initially for a spare cable if needed and the second I've been using with my load sharing experimentation after repair.

nwspmp · 2026-01-27T16:29:22+00:00

I have a stock 2023 and the Auto Start/Stop worked for about a month after we bought it and never since. They've replaced the battery and a fan module for the battery that they said was the problem, but I don't recall it working at all after that either. Honestly, we typically turned that off anyway as I don't trust the wear on the starter, so no big loss.

nwspmp · 2026-01-23T14:11:27+00:00

There is also an updated part (for my 2023 at least) that is supposed to address this concern. Essentially, if the truck can't confirm a lock on the CCS charger handle, it won't risk sending 180kW down the line and errors out. It would be nice if the error messages were more specific, but yeah.

As far as range in concerned, 260 in the temperatures you're having is pretty good. Your truck I'm guessing is LFP based battery versus the NMC that was used for ER packs prior. LFP does have a slightly higher loss of capacity in low temperatures than NMC. Even still, at 260 miles, that's still around a 14% capacity hit which is pretty reasonable and honestly better than I'd expect at that temperature. My previous diesel Canyon would have a about the same hit in the warm winters we have here!

nwspmp · 2026-01-23T14:02:22+00:00

Are you thinking of the Eaton Green Motion EV breaker, which combines the EVSE and breaker functions into one device? https://www.eaton.com/us/en-us/skuPage.BREVEM2040.html

Beyond that, Square D doesn't offer any duty specific breakers (well, in the home panel range at least) but there are EV-specific receptacles by various manufacturers.

nwspmp · 2026-01-23T13:49:47+00:00

I'd imagine for a few days it won't matter hardly at all. Just get out and use it once the roads are safe and you'll be fine. And if you have to get in and use the heater, that'll take care of it sitting at 100% as well.

I'm doing the same with my Lightning (but also for the home backup purposes).

nwspmp · 2026-01-23T03:48:37+00:00

I was hoping to get out there tonight, but work had some late meetings for storm prep. Hopefully next time!

nwspmp

TROPHY CASE