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12 Volt Battery Test


murphy
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I have a 12 volt battery charger that measures the battery charge state as part of the charging process.

 

I brought my 12 volt battery up to 100% from 50%.

The car hadn't been used for three days.

 

I disconnected the charger and did the Global Window open and close 4 times.

 

I connected the battery charger and it found the battery to be at 75% charge state.

 

I have also experienced the problem of turning the entertainment system on without turning the car on and inside of 15 minutes having the car shut down to protect the 12 volt battery.

 

No where can I find the actual capacity of the 12 volt battery.  The only spec is 390 CCA.  Cold Cranking Amps has no meaning in a car where the 12 volt battery is not used to start the engine.  The actual AH (ampere hour) capacity of the battery would be more meaningful.  In this application it should be a deep discharge battery but its a Ford proprietary battery and there are no specs available to say whether it is or isn't a deep discharge battery.  The fact that the voltage drops so quickly leads me to think that it is not.

 

This battery is only available from a Ford dealer.  None of the other places that sell automotive batteries have a replacement for it.

 

 

 

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I assume you are already aware of:

http://www.paulmachenry.com/product-information

 

From discussions in the Blue Oval forums, the two batteries mentioned in the manual appear to be the wrong batteries:  BXT-96R-500 or BXT-96R-590.  The correct one is BXT-99R-390, which is the one I have.  I think you have posted in other forums where people have discussed this issue.  Unfortunately, that one is not mentioned in the link above.

Edited by larryh
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I assume you are already aware of:

http://www.paulmachenry.com/product-information

 

From discussions in the Blue Oval forums, the two batteries mentioned in the manual appear to be the wrong batteries:  BXT-96R-500 or BXT-96R-590.  The correct one is BXT-99R-390, which is the one I have.  I think you have posted in other forums where people have discussed this issue.  Unfortunately, that one is not mentioned in the link above.

The BXT-99R-390 is the correct battery.  IMHO it is too small for the application.

I  was not aware of that link but it adds nothing new.  The 99R battery is not there nor is it in the master BCI documents.  There are many BCI Group code charts available on the internet but none that I have seen have the electrical specifications for the 99R battery.

The battery that was in my 2010 Fusion Hybrid, which was a BXT67R, was not documented anywhere either.

 

I am aware of the TSB that is supposed to increase the charge rate for the 12 volt battery.  I have asked my dealer to look into it but have heard nothing so far.

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  • 1 month later...

I borrowed a Fluke 87 multimeter which has the ability to determine the minimum, average, and maximum values over a given measurement time.

Over a 1 hour period the values of current draw from the 12 volt battery with the car turned off were:

minimum = 0.159 ampere
average = 0.169 ampere
maximum = 0.260 ampere

Next I activated the MyFordMobile app to get the status of the car.
The meter has a limit of 10 amperes.
The maximum exceeded the 10 ampere value for a few seconds and then dropped to 4.4 amperes.
A minute or so later it dropped to 2.8 amperes.
Then it dropped to 1.4 amperes.
It then slowly drifted back down to the previous levels.
 

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If you connect to the car with MyFordMobile, it probably has to start of the MFT hardware and SYNC.   They are probably the computer hardware/software that send data to and receive data from MyFord Mobile.   I assume the cellular communication hardware that talks to MyFord Mobile is always on so that you can contact the car from MyFord Mobile at any time, and hopefully does not use much power.  A cell phone doesn't use much power. 

Edited by larryh
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My 12 volt battery was completely dead today. I've had the car since march with no problems. Fortunately it was not my turn to drive. I returned home last night at about 6:30 pm. The car was sitting for about 20 hours before I noticed it was dead when I got home today. Any ideas? I do have a phone with bluetooth with MyFord Mobile.

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  • 2 weeks later...

How do you measure the amperage drawn from the battery without disconnecting the battery?  If you disconnect the battery, then you have to follow the procedure on page 244 of the manual to reset everything.

 

I wonder if there is a way to record the power used by each of the devices on the car.  There are a lot of fuses controlling different things.  If somehow one could connect a recording meter to a fuse they could observe the amount of power used by that device throughout the day.

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I take a large fully charged car battery and connect it to the jumper terminals under the hood with an ammeter in series with the positive lead.

I then go to the trunk and remove the negative terminal from the battery post.

 

The reverse process is to connect the negative terminal to the battery post in the trunk and then disconnect the battery from the jumper terminals under the hood.

 

The car is never without power.

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Thank you.  So that requires having to buy a second battery to connect in parallel with the first.  I think I will just buy a simple, inexpensive power point battery monitor to monitor the battery voltage.

I already had the battery so it was not an additional expense.

 

This is the voltage monitor that I have in my car.

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00962CQNC/ref=oh_details_o08_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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I take a large fully charged car battery and connect it to the jumper terminals under the hood with an ammeter in series with the positive lead.

I then go to the trunk and remove the negative terminal from the battery post.

 

The reverse process is to connect the negative terminal to the battery post in the trunk and then disconnect the battery from the jumper terminals under the hood.

 

The car is never without power.

 

Where exactly are the jumper terminals?  The manual mentions some plugs, but they weren't readily evident to me.  I may have located the red covered positive plug, but not the negative one.

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I received the battery monitor today.  It shows 12.60+ volts when the car is off and not plugged in.  So the voltage is correct.  It shows 14.40+ Volts when I plug the car in, and when I turn it on.  So it also appears to be charging correctly. 

 

I tried pressing the update button at the MFM web site five times.  It seemed to weaken the battery a bit, even though the voltage went back up to 12.56 volts, the voltage was a bit lower when opening the doors than when the battery was freshly charged.

Edited by larryh
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Mine shows charging at 14.0V when first plugged into the wall. 

 

The car trickle charges the 12V battery while it's plugged in, right from the beginning, not just at the end of the charging cycle.

 

When the car is "running", the HV battery charges the 12V battery, which sort of mimics how a normal car would charge the 12V battery via an alternator.

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I don't have enough experience with batteries to determine if the car is using a lot of power from the battery.  This morning the battery reads 12.58 V after recharging yesterday evening.  But it takes quite some time to get back up to that level after I start the car and turn it off and let all the lights turn off.  A timer shuts the power points off after a while, so I have to start the car and turn it off to get them to start working again.

Edited by larryh
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If the battery is fully charged the meter will stay on when when you turn the car off and open the driver's door.  It will turn off by timer later.

If the battery is low the meter will turn off the instant the driver's door is opened.  That is my normal situation.

After siting unused for several days, and not on charge, the first reading on the meter the instant I push the On button has been as low as 11.1 volts.  It then jumps to over 14 volts as the charger begins charging the battery.

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I notice that the voltage drops to about 12.20 V when using MFM and to about 12.05 V when opening the door.  I observed similar results last night.  So opening the doors appears to use more power than MFM.  I close the door and peer through the window after starting and turning the car off to observe the meter when measuring the battery for MFM.  Yes, I observe the meter turning off quite some time after the door is closed.  I haven't observed a low battery charge yet. 

Edited by larryh
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So then a few questions:

 

1) Should one assume then if you leave the car parked for a while (a few days or week), it's best to keep it plugged in if you can plug it in (lightning warnings aside of course)?

 

2) When the 12 volt was dead (in my garage), when I tried to plug the car in, there was no light ring test or initiation with the EVSE. It would be nice to know though if there is still a trickle charge going in, but I would think not, since no communication was made with the car.

 

Someone let me know that battery problems like this cropped up in other early EVs, and I think even the Prius Hybrid. They recommended a very good battery called ODYSSEY and I contacted them.

 

http://www.odysseybattery.com/

 

 

This is what they had to say:

 
Hello Mark

 

Unfortunately we do not have plans to offer the direct replacement battery size you need for your 2013 Ford Fusion Energi. We do offer the PC1200MJT which can be used but it will need modifications to fit in your vehicle.

 

Thank you,

 

Maria Orlando-Krick

Marketing Manager

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1.  I don't know if the 12 volt battery gets weak while the charger is plugged in if it will resume charging or not.

 

2. If the 12 volt battery is dead, HVB charging can't be initiated because the circuits that communicate with the charger run on 12 volts.

 

It's slightly harder to do, since the hood has to be open, but a standard battery maintainer connected to the jump points under the hood should keep the 12 volt battery ready to go at all times.  That only works at home.

 

I have yet to pull the panel that covers the battery to see how it is secured in place but from feeling around the battery there appears to be plenty of room around the battery that might allow for a physically larger battery.  The mounting method might be a problem since I don't know how they did it with the stock battery.

 

Wow!  $258.04 for a battery and no mention anywhere, that I can find, of a warranty.

Edited by murphy
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Warranty on those are 3 years for 'non BCI' battery sizes.  However, they claim 3 to 10 year service life.  I get about 7 out of the batteries in my Expedition (replaced it for the second time about a year ago).  The price of those Odyssey batteries are outrageous... 300+ bucks for the one in my truck, and it's less than half of that for the Motorcraft batteries I put in there, and I don't get double the service life.

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Once the car is fully charged, I don't think that any further charging will take place until you unplug the car and plug it back in (or turn it on).  So keeping it plugged in most likely won't help keep the 12 volt battery charged.

 

Yes, many people have experienced battery problems with hybrids and plug-in hybrids.  It is not restricted to any particular model.  I have read several posts in the different forums regarding their experiences.   Unfortunately, it is not just you that has had this problem.  Hopefully, they will figure it out soon. 

Edited by larryh
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