Home Battery Backup with portable generator

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21

Technically, they call it the 3.5L PowerBoost Full Hybrid V6. Essentially it is the 3.5 Ecoboost.

It’s a pretty amazing rolling piece of tech. First vehicle I have purchased an extended warranty for.

I have done a lot of testing with the Pro Power ( generator ) system under lots of different loads and times. A pretty consistent observation I have made is it consumes ~0.22 gal/kWh.

With its 30 gal. tank and the frugal needs I have to keep critical circuits going, it lasts a long time and is virtually silent. It’s great for camping and towing ( my original purpose for buying ). It idles @ 1200 RPM for three minutes or so every 30-60 minutes to recharge the battery and then shuts itself off. It will be interesting to see how fast it will bring my 15.3 kWh battery bank back up.

fred

22

Gotcha. That helps. I liked the 3.5L in my previous F-150. I now have an F-350. I have considered installing a second high-output alternator (24v or 48v) to drive a large inverter for charging my travel trailer. Right now I just have a 1200VA inverter in the truck and I have to disable PowerAssist on my 24v 5kVA inverter in my travel trailer because the lowest AC input current limit setting is still too much for the inverter. It’s pretty rare that I need PowerAssist because I usually don’t use shore power, but it’s still a pain to turn PowerAssist on/off. One of these days I’ll make up a NodeRed flow that will allow me to do this from the touchscreen but there never seems to be time for my own personal tinkering! haha

23

Thanks for taking the time, Rick. One quick thought - the purpose of the fuse is to protect the cable, not the equipment (although that is often a happy side benefit). So, the fuse should be no larger than the ampacity of cable being protected. Thanks again Bruce

24

Speaking of programmable ground relays in the Quattros… :wink:

I have two generators. One ( pictured above ) with bonded neutral generator ( inverter ) and one with floating neutral ( Generac XP8000E ) .

I understand the Quattro has programmable ground relay(s). Can it automatically detect which generator is supplying power?

fred

P.S. Ed, wait till you retire. You will have no time for anything but tinkering with personal stuff. Just ask my wife.

25

No, the ground relay doesn’t automatically detect. By default the inputs assume any incoming AC are have the N-G bond and the ground relay only activates when inverting. Ground the neutral on the Generac and you should be set.

26

Thanks Ed! Looking wayyy back @ days at Va. Tech, ME seemed much easier than EE!

I always thought as long as I avoided being in the path of current coming or going I was safe. Simple levers are much easier to understand.

Thanks again.

27

Thanks for being generous with your time and expertise, Ed. Be careful about bonding the generator neutral to ground being mindful of the caveat you described about NEC code earlier. You were spot-on in pointing out that bonding the generator neutral to ground at the generator creates a ground path separate from the one at the main panel.