Battery health and resetting the BCM

[cheetoduster]

Been monitoring the battery health lately as I want to hard wire my dash cam one of these days and don't want to end up with a dead battery. I was pretty concerned to see the State Of Charge for the battery was ~50% every time I checked. Alternator was putting out upwards of 70amps at start up, which slowly tapered down to zero, so it wasn't that. It just wasn't charging for long enough. Last Saturday I drove about 100 miles round trip and by Sunday the SOC was at 40%.

So I changed the targeted SOC from 80% to 95% hoping that might kick start some sort of charging scheme, but there was no change.

Today I randomly thought of resetting the BCM, which I did, then I ran to the store and a few other errands. By the time I was done the SOC was at 74%. I just took a quick run to get a snack, by the time I got back it was at 78%.

So either the reset of the BCM caused the battery to start charging, or the reading the BCM has been displaying was incorrect and resetting it corrected it.

Also, apparently resetting the BCM erases all your saved seat presets. I had raised the steering wheel up so I could reach the OBDII port, and when I pressed the #1 preset button to bring it back down, the damn seat started moving up. I felt like I was in a trash compactor. I panicked a bit because my hand doesn't fit down to the seat controls with the door closed. My 6'6" 350lb body was pretty squished

 

[Cdubya]

If you plan to use parking mode much, I would recommend a dashcam battery pack--I have a low end Thinkware iVolt. Even still, you'd want your voltages up while car is running to properly charge those. I must confess I am perplexed by the BMS that Ford is using. Without changing battery SoC target, voltages would often sag as low as 12V while car is running. At least the dashcam battery pack will isolate the dashcam from the car's battery so it doesn't drain it at all.

 

[Cruising68]

If you plan to use parking mode much, I would recommend a dashcam battery pack--I have a low end Thinkware iVolt. Even still, you'd want your voltages up while car is running to properly charge those. I must confess I am perplexed by the BMS that Ford is using. Without changing battery SoC target, voltages would often sag as low as 12V while car is running. At least the dashcam battery pack will isolate the dashcam from the car's battery so it doesn't drain it at all.

This is the way imo. I run both my wife’s and my dash cam. Not cheap but they will run for about 35 hours with the car off without draining anything from the car battery. My wife still works and her dash can runs 24/7 and charges enough on her commute.


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