F-150 Lightning powering house after tornado power outage

[adoublee]

I plugged the 10-30R outlet into our generator input of the house (ground disconnected), and let ProPower do it's thing.

Thanks for sharing.

You left the ground pin on the inlet floating/disconnected to defeat the truck from perceiving a ground fault?

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[Hammick]

We had an unexpected outage last week - no significant weather, a tree just fell across one of the main feeders here out of the blue. I'm set up with the Generac panel that lets you plug in without cutting the ground. Man was it easy, I just pulled the cord out of the utility room, connected up and turned the truck on. No hauling out the noisy generator, getting gas from the shed below (I empty it after winter) and trying to pull start the damn thing.

Plug in and go to bed, quite nice.

I do wish that you didn't have to leave the truck on, I turned it off and the power went out. Grr, that desn't seem very secure, can you lock the truck?

Yes the truck can be locked when Pro Power is being used.

 

[Howard_Scott_Warshaw]

Thanks for sharing.

You left the ground pin on the inlet floating/disconnected to defeat the truck from perceiving a ground fault?

Yes. That's the best way to get this solution to work. Otherwise you'd have to lift the N-G bond at your main service disconnect. Probably not NEC compliant, but I wouldn't necessarily say it's a serious risk.

My theory; If there's a ground fault in your house, you would have already detected it during your normal use of the receptacles, fixtures, and appliances in the house and have fixed it. If there isn't already a ground fault in your house, the truck isn't going to induce one, so you should be all set unless you start introducing new loads (appliances/fixtures) into the house during the outage that might be compromised.

 

[luebri]

100% agree.....

In this case I started out with the Lightning as our primary generator (It is much nicer to not have the noisy generator). Our 9500 watt Tri-Fuel portable generator (Tested enough to charge our EV's) was lent out to others in need shortly after I realized that the Lightning was going to work for us. It is always difficult to know when/if things like this should be lent out......If another day went by, I would of had to have the awkward conversation about getting the portable generator back for our own needs.

Yep, I could have easily ended up in that scenario. I know way too many people that are not properly prepared and very easily could have ended up in the same position where my portable generator would have ended up at friends/family. I have been more aggressive in lecturing friends/family about how much they are playing with fire not having a suitable generator/power outage plans because I know it is likely it just ends up as a burden on me for their laziness, lack of prioritization.

 

[Henry Ford]

My theory; If there's a ground fault in your house, you would have already detected it during your normal use of the receptacles, fixtures, and appliances in the house and have fixed it. If there isn't already a ground fault in your house, the truck isn't going to induce one, so you should be all set unless you start introducing new loads (appliances/fixtures) into the house during the outage that might be compromised.

Your theory is wrong. I spent several days during my 6852 installation tracking down a ground fault because some knucklehead (me, ) wired a fireplace fan wrong.

 

[JRT]

Great info, but why does everyone continue to fear 100% charge... I've had similar tornado events and am at 100% in advance, and if I was a 2 ev hone both would be 100%.

 

[invertedspear]

Great info, but why does everyone continue to fear 100% charge... I've had similar tornado events and am at 100% in advance, and if I was a 2 ev hone both would be 100%.

Look over some of the battery posts by MickeyAO. He details how SOC sitting at 100% creates health issues for your battery. Mind you it's not so much being at 100% that causes any issue, it's sitting there for days. So if you charge like this before a storm, and shortly after discharge back to 80% or whatever your "normal" SOC is, you really won't have much of an issue. Guideline like 20%-80% are for the long-term health of your battery, if you have reason to go outside those guideline, do it, but just try to avoid it being the norm.

 

[Nomoregas]

why do you have to disconnect the ground?

 

[Maineiac12]

This is a success story detailing the first time using the Lightning to help though a power outage.

I live in the middle of Iowa and my area got hit with significant tornado damage last week (Tornado Damage).

Due to the proximity of the tornado, we were without power for almost 5 days. I knew we had some storms coming in, so figured I'd charge up to 90% just in case. I plugged the 10-30R outlet into our generator input of the house (ground disconnected), and let ProPower do it's thing. Ended up using about 18% of the battery each day (Ending up with 8% battery remaining at the end of the ordeal). We didn't change any of our normal routines throughout the outage (Excluding laundry), even using the GeoThermal AC for a few hours. The AC was able to run due to having this device installed on the compressor (MicroAir Easy Start).

A couple of take-aways from my point of view:

1. It really sucks not being able to drive the truck while it is powering the house. It seems obvious, but something to consider if you have critical loads (Sump Pump) that can't go without power for a period of time.

2. I know it is a common complaint, but it bothers me a ton that the truck must be "On and ready to drive" in order to use ProPower. Seeing the screens on is just annoying.

3. We are in a rural location without access to close DC chargers. Our other EV (MachE) came home almost dead after the first day with no way to charge. Luckily we have another non-ev that we could use for this situation, but really eye opening for me when I aspire to drop all of our ICE vehicles.

4. The capacity of the truck when charged to 90% is more than large enough. We had an accurate timeline of when we expected the power to be back on....If we needed to, we could have been conservative on our consumption and easily made it more than a week just powering critical loads (Well, Sump, Fridges).

5. If you plan on using the truck for an outage, make sure you test your setup before hand. About 10 minutes after the tornado went though and we were all clear, I was greeted with the sump alarm indicating that it was filling up and had just a few more minutes before things started to flood (Storm was proceeded by a ton of rain for our area). Luckily I had tested everything out before the event, so it wasn't an issue. If this was my first time going though it, it might have taken me a bit longer to get things setup. (I'll be installing a backup sump in anyway to prevent this in the future).

Did the same thing recently! (Also from central Iowa) though I just used extension cords lol

 

[rraustad]

why do you have to disconnect the ground?

Because the house main electrical panel has the neutral wire "bonded" to the ground wire at the main panel per code. That bond is tied to a ground rod. The Lighting PPOB neutral is also "bonded" to ground in the truck. Now there are 2 bonded ground points. The length of neutral wire between the truck and the main panel causes a voltage drop when current flows through the neutral wire. When current flows through the neutral wire the neutral wire "voltage" at the truck is a volt or 2 higher than ground at the main panel. So now, since the truck has the neutral and ground connected/bonded at the truck, the ground wire in the truck is a volt or 2 higher than ground and current will flow on the ground wire, and boom the PPOB will trip on a ground fault.

 

[Runaway Tractor]

My theory; If there's a ground fault in your house, you would have already detected it during your normal use of the receptacles, fixtures, and appliances in the house and have fixed it. If there isn't already a ground fault in your house, the truck isn't going to induce one, so you should be all set unless you start introducing new loads (appliances/fixtures) into the house during the outage that might be compromised.

You are not defeating your breaker panels ability to protect the house from faults. A new ground fault will still trip the breaker in your panel. That ground fault still has a path to the source, and therefore still will trip the overload, GFCI, or AFCI functions of your circuit breaker panel. By lifting the ground on the cable to the truck, you are just eliminating the incompatible and improper dual paths for neutral current to flow back to the truck. Fault current in the house is bonded to the neutral in your panel like it always is, and flows back to the source (the truck) on the neutral just like it does going out your meter to the pole. In fact it is highly likely a fault in the house will trip the circuit breaker in your panel and also trip the overload protection no the truck at the same time.

It is of course not code compliant since it is not the perfect correct way to do it. But it is not omg awful dangerous burn the house down and it is not bypassing fault protection in any way. All the complaining about it and prohibiting discussion is highly overblown. This is being used temporarily in an emergency and is absolutely ok in my book.

As @Henry Ford pointed out, you still may find some improperly wired things in the house when you hook the truck up. Some things can be wired improperly but still work perfectly fine, and you'd never know it unless it was on a GFCI breaker. And the truck is one big GFCI breaker.

 

[Runaway Tractor]

why do you have to disconnect the ground?

A much shorter explanation: The normal neutral-ground bond in your house electrical panel is seen by the truck as a ground fault and it will immediately trip the truck's outlet off. There are entire threads on this you can read for more detail.

 

[Nomoregas]

Hmmm, I will have to read how the truck actually even has a ground to no ground in essence.

 

[GDN]

This is a success story detailing the first time using the Lightning to help though a power outage.

I live in the middle of Iowa and my area got hit with significant tornado damage last week (Tornado Damage).

Due to the proximity of the tornado, we were without power for almost 5 days. I knew we had some storms coming in, so figured I'd charge up to 90% just in case. I plugged the 10-30R outlet into our generator input of the house (ground disconnected), and let ProPower do it's thing. Ended up using about 18% of the battery each day (Ending up with 8% battery remaining at the end of the ordeal). We didn't change any of our normal routines throughout the outage (Excluding laundry), even using the GeoThermal AC for a few hours. The AC was able to run due to having this device installed on the compressor (MicroAir Easy Start).

A couple of take-aways from my point of view:

1. It really sucks not being able to drive the truck while it is powering the house. It seems obvious, but something to consider if you have critical loads (Sump Pump) that can't go without power for a period of time.

2. I know it is a common complaint, but it bothers me a ton that the truck must be "On and ready to drive" in order to use ProPower. Seeing the screens on is just annoying.

3. We are in a rural location without access to close DC chargers. Our other EV (MachE) came home almost dead after the first day with no way to charge. Luckily we have another non-ev that we could use for this situation, but really eye opening for me when I aspire to drop all of our ICE vehicles.

4. The capacity of the truck when charged to 90% is more than large enough. We had an accurate timeline of when we expected the power to be back on....If we needed to, we could have been conservative on our consumption and easily made it more than a week just powering critical loads (Well, Sump, Fridges).

5. If you plan on using the truck for an outage, make sure you test your setup before hand. About 10 minutes after the tornado went though and we were all clear, I was greeted with the sump alarm indicating that it was filling up and had just a few more minutes before things started to flood (Storm was proceeded by a ton of rain for our area). Luckily I had tested everything out before the event, so it wasn't an issue. If this was my first time going though it, it might have taken me a bit longer to get things setup. (I'll be installing a backup sump in anyway to prevent this in the future).

Great story and use of the truck. Much of North Dallas has been without power for a couple of days after a strong storm blew through. We never lost power, but I'm ready with the similar setup. Using a 14-50 plug as input to the house panel. I almost wanted to be able to use it and try it, but I'd rather not be without AC. So I'll take my normal power for the win.

I installed and like the Micro Air easy start on the AC, but I've got a single 5 ton unit and I'm still just a bit shy of being able to run it off of the truck (it came very close). I can run the rest of the house with no issues and in winter, heat is easy to add to the mix.

Glad it saved the day for you. Those 7 or 8 Powerwalls equivalent would not have been cheap.

 

[davehu]

2. I know it is a common complaint, but it bothers me a ton that the truck must be "On and ready to drive" in order to use ProPower. Seeing the screens on is just annoying.

If the screen on is annoying, simple solution. put on the "calm" mode.

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