FordPass 4.32.1 updated (Departure times & Bug Fixes)

[TaxmanHog]

My dealer has an FCSP and that was something discussed before I went in on 1/11/24 for the BECM and BSM CSP updates and the Sync recall, but somehow that fell through the cracks. To really test it at the dealer, I'd have to connect my FordPass to their FCSP, etc., which is probably something they don't want to go through and I probably wouldn't either at whatever their hourly EV tech labor charge is , since I'm not sure that if it's really a FordPass issue, whether there's any "warranty" coverage there! Have a further update to follow on another mysterious charging rate change...

You don't need to officially connect your Fordpass device to their FCSP, just plug it in and let her rip, monitor the {Charge Session} via the HOME tab when the charge commences, click the charge details button and the drop down list to see the KW rate.

I'm curious if you'll see 7 KW if your still stuck at a 30 amp setting or if you will see 16-17 KW which is typical for an 80 amp setting that the dealers FCSP might be wired for (I hope they set it up for maximum capacity)

Like the 13 KW in this example:

Sponsored

 

[Warp Asylum]

That points to a persisting weakness in Fordpass to send the proper 80 amp setting to the trucks charge controller, it's not a problem with the FCSP, nor the truck but the Fordpass continues to be the weak link.

Again forgive my ignorance about how the FCSP works, but why would Fordpass tell the truck's charge controller anything? Shouldn't it communicate the max amp setting to the FCSP only?

 

[Jim Lewis]

That points to a persisting weakness in Fordpass to send the proper 80 amp setting to the trucks charge controller, it's not a problem with the FCSP, nor the truck but the Fordpass continues to be the weak link.

News Flash! <<<joking>>>

The following seems to point out that there is more involved than FordPass.

Like the 13 KW in this example:

Unfortunately, being ~lazy, I've just been going for the Charge to 100% When Plugged In option in Vehicle tab, Charging, Preferred Charge Times of Ford Pass so I don't have to change my charge time window and charge limit to test things. So I don't get as straightforward a summary.

But just testing charging to 100% today after my 1/11/24 FordPass update to v4.32.1, I'm not changed from the 30 A rate that I was getting before that. My charge rate in Ford Pass was set to a requested 60 A rate from previous experimentation when I tried charging to 100% today.

CarScanner Pro using Capstone's template.

Since today, under Account, Charge Station, FordPass showed "Connection Lost," I cold rebooted my FCSP/HIS unit (> 16' off). When I established my FCSP connection (showing "Plugged In" in FordPass), I changed the requested charge rate to 80 A in FordPass. Here's what I got: a charging rate of 48 A now!

So, updating FordPass to version 4.32.1 does not seem to affect the charging rate, but a cold reboot of my FCSP/HIS unit does. This has happened in the past. On 1/10/24, I cold rebooted my FCSP/HIS unit and the charging rate changed from ~14.5 A to 30 A. https://www.f150lightningforum.com/forum/threads/pro-station-issues.17940/post-361032. It was after previous cold reboots and power transfer tests, too, that I first noticed my system was trapped in delivering the 14.5 A rate.

The question would be, why, if it's only FordPass talking to my truck, does a cold reboot of my FCSP/HIS unit affect the power delivered? There has to be some talk back and forth to arrive at the rate the truck is requesting, e.g., if the FCSP is hardware set to 48 A, that's going to show up as a 48 A maximum request limit in FordPass. I did nothing to FordPass today other than move the requested amount up to 80 A, for which FP has long shown as the hardware-set limit. Yet a cold reboot drastically changed the delivered power.

Another weird thing I noticed in the cold reboot today. With the FCSP rebooting, "Connection Lost" disappeared in FordPass, Account, Charge Station settings, replaced by "Plugged In." But in using the Charge Station Pro app at the same time, it could never find the rebooted FCSP. In the past week, there was a connectivity problem with our Ford.com dashboards, and someone said a migration of account authentication caused this. Maybe the CSP app never got the word as far as migrating to the new system? - or is the CSP connection to the FCSP just a local LAN thing with no authentication required from on high to connect up?

My overall experience has been that it doesn't matter what I set FordPass to. It doesn't affect the charging rate delivered. However, cold rebooting my FCSP/HIS unit does affect the charging rate that is delivered. In the past, testing backup power transfer also seemed to have an effect on what charging rate was delivered (but cold reboots were often done in attempting to make backup transfer work).

Just joking, but maybe the answer to my FordPass requested charging rate problem is just to keep cold rebooting my FCSP/HIS unit until I happen to arrive at the actual charging rate I've requested through FordPass!

 

[Jim Lewis]

Took the truck to my dealer on 1/11. Dealer claims all previous OTA updates installed correctly, have the latest Sync module software, BECM CSP update shows no battery flaws, a new BSM is on order.

Come home. Power transfer is still locked at 30 A before and after a cold reboot of my FCSP/HIS unit and a power transfer test. But for the fifth time since 1/9, the power transfer works flawlessly!!! (It took me a while to figure out whatever they did at the dealer, it wiped out the BT pairing of the truck to the FCSP. When I finally called up "Intelligent" Backup on the Sync screen, the only thing there was "Add Station." No previous Ford 3000 pairing.).

Have to correct/update my just previous post in this thread on FordPass with the above quoted observations.

On 1/11/24, I had my truck at the dealer. My iOS version of FordPass was updated to 4.32.1 while at the dealer for over ~4 hours, IIRC. When I got home, I did a cold reboot of the FCSP/HIS unit but at that time, that reboot, repairing my truck to the FCSP, and a successful power transfer test did not change the FCSP charging rate delivered from 30 A. Yet today, I went from 30 A to 48 A after a cold reboot with my FP app requesting 80 A.

I have been charging my LVB into the 80th percentiles or higher every day via turning on the truck Accessory Mode while plugged in. Within a day or two of the visit to the dealer, one night my LVB % SOC dropped into the 50th percentiles. No update alerts in Fordpass or on my truck Sync screen. But since I'm supposed to be on elevated status with Ford/Sunrun for the behavior of my FCSP/HIS unit, I'm a little bit suspicious that something occurred within my truck associated with that 30% overnight SOC drop, which might have something to do with the change in truck charging rate today after another FCSP/HIS unit cold reboot. All speculation. That's the problem with the system. Only Ford knows what's really going on. The rest of us often don't.

 

[TaxmanHog]

Again forgive my ignorance about how the FCSP works, but why would Fordpass tell the truck's charge controller anything? Shouldn't it communicate the max amp setting to the FCSP only?

My understanding may be wrong, but the truck is involved in how current flow is limited.

That's why I suggested testing on another EVSE with known maximum settings and see how the truck handles that energy source.

If it were to jump to 17-18 KW rating then my assumption would be wrong.

On the other hand if it were to continue pushing a restricted amount of energy based on Jim's last successful adjustment to 30 amps or whatever it was, then that limited setting is truck bound until he can get all the devices talking to each other.

The FCSP is in the loop, the variable POT adjustment under the cover changes the pilot signal based on that capacity setting in theory it's set to the maximum wire & breaker feeding the EVSE.

The Fordpass software adjustment also tell the FCSP to adjust as well.

When the truck hears this signal and adjusts the amount of current it will take from the EVSE through a set of high power switching transistors in parallel, the more switched on the higher the current will be drawn

If the EVSE says "I can give you up to 30 amps, the trucks controller hears that and only pulls the 30 amps.

 

[TaxmanHog]

Yet today, I went from 30 A to 48 A after a cold reboot with my FP app requesting 80 A.

I've had to shutdown my EVSE to clear the erroneous / stuck down ratings in the past as well, this shouldn't have to be done, but it's a repeatable solution.

I honestly have doubts that some of the Ford folks really understand what is going on, while the Siemens folks do understand, but due to quirky operations with the truck, it's software and the Fordpass software, they've grown frustrated in solving our issues.

 

[Jim Lewis]

I've had to shutdown my EVSE to clear the erroneous / stuck down ratings in the past as well, this shouldn't have to be done, but it's a repeatable solution.

I'm sure you've noticed this other thread, too, where some folks have reported the opposite of what I'm experiencing. They set a desired less-than-maximum-hardware-limit charging rate and their FCSP is willy-nilly defaulting to the maximum allowed hardware rate. Strange behavior of FCSP charging all-around... https://www.f150lightningforum.com/forum/threads/fcsp-question.17950/

 

[Warp Asylum]

My understanding may be wrong, but the truck is involved in how current flow is limited.

That's why I suggested testing on another EVSE with known maximum settings and see how the truck handles that energy source.

If it were to jump to 17-18 KW rating then my assumption would be wrong.

On the other hand if it were to continue pushing a restricted amount of energy based on Jim's last successful adjustment to 30 amps or whatever it was, then that limited setting is truck bound until he can get all the devices talking to each other.

The FCSP is in the loop, the variable POT adjustment under the cover changes the pilot signal based on that capacity setting in theory it's set to the maximum wire & breaker feeding the EVSE.

The Fordpass software adjustment also tell the FCSP to adjust as well.

When the truck hears this signal and adjusts the amount of current it will take from the EVSE through a set of high power switching transistors in parallel, the more switched on the higher the current will be drawn

If the EVSE says "I can give you up to 30 amps, the trucks controller hears that and only pulls the 30 amps.

Yes, the truck is involved in limiting the current through communication with the EVSE on the pilot signal. I was just asking because it sounded like you were suggesting that Fordpass is communicating a limit to the truck directly and that should not be the case. It sounds like the current limit of the FCSP can be adjusted through Fordpass, but that only changes what the FCSP will communicate to the truck. In other words, it sounds like the issue is Fordpass/FCSP communication, not Fordpass/truck communication.

I do not believe the truck's charging logic uses any history or other stored knowledge of current limits. It should be negotiated every time you plug in to any L2 EVSE. For example, I charge at home using a 48A chargepoint and at work on their 24A chargepoint and the truck always pulls the maximum that whatever EVSE it is plugged in to will provide. If it remembered the 48A it can pull from my home EVSE and tried to pull that at work, that would immediately trip the breaker on the work circuit.

I certainly agree that the best test would be to plug the truck in to another EVSE that can supply more than 30A to rule out some hardware issue with the truck. Likewise, if another EV that can draw more than 30A is plugged in to the FCSP and only draws 30A (or whatever limit it is currently at after reboots and such) then the problem is either the FCSP hardware/firmware, the Fordpass communication with the FCSP, or both.

@Jim Lewis if you feel like driving up to the Austin area sometime, PM me and we can arrange for you to plug in to my 48A chargepoint to rule out any issue with the truck. It's not 80A but at least we'll know the truck is negotiating and obeying the EVSE max properly, and you can focus on trying to get Ford to fix the Fordpass/FCSP communication issue.

 

[Warp Asylum]

News Flash! <<<joking>>>

The following seems to point out that there is more involved than FordPass.

Unfortunately, being ~lazy, I've just been going for the Charge to 100% When Plugged In option in Vehicle tab, Charging, Preferred Charge Times of Ford Pass so I don't have to change my charge time window and charge limit to test things. So I don't get as straightforward a summary.

But just testing charging to 100% today after my 1/11/24 FordPass update to v4.32.1, I'm not changed from the 30 A rate that I was getting before that. My charge rate in Ford Pass was set to a requested 60 A rate from previous experimentation when I tried charging to 100% today.

CarScanner Pro using Capstone's template.

Since today, under Account, Charge Station, FordPass showed "Connection Lost," I cold rebooted my FCSP/HIS unit (> 16' off). When I established my FCSP connection (showing "Plugged In" in FordPass), I changed the requested charge rate to 80 A in FordPass. Here's what I got: a charging rate of 48 A now!

So, updating FordPass to version 4.32.1 does not seem to affect the charging rate, but a cold reboot of my FCSP/HIS unit does. This has happened in the past. On 1/10/24, I cold rebooted my FCSP/HIS unit and the charging rate changed from ~14.5 A to 30 A. https://www.f150lightningforum.com/forum/threads/pro-station-issues.17940/post-361032. It was after previous cold reboots and power transfer tests, too, that I first noticed my system was trapped in delivering the 14.5 A rate.

The question would be, why, if it's only FordPass talking to my truck, does a cold reboot of my FCSP/HIS unit affect the power delivered? There has to be some talk back and forth to arrive at the rate the truck is requesting, e.g., if the FCSP is hardware set to 48 A, that's going to show up as a 48 A maximum request limit in FordPass. I did nothing to FordPass today other than move the requested amount up to 80 A, for which FP has long shown as the hardware-set limit. Yet a cold reboot drastically changed the delivered power.

Another weird thing I noticed in the cold reboot today. With the FCSP rebooting, "Connection Lost" disappeared in FordPass, Account, Charge Station settings, replaced by "Plugged In." But in using the Charge Station Pro app at the same time, it could never find the rebooted FCSP. In the past week, there was a connectivity problem with our Ford.com dashboards, and someone said a migration of account authentication caused this. Maybe the CSP app never got the word as far as migrating to the new system? - or is the CSP connection to the FCSP just a local LAN thing with no authentication required from on high to connect up?

My overall experience has been that it doesn't matter what I set FordPass to. It doesn't affect the charging rate delivered. However, cold rebooting my FCSP/HIS unit does affect the charging rate that is delivered. In the past, testing backup power transfer also seemed to have an effect on what charging rate was delivered (but cold reboots were often done in attempting to make backup transfer work).

Just joking, but maybe the answer to my FordPass requested charging rate problem is just to keep cold rebooting my FCSP/HIS unit until I happen to arrive at the actual charging rate I've requested through FordPass!

I'm not sure I would trust the data shown in those screenshots. ~11kW should be about 44.5A at 247V and 17.36kW should be about 71A at 244V, so either the kW displayed is wrong or the current displayed is wrong, or maybe it is only showing current draw from one of the two onboard chargers. Does that app have an option to show current draw for both onboard chargers?

Edit: looking further, the dual onboard charger's max output is 17.6kW (for 19.2kW input), meaning that the second screenshot looks like 80A input/71A output charging, aka very close to the max that the Lightning can do on AC.

 

[Jim Lewis]

or maybe it is only showing current draw from one of the two onboard chargers.

I think you hit the nail on the head. There are two onboard chargers/inverters, and the CarScanner template I'm using only uses the PID for one of them (I edited the screen page and looked at the PID input). The problem originates in that folks who've made templates use the Mach-E PID list, and the Mach-E only has one charger/inverter - and people like me just blindly use a template without knowing what they're doing!

@ MickeyAO, in a post about a year ago, mentioned there are two truck charger PID current sources but couldn't divulge his work info w.r.t. the second one: https://www.f150lightningforum.com/...t-to-monitor-your-lightning.13563/post-284719. He gave some general hints for finding the missing PID. I'll see if I can find it with FORScan or the iOS FORScan Lite (a little learning curve there). About a year and a half ago, some folks on the forum trying to set up Torque Pro templates and using the Mach-E PID list noticed the same thing: that the PID reporting charger current output didn't account for all the reported charger power output and they speculated that was because of the dual chargers/inverters in the Lightning vs. the single one in the Mach-E: https://www.f150lightningforum.com/...tion-data-in-torque-pro-app.11243/post-235220.

The underreporting of charger power output in the CarScanner template I'm using still doesn't account for my inability to change the requested power output in FordPass or the kinda random new allotment of charger power output I get sometimes after cold reboots of my FCSP/HIS unit. I just tried changing the Max Current Requested in FordPass to 48 A, but I'm still getting ~17 kW of power output from the charger as expected for 80 A delivered to the FCSP. I'll see if there's any magic to changing the Max Current Requested setting in FordPass right after a cold reboot, since that's the only time my FCSP power delivered has changed in the last few months.

Something I should have looked at before. When I am charging and getting the ~17 kW output and look at the FCSP, it's a solid flashing blue LED bar all the way across, indicating the FCSP is delivering its full power. Before, when the FCSP was frozen at 30 A current, ~11 kW power, I was getting a partial length flashing blue LED bar, terminated on the right by a solid non-flashing amber bar, indicating the FCSP wasn't delivering its maximum possible power output.

 

[Warp Asylum]

I think you hit the nail on the head. There are two onboard chargers/inverters, and the CarScanner template I'm using only uses the PID for one of them (I edited the screen page and looked at the PID input). The problem originates in that folks who've made templates use the Mach-E PID list, and the Mach-E only has one charger/inverter - and people like me just blindly use a template without knowing what they're doing!

@ MickeyAO, in a post about a year ago, mentioned there are two truck charger PID current sources but couldn't divulge his work info w.r.t. the second one: https://www.f150lightningforum.com/...t-to-monitor-your-lightning.13563/post-284719. He gave some general hints for finding the missing PID. I'll see if I can find it with FORScan or the iOS FORScan Lite (a little learning curve there). About a year and a half ago, some folks on the forum trying to set up Torque Pro templates and using the Mach-E PID list noticed the same thing: that the PID reporting charger current output didn't account for all the reported charger power output and they speculated that was because of the dual chargers/inverters in the Lightning vs. the single one in the Mach-E: https://www.f150lightningforum.com/...tion-data-in-torque-pro-app.11243/post-235220.

The underreporting of charger power output in the CarScanner template I'm using still doesn't account for my inability to change the requested power output in FordPass or the kinda random new allotment of charger power output I get sometimes after cold reboots of my FCSP/HIS unit. I just tried changing the Max Current Requested in FordPass to 48 A, but I'm still getting ~17 kW of power output from the charger as expected for 80 A delivered to the FCSP. I'll see if there's any magic to changing the Max Current Requested setting in FordPass right after a cold reboot, since that's the only time my FCSP power delivered has changed in the last few months.

Something I should have looked at before. When I am charging and getting the ~17 kW output and look at the FCSP, it's a solid flashing blue LED bar all the way across, indicating the FCSP is delivering its full power. Before, when the FCSP was frozen at 30 A current, ~11 kW power, I was getting a partial length flashing blue LED bar, terminated on the right by a solid non-flashing amber bar, indicating the FCSP wasn't delivering its maximum possible power output.

Gotcha, so known issue with that app template being adapted from the MME. In that case, I would just ignore whatever input current it is reporting and instead calculate output current based on output kW divided by V. 11kW charger output being about 44.5A output current most likely indicates 48A input (with about 10% in losses through the onboard charger), aka 48A delivered from FCSP, not 30A as reported by the app. Real 30A input would be around 7kW reported output power.

So with that data, it sounds like the truck is fine. It is negotiating the charging rate based on what the FCSP is communicating on the pilot line, up to and including the max the FCSP can output. From a hardware perspective, it sounds like the FCSP is also fine, meaning it is installed correctly to deliver the maximum power.

My only goal here was to narrow down the issue. Fordpass communicating a charging limit to the truck, the truck remembering a charging limit, and the kW/A discrepency of the app did not make sense to me. I think you've eliminated those and any truck/hardware issues, so what's left is a software/firmware bug in whatever the communication process is between Fordpass and the FCSP firmware where they are not consistently updating/obeying the firmware current limit value. Unfortunately there is no way for anyone but Ford/Siemens to diagnose and fix that issue.

 

[TaxmanHog]

My only goal here was to narrow down the issue. Fordpass communicating a charging limit to the truck, the truck remembering a charging limit, and the kW/A discrepency of the app did not make sense to me. I think you've eliminated those and any truck/hardware issues, so what's left is a software/firmware bug in whatever the communication process is between Fordpass and the FCSP firmware where they are not consistently updating/obeying the firmware current limit value. Unfortunately there is no way for anyone but Ford/Siemens to diagnose and fix that issue.

Agreed.

Sponsored