Thanks for stopping by to wrap up this series!! After much research I knew we could get it to work with the newer GFCI protected style of generators! Was a ton of fun working with you guys on this one.
@@capt_ramius You need a 3 pole transfer panel. You need to transfer the 2 hots and neutral to the truck (and sever the connection to the grid on all 3), most generator interlocks just transfer the 2 hots (like mine) and tie the generator into the neutral and ground.
@@JustinKingOffroad Thanks! Just ordered a Lightning and was going to inlet the 240V bed outlet into my panel with interlock, just like this. Guess it’s more complicated than I thought lol.
I’m an electrician, actually for Xcel Energy out in Colorado and recently setup my new house completely off grid. This 7500 watt inverter is more than enough for a house as long as you keep in mind your high draw items such as electric stove, electric hot water heater, if your method of heating is electric, and electric clothes dryer. All or some of these appliances may run on natural gas or propane for you and in that case they won’t pull much power at all. If they are electric you won’t be able to run more than one of these at a time most likely. In an actual power outage if your having trouble with the generator tripping I recommend turning off your water heater if it’s electric as you can’t control when this decides to cycle on. With all these items on propane at my house I’m typically pulling well under 1000 watts and don’t think I could pull more than 4000 watts if I tried. For people with well water, this should run your pump just fine. Another thing to keep in mind is your house has two different phases running through it for 240v appliances such as your high draw electric appliances mentioned above. If your running into issues but know your under 7500 total watts it’s just because your overloading the capability of the inverter for that specific phase so try and keep your power consumption more balanced.
In short, live conservatively. ;) Power only the essentials 1 at a time or 2 if they are low V items. Gas Hot water, gas stove, gas fire place and the rest is super simple/low V to live off of for days. (I know, I have done it) Just the fridge is the priority once you have natural gas taking care of the bare essentials. And that is IMO subjective as well.
Yeah they could have even added more load if they distributed the load more evenly. There was more of a load on line one than line two. If they had the microwave running off of l2 it would have ran fine. It's 3600 watts per leg of 110v power. Another thing that seems a little disambiguous about the Chevy Silverado EV is they are quoting over 10 kilowatts of onboard power but the way it's worded to me seems like you can't pull 10 KW from one power source like you can on the ford. It seems like there's a bunch of outlets and all combined together you can pull a Max of 10 kw.
I bet this video just sold a lot of these trucks. It's got me thinking. Thanks Andre for letting TFL use your truck for so many videos. I love that truck
I love the power on board technology. Wish I could find one locally. I don't need it as I have a generator already, but in a pinch you could lend your truck to provide power in an emergency. Loading and hauling a 10,000-W generator isn't the easiest to ask, so having it built into the truck would be convenient.
except when power is off the local gas stations are out also, so driving your vehicle 100 miles round trip to get fuel isnt the best and shutting off power in between.. hence those of us with propane and natural gas use that for back up generation, I do and im out of power weeks every year due to PGE garbage, and an electric vehicle for me is a fail but a hybrid works great
I'm skeptical about how well the all electric trucks will fare as a truck. But tbh, I think Ford hits the right balance with this hybrid. The generator mode is huge. It has so much practical use.
Ford needs to build F-250/350 hybrids for truck campers and trailers! These onboard power systems would be perfect for boon-docking and/or full time RV living! Ford should also build a Transit hybrid for van-lifers! GM & Ram needs to build these too!
Hey You guys need to show how we can power a 30Amp travel trailer so it can be totally self contained while say staying off grid for a few days. That would be very cool!! Love your channel guys!!
Yes! I just picked up my camper and own a hybrid. I haven't tried powering it just yet but want to see someone do it before I just plug it in and go for it lol
Just a quick clarification. The interlock switch is so you don’t feed energy back to the utility and electrocute a utility worker trying to fix downed lines etc. Not just so you don’t feed power back to your generator.
Power on board was a major factor in my decision to reserve an F-150 Lightning. I have small homes in both the California desert and the Ozark Mountains that are in areas where outages occur more often than I like. Being able to plug the house into the truck is a huge benefit for this aging hermit.
i could've sawer that original marketing papers said a 15kw inverter ( 100kw battery pack size or so ) and not a 10kw for the house mode and i remember a 125amp charger ( and dc fast chargering at 200+ amps for road tripping ) not a pansy 60 ish amps. o well still sounds like a nice truck but as i remembered some of the spec sheets was nicer options
What makes the F150 hybrid different from other electric pickups is that it has an ICE, not just plug-in electric. That’s what makes it able to act as a generator. With the other electric pickups without ICE, you could only consume the battery capacity, not generate electricity.
I remember you charging the i3 and using nearly all 7200 watts. For a few hours! Powering the house overloaded one of the two poles of the trucks 240 @ shutdown while other half of circuit was fine. Ground switching (legit circuit changer) is probably KEY in more ways than one!
That's a worst case scenario assuming you're using the full 7.2kw the truck can output. In the real world it would last much longer than that for powering a house.
Great video! I'm in love with the ProPower feature. Would be great not to have to haul a noisy generator to track days. Especially overnight when other campers are sleeping.
Thanks for sharing how this works. Seems like the power boost is better than the lightning in a disaster since it can recharge its self and could still be driven with depleted batteries.
Lightning provides more power, and reserves a portion for travel of X distance. I would argue that lightning is superior for my use, as with solar power stored at home it is free for me to power my home and drive as well as less maintenance.
@@makinawake9178 That’s a great point on solar. I live under a decent canopy of trees and was told I don’t have enough sun for solar here. I love my trees, but free electric would be nice.
The truck shut off the power because only one of the 120V buses was overloaded - the other one still had some capacity. If you had loads that were evenly distributed between the 120V buses you'd be able to power more stuff - the microwave plus the range, etc. Interesting that the LED lights were unhappy. Makes me wonder if the truck doesn't have a "pure sine wave inverter?"
Regardless if the stove was the final straw that tripped the truck , had the loads been better balanced prior to turning on the stove the truck would have handled it just fine. That was the point Mathew was trying to make.
Good video Andre. You need a grid disconnect and a 220 inverter. Disconnect from the grid, plug into the circuit breaker via a 220 input. Then turn on the loads that you can support with the source. I have a 220 v AC generator and it works great
I’m so happy I saw this. Just got a build date for an F-150 Lightning in May. Have an electrician setup to run a 50amp out for charging and setup a transfer switch for the truck to power home.
I would have done a manual transfer switch. You can pick 6 or 10 circuits depending what model you buy. The whole house doesn't need power in an emergency, and when utility comes back on flip it from gen back to line. It is really 300 bucks for 30a 250v 7500w 6 circuit breaker kit.
Excellent video TFL crew! You guys rock. This hybrid approach is the pragmatic way to saving energy yet giving us truck buyers a versatile and affordable powertrain compared to all electric! TFL do you think Ford and other manufacturers will expand the hybrid or Powerboost offerings and maybe increase battery capacity? We dont want expensive all electric so please please tell the OEMs to listen!!!
Pretty awesome feature. I'm sure GM, RAM, and Toyota are kicking themselves for not thinking of it first. Eventually I'm sure they'll have their own versions. It would have been a huge boost for the new Tundra if they could have done something like this before Ford did.
I couldn't really tell what you did to bypass the bonded neutral in your panel. Did you install a transfer switch with 6 or 10 circuits? Thanks for the help - don't want to mess this up!
thanks for posting this video, helped me (an electrician) figure out an issue with a generator back feed I installed that works fine with a regular generator but not one of these trucks.
If I understand the display each of the 2 phases from the generator is 3.6kW. The reason the truck shut off was because the microwave and stove are on the same phase (theoretically if they weren’t it would’ve been fine). I never put much thought into the way all my fuses are balanced, but it’s still interesting thing to see
Great review, Andrey. If that was my personal truck, I would have been freaking out. LOL. I am considering the Powerboost as the drivetrain in my next truck.
Second time around was MUCH better guys! Always best to do a little research and have someone on hand that knows a thing or two about what you're experimenting with!
Great video & the more you educate me about the Ford F-150 the more I like it. Not sure if I missed the video on the off-road capabilities of the F-150, but I would really be interested in how it does. As always thank you for taking the time to share your testing & knowledge.
That is quite impressive that you can run that house off the truck!!! And run it it in a manner that is really usable - like you are still on the mains for the most part and of course the house max is about 10,000 watts ( + - ) a bit but when would you ever be running everything at the same time - NEVER,,, so 7200 watts is plenty for like comfortable like your are not off grid at all !!! In an emergence, for sure hardly no emergency with that system..... That's Great!!!! I LIKE IT - I LIKE IT A LOT !!!!!!
This was so awesome to see! The Technological advancements are so astonishing. The same nay sayers about new tech, are the ones who will eventually buy one.
I added the larger inverter onto my Pro order recently. Already have the house wired with a transfer switch, reliance, so assume it's going to be plug and play. With a full charge I should be using about 12 KWH per day in a power outage, which gives me 5 or 6 days power until I hit 20 percent charge or so. I have an inverter generator already, so it is going to be demoted to the back up once my truck order arrives.
So the hanle prt of cord is your surge protector & semi flex 4/6 way outlets on solid copper line. Then u can attach normal cords onto the semi flex handle line.
The truck did something else that wasn't even mentioned in this video. It showed this house has an unbalanced load. To balance this circuit panel is relatively simple. Just swap some of the heavily loaded breakers to the other leg of the 240 volt panel with some lighter loaded breakers such as lights. The panel may not be able to be perfectly balanced because things like fridge and freezer turn off and on. But fridge should be on one leg and freezer on the other leg.
Amazing. F-150 is just a gift to the world. I hope it would be made more affirdable for countries in Africa. Above all, nice piece of work here by Ford Motors.👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
I don't think the powerboost saves fuel. Imo, the powerboost is a added creature comfort, similar to having a big screen T.V. Maybe, just maybe if you never drive the truck over 25mph it can save some fuel but over 38mph and then the savings are out the window!
Tbh, you don't need to power "luxury" items during a short out and therefor is extremely easy. Just run a powercord from the truck to everything you need to power (fridge, freezer etc). I take for granted that everyone living in a house in cold climates have a backup heating system (wood stove for example).
Will a would stove heat an entire suburban house like shown? Honest question. There are pipes in various places throughout the house that need protection from freezing, although trickling them would lessen the chance of that.
One of the things I had to deal with is houses before 1996 have three wire 220. Houses after that time use 4 wire 220. My diesel generator has four wire 220 output so I had to build an adapter 4 wire to 3 wire.
Andre, great video - very useful info. So, will you keep your hybrid truck or sell/trade it for a Lightening? Why? This would also make a good video … let us know what to keep in mind when pondering this decision. Thanks again!
Using a break out box you dont have to turn off the MAIN, you can just switch off the circuits you want to go to generator for with the switches in the break out box !!!! Once hooked up, its a piece of cake to select which circuits you want to take off the MAIN,,, simply flip a switch !!!! Basically, every circuit has a double throw switch,,, main or external,,, the box has the plug already in it and its all wired up ready to tie in,,, Home depot sells it and I thing it was like $250 when I got mine,,, each circuit is 30 amp and there are different boxes with more or less circuits, 6, 12, 24 etc.... works for 120 and 240 but less circuits for the 240 than the 120.... You dont have to worry about the MAIN AT ALL since the external circuits you chose are completely disconnected from the MAIN when you flip the switch so if the power comes back on while running a external source,,, nothing happens - its all safe and isolated automatically,,,,, the house power comes back on and the generator circuits stay on generator until you flip the switches back...... this really is the best way and safest way to tie an external power source to a house - YOU CANT MAKE A MISTAKE is what so good about it !!!!! It has meters to show wattage on each leg,,, the thing is great !!!!! Just some info and an idea for ya !!!!
I think the Keeps ads are hilarious 😂. I think y’all should keep making those same ones but Nathan wears a different wig every time…like make the wigs progressively funnier and wackier.
Don’t forget interlocks on the panel could save a lineman’s life doing storm restoration! If main breaker isn’t off voltage can back feed on to utilities grid
I ran into the same issues. Both the truck and my panel had "bonded grounds" and like was stated, this causes a loop issue and faults. After talking with a few electricians, what we decided to do was to alter my input outlet only. This way the truck keeps everything in tact as well as my main service. But at the input plug we simply disconnected the neutral wire. (Might have been the ground, but only one of the two). This broke the bonded ground from flowing from the truck to the house, and stopping the looping. The house is still properly grounded thru the earth ground and bonding. This allowed everything to work as expected. This is also achieved thru the 4 wire to 3 wire adapters that can be found online, but I have heard some of them are questionable.
Is it safe to do this? I have the same issue at my house. So simply loosen the screw and pull the wire out of the plug? Did you trim the wire back? Thx
@@sundownproperties7621 from a "code" policy, probably not. But the electricians I spoke to said it would be fine. But I'm not an electrician. Maybe one can comment for us. And yes I just loosened the screw, pulled the wire and put a wire nut on it to make sure it did not fall into another contact and cause any issues.
@@robertgreenman8269 Yes correct, when connecting a generator to a house the generator should be configured as a "floating neutral" because the house supplies the bond to make the system actually a "bonded neutral" system. When using exclusively extension cords with a generator, the generator should then be configured as a "bonded neutral" generator because there is no house including the bond between the grounding conductor and the grounded (neutral) conductor.
@@GL_615 disconnect the ground wire. Not necessary to cut back as it carriers no load. But I still folded it, and taped it of just to keep it from making contact where it should not.
I disconnected the ground from the 30 amp 240 volt inlet plug and it solved the ground fault on the Truck, I have an interlock on the breaker on the main panel, and all outlets are grounded anyway at the house
As much as I love the new lightning, I think the hybrid with the inverter generator is a better choice. In fact, If I could make decisions for the Ford motor Company, every truck starting with the 2024 model year would be a hybrid with a 5KW propower onboard generator as standard equipment. A 10 KW version would be an option for an additional cost.
Nothing wrong with the hybrids you mentioned but I personally think the all electric lightning is the perfect way to go. Still having to purchase gasoline defeats the purpose of an all electric vehicle.
