Alternator Upgrade

[mpeugeot]

What the hell kind of voodoo is this this? Lol. Keep us updated.. really curious if it fixes your issues!

Exactly... trying to find out these crazy voodoo procedures for the battery and TPMS sensors. Why can't Ford just provide a central repository for all of these "swing chicken over head while chanting" procedures.

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[zuke]

Exactly... trying to find out these crazy voodoo procedures for the battery and TPMS sensors. Why can't Ford just provide a central repository for all of these "swing chicken over head while chanting" procedures.

As unlikley as it might be for someone to do this accidently... It starts to make me nervous about what kind of things we could accidently reprogram in normal scenarios!

This is not real, But things like this cross my mind;

Stop to get the mail a the bottom of the driveway, leave Bronco running, lock doors...

Oops, I forgot to get the the mailbox key out of the console, Unlock Bronco, get mailbox key. Turn stereo off cause it's 4 in the morning, close door, lock Bronco.

Dammit, Wrong key! Unlock Bronco, get right key, turn off headlights, close door, lock bronco, still running...

Get Mail, Come back to Bronco, all lights are flashing and it looks like a disco ball! Doors won't unlock.

Of course the alternative is to make you pull out a programmer to reset every little thing, So here we are

 

[Silver-Bolt]

Reminder. When the Bronco is "off" it's really not off. Many of the various modules are still drawing power. After a few days (I think it's 5) the Bronco will go into "deep sleep" mode. That cuts the power draw down to the absolute minimum it needs to survive. It is still drawing juice, but not as much.

 

[zuke]

So, Interesting day today.

Drove to work this morning (Ambient 31 Charge before start 12.31)

Everything normal, Headlights and Fogs on, Stereo and amps on, heater off waiting for bronco to warm up.

Backup 20 feet to line up to go down driveway, And I get a charging system error. Clears by the time I get to the bottom of the driveway.

Before I get to work, I get 2 more charging system errors, both clear on their own..

During the drive, The Guage never went outside of what I've come to think of as "normal" 12.5~14.7v ranges

Get to work and Battery is at 12.9... No time to play with it, I got a call on the way to work, and there is a server broken I gotta go fix...

After work, I pull codes, The normal P160a cause my tires are too big for forscan to relearn in the PCM, and a P0562 for low system voltage.

But I got some new ones, A B1147, a B1148, a B1D07, a B1D06 and a C1001.

None of those have time stamps, so it's possible they were set while I was screwing with stuff a week ago. But the first all indicate shorts, even though all the lights in question were working.

Drove home with everything as normal, and which means the Fog lights were off, and everything worked just fine, no alarms.

Battery Voltage 12.56 on arrival at home. For giggles, I checked the old battery in the shed, which I still haven't hooked to a charger... Still 12.51! WTF?

Maybe this is somehow all my fault? This evening ran to the shop, Fog lights off, Everything else on as normal, No problem.

Disconnected Amps, Fogs, Extra Turn signals I added via the forscan mirror indicators, and Door Module connectors C1401/C1400, and Winch power cables.

Went into forscan, and turned all the lights I had added back off.

I'm gonna run this way tomorrow and Friday to see how that goes, and if everything is fine, this weekend I'll start checking everything I've done with wiring, and adding things back in while trying to duplicate the problem...

The saga continues!

 

[zuke]

Last night when I got home from the shop, 12.71 a the battery. this morning 12.66... so less of a drop overnight than before.. May have some parasitic losses in one of the circuits I disconnected.. Drive to work was uneventful,

 

[da_jokker]

I wonder if you have a loose connector somewhere? Maybe a loose negative?

Sounds like what you need is some sort of alternator code so maybe affordable replace it under warranty.

 

[da_jokker]

Exactly... trying to find out these crazy voodoo procedures for the battery and TPMS sensors. Why can't Ford just provide a central repository for all of these "swing chicken over head while chanting" procedures.

Easy answer..... They want you to pay a Ford tech!

 

[da_jokker]

Reminder. When the Bronco is "off" it's really not off. Many of the various modules are still drawing power. After a few days (I think it's 5) the Bronco will go into "deep sleep" mode. That cuts the power draw down to the absolute minimum it needs to survive. It is still drawing juice, but not as much.

I know I wish we could change this. Personally I would up it to two or three days max. If I haven't started my Bronco in a couple days, I'm totally good with it going into a deep sleep!

Write a minimum, allow us to put it in deep sleep somehow... The Ford app comes to mind.

 

[zuke]

I wonder if you have a loose connector somewhere? Maybe a loose negative?

Quite possible... I'll be going over all those this weekend

 

[LockedBronco]

12.66 is perfect
With the addit

Last night when I got home from the shop, 12.71 a the battery. this morning 12.66... so less of a drop overnight than before.. May have some parasitic losses in one of the circuits I disconnected.. Drive to work was uneventful,

12.71 was that right after engine was running? 12.66 is perfect
Where did you get power from to connect the things you added?

 

[zuke]

12.71 was that right after engine was running? 12.66 is perfect
Where did you get power from to connect the things you added?

I gave it about 10 minutes cause I had to let the dogs out of the house for a bit, but yes, 12.71 was very shortly after getting home from the shop.


Amplifiers: + to Battery Positive, Negative to a new ground in the back under the seat trim.

Winch: + to Battery Positve, Negative to BMS Sensor tab.

Turn Indicators (Integrated in my ditch lights): + C1400/C1401 from there they are fed by the Driver and Passenger Door Modules, Negative to Modesty Panel Ground used for Aux Switches.

Fogs: + C203 in the fender, From that connector they run to the BdyCM I believe, don't have the diagram in front of me, Negative to the big ground on the fender by the battery.

I only wired in the Fogs this way about two weeks ago, (Right before getting a state safety inspection) to make them "legal" for Virginia road use, (Must be DOT Approved, controlled by the factory switch, and not capable of turning on at the same time as the high beams), Ditto the turn signals in the ditch lights, so these are my biggest suspects.

The Amplifiers and Winch have both been wired the way they were for over six months and working.

The the spot function of the ditch lights is still wired in, but they're on an upfitter switch, and I've had ditch lights on that switch for over six months. I didn't disconnect these.

I also have a 12" light bar on the bumper, also wired to an AUX switch for over 6 months. I didn't disconnect that.

 

[Snacktime]

Volt meter and check the amps at the fuse boxes with the bronco off? I know my bronco is usually 12.4-12.8 when using forscan with the motor off. Same as my previous bronco when doing forscan stuff.

 

[zuke]

Another charging system fault this morning, "Low voltage".

Battery Voltage before startup was 12.51, the alarm was shortly after startup, and cleared before getting out of the driveway again, with the battery voltage that high, I'm confident at this point the low voltage alarm isn't because of the battery itself.

The only thing I haven't reverted that has changed from before is the fender ground right by the battery, It still has a ring terminal on it that goes to the weather pack connector I added for the front fogs (Currently with nothing plugged into it.).

This ground point is THE main ground to the body, and goes directly to the Battery negative post,

As I sit here thinking about, that was probably a really stupid place for me to add an aluminum ring grounding connector, since that is going between the grounding bolt and the grounding plate of the cable from the battery. I'm going to check the resistance of the connection both with the ring as it is now, and after removing the ring this evening, If I can get an amperage reading of it as well I will.

At the very least, I'm sure this was not helping this situation, if it isn't the entire cause.

 

[LockedBronco]

Another charging system fault this morning, "Low voltage".

Battery Voltage before startup was 12.51, the alarm was shortly after startup, and cleared before getting out of the driveway again, with the battery voltage that high, I'm confident at this point the low voltage alarm isn't because of the battery itself.

The only thing I haven't reverted that has changed from before is the fender ground right by the battery, It still has a ring terminal on it that goes to the weather pack connector I added for the front fogs (Currently with nothing plugged into it.).

This ground point is THE main ground to the body, and goes directly to the Battery negative post,

As I sit here thinking about, that was probably a really stupid place for me to add an aluminum ring grounding connector, since that is going between the grounding bolt and the grounding plate of the cable from the battery. I'm going to check the resistance of the connection both with the ring as it is now, and after removing the ring this evening, If I can get an amperage reading of it as well I will.

At the very least, I'm sure this was not helping this situation, if it isn't the entire cause.

Wondering about being connected to the door modules and the body control module thoes connections are your wire taps?
Did you check for voltage drop?
Is the ground hot?
The amp how is it turned on?

 

[zuke]

Wondering about being connected to the door modules and the body control module thoes connections are your wire taps?

These are picked up near/at the connectors, The Fogs were tapped in by cutting the wires immediately before C203, and adding a weather pack connector to the wires, Done that way because I couldn't find the actual pins to go in the connector. The pins at C203 ended there, Because I have a 2021 Badlands Stripper, so Modular Bumper with No fogs or sensors meant no wiring harness to the front.

Turn Indicators were with pins into C1400/C1401.

In both cases they would go through more connectors before arriving at the BCM and DDM/PDM, (I don't know what connectors without the diagrams in front of me, but have the diagrams at my shop) what I ws trying to do was keep everything of the factory wiring I could by tapping into the wires at the last place the factory ones still existed.

Did you check for voltage drop?

I didn't, But as I put the connections in again, I will.

Is the ground hot?

Haven't checked yet, But I will tonight, along with resistance checks

The amp how is it turned on?

The Kenwood is a signal sensing amp, that turns on when it sees voltage on the speaker wires.

The Skar Monoblock is turned on by it's remote wire tied to a tapped ignition switched fuse in the block at the Driver's side dash.

I'd like to add an aux wired relay to their main power feed from the battery, but I haven't found a good solution for that. The amps feed power from their capacitors back into the system when off right now, which I can't think is good behavior, and threw me off on some of my initial troubleshooting...

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