[mattballew]

Anyone with much experience with Pro Power on board?
This was one of the bigger selling points for me, to have 7.2kw available on demand.
My hope is to have the ability to plug my house in during a power outage and keep essentials running.. I already have a Generator inlet, but with some recent research on how it works I'm finding stories of ground fault issues.
There isn't a lot of information out about how it works, or what needs to be done to clear the ground fault.. One person said it was because his service is bonded at his panel, but another said it was just because his inlet is bonded.
As far as I'm aware, My house is properly grounded but it IS bonded at the meter. I'm just trying to figure out what exactly I'll need to make this work..

Ford support documents are entirely useless, as they try to sell you on the 80 amp charger with automatic transfer switch..
For now, i live in a rental property (While building), so the manual interlock is about the best it gets on having backup power.

Any insight to this is appreciated.

 

[ChasingCoral]

Anyone with much experience with Pro Power on board?
This was one of the bigger selling points for me, to have 7.2kw available on demand.
My hope is to have the ability to plug my house in during a power outage and keep essentials running.. I already have a Generator inlet, but with some recent research on how it works I'm finding stories of ground fault issues.
There isn't a lot of information out about how it works, or what needs to be done to clear the ground fault.. One person said it was because his service is bonded at his panel, but another said it was just because his inlet is bonded.
As far as I'm aware, My house is properly grounded but it IS bonded at the meter. I'm just trying to figure out what exactly I'll need to make this work..

Ford support documents are entirely useless, as they try to sell you on the 80 amp charger with automatic transfer switch..
For now, i live in a rental property (While building), so the manual interlock is about the best it gets on having backup power.

Any insight to this is appreciated.

There are a couple of YouTube videos that use the ProPower Onboard on their PowerBoost Hybrid F-150s to do this. I recommend you search YouTube for this info.

 

[Eclectic]

I read that the ground has to be disconnected when plugging into the 30A, 240V receptacle to avoid the truck ground fault. Hope it works for you and report back!

 

[SCVLightning]

Aside from powering your house, what else is the Pro Power option good for? I’m not using this truck for work. I’m just a truck fan. And I want chargers inside cuz i have three kids.

 

[chillaban]

Aside from powering your house, what else is the Pro Power option good for? I’m not using this truck for work. I’m just a truck fan. And I want chargers inside cuz i have three kids.

1. Charging your laptops, etc as fast as at home without buying overpriced and slow cigarette plug USB C adapters
2. Electric cookout / tailgating — run things like air fryers and pressure cookers
3. Charge another EV. Or more. At work we have free EV charging but limited spots. When I get one with my Lightning I’ll sometimes let my teammates charge their EV off my truck in exchange for me not having to re-park the truck somewhere else when it gets to 90%. Also at home in my apartment complex I can park my truck and top off my Tesla with it
4. Run a real 120V tire pump or vacuum cleaner — way better than the 12V cig plug or powered equivalents.
5. On long desert road trips, I’ll move my Plex server NAS and a router into the frunk and plug it into 120V. Now passengers can watch HD movies even with no cellular connectivity

Just some dorky ideas for inspiration.

 

[SCVLightning]

1. Charging your laptops, etc as fast as at home without buying overpriced and slow cigarette plug USB C adapters
2. Electric cookout / tailgating — run things like air fryers and pressure cookers
3. Charge another EV. Or more. At work we have free EV charging but limited spots. When I get one with my Lightning I’ll sometimes let my teammates charge their EV off my truck in exchange for me not having to re-park the truck somewhere else when it gets to 90%. Also at home in my apartment complex I can park my truck and top off my Tesla with it
4. Run a real 120V tire pump or vacuum cleaner — way better than the 12V cig plug or powered equivalents.
5. On long desert road trips, I’ll move my Plex server NAS and a router into the frunk and plug it into 120V. Now passengers can watch HD movies even with no cellular connectivity

Just some dorky ideas for inspiration.

That’s very helpful. Just curious, I thought the standard 2.4 had a couple 120V outlets?

 

[chillaban]

That’s very helpful. Just curious, I thought the standard 2.4 had a couple 120V outlets?

Oh sorry I’m not very familiar with the package differences. You can do a lot of what I mentioned with just the 2.4 120V outlets though IIRC they weren’t in as convenient of locations.

In terms of the 220V outlet, yeah, other than charging an EV, or as a generator compatible substitute, I don’t think it’s useful if you’re not a professional construction dude.

(using it as an EV charger is really awesome though if you have multiple EVs or some sort of shared charger arrangement)

 

[SCVLightning]

Oh sorry I’m not very familiar with the package differences. You can do a lot of what I mentioned with just the 2.4 120V outlets though IIRC they weren’t in as convenient of locations.

In terms of the 220V outlet, yeah, other than charging an EV, or as a generator compatible substitute, I don’t think it’s useful if you’re not a professional construction dude.

(using it as an EV charger is really awesome though if you have multiple EVs or some sort of shared charger arrangement)

thanks. I may have a rivian in about a year or so. That might be my only use. Hmm.

I finally got my email to order today so I actually have to make a decision now

 

[chillaban]

thanks. I may have a rivian in about a year or so. That might be my only use. Hmm.

I finally got my email to order today so I actually have to make a decision now

Also consider if you may end up having any life hacks around load shifting. Like at our weekend home, we have ToU charging and we often charge the Lightning off peak and then during the day plug our Tesla into that.

 

[ChasingCoral]

Aside from powering your house, what else is the Pro Power option good for? I’m not using this truck for work. I’m just a truck fan. And I want chargers inside cuz i have three kids.

Ford has run an entire drive-in theater and concerts with one.

 

[ChasingCoral]

That’s very helpful. Just curious, I thought the standard 2.4 had a couple 120V outlets?

All trucks have a 2.4kW circuit running 4 110v outlets in the Frunk, 2 in the cab, and a bunch of USB outlets. Trucks with the ProPower Onboard have a 7.2kW panel in the tailgate with 4 110v outlets (2 separate 2.4/3.6 kW banks) and a 7.2 kW 220v outlet (same two banks).

 

[chillaban]

I read that the ground has to be disconnected when plugging into the 30A, 240V receptacle to avoid the truck ground fault. Hope it works for you and report back!

Just wanted to add a confirmation here: had this setup installed yesterday. This is the only modification we needed. Normal generator inlet (we went with a 50A SS2-50 socket for future proofing and then an adapter to turn it to a 30A L14-30). With the ground connected from the inlet to the panel, got a GFCI fault immediately on the truck side. But with the ground removed at the panel, works like a charm and powers everything we conceivably use during normal house usage.

electrician felt comfortable with disconnecting the ground as long as it’s done at the panel. He thought the GFCI feature of the truck is still beneficial for the generator cord being defective / cut or any kind of weather related hazards from the cord to the inlet.

There is of course a more official method using a Reliance/Generac GFCI transfer sub panel that switches the neutral and ground, but it was impossible for us to pick only 8 circuits we want backed up, and the labor cost for moving the circuits was more than double this setup.