Ranger Mods

HI ALL - I am purchasing a new 2017 XLT ranger with smart alternator. I have a camper trailer with a red arc BM1230 management system in it and i want to add an anderson plug to the back of my car to charge the trailer. I would also like to have an anderson plug in the tray to maintain charge in a removable battery pack for an additional fridge. I have been advised by 1 ford dealership that they can switch off the smart charger and it will run constant voltage where as another told me they can only modify the parameters of the cut in / cut out of the alternator. Does anyone have any advice on the above and am i correct in saying if the smart alternator can be switched off and run constant voltage i can simply run cabling to the rear and branch off to the tray via a red arc isolation switch? and if it can not then, as the BM1230 in the trailer is a DC/DC charger then i need to run cabling to the trailer via an isolation switch and i also need to add a DC/DC charger for the Battery Pack in the tray
Any advice would be much appreciated

My dealer told me that they can disable the Smart charger so it works like a normal charging system but like any info you get from Ford who knows.

Ask 5 Ford dealers the same question and I am sure that you will get at least 3 different answers.

My caravan has a compressor type fridge and runs off the battery when travelling.

It also runs off the battery when stopped but auto changes to 240v when detected.

I was told I will need some fancy ($800)charger installed in the van to charge the battery via an Anderson plug from the car.

I ran 50amp wire from the battery to the Anderson plug and 100amp wire from the Anderson plug to the van battery and never had any problems.

Car battery voltage at idle was 14.3 volts and 14 at van the battery.

The battery is a 105ah AGM.

I have read/seen as much negative as positive on disabling the Smart charge.

Once disabled it puts out a constant voltage, not regulated so cooking a battery can happen.

Dual battery mode will run constant voltage although if you are running the additional batteries of an additional BMS then I would leave it as it is. My standard isolation switch runs just fine in single battery mode and I have no issues.

Personally, I have run 0 gauge cable to the tray with a spare battery and Intervolt EBI programmable battery isolator, both mounted in the tray. From there you could run your cable to the BMS in the trailer, cable size will depend on the current and distance but 8mm twin is a good start.

RossPat wrote: ↑Mon Apr 09, 2018 1:46 pm My dealer told me that they can disable the Smart charger so it works like a normal charging system but like any info you get from Ford who knows.

Ask 5 Ford dealers the same question and I am sure that you will get at least 3 different answers.

My caravan has a compressor type fridge and runs off the battery when travelling.

It also runs off the battery when stopped but auto changes to 240v when detected.

I was told I will need some fancy ($800)charger installed in the van to charge the battery via an Anderson plug from the car.

I ran 50amp wire from the battery to the Anderson plug and 100amp wire from the Anderson plug to the van battery and never had any problems.

Car battery voltage at idle was 14.3 volts and 14 at van the battery.

The battery is a 105ah AGM.

I have read/seen as much negative as positive on disabling the Smart charge.

Once disabled it puts out a constant voltage, not regulated so cooking a battery can happen.

Sorry to dig up an old post. What setting did you have the smart charger on? 90% 14.4v or 100%?
Cheers

Just change it to 100%

Once 100% state of charge is reached the alternator will turn off and on again as required.

I have exactly the same set-up as GregB is proposing to do with his Ranger.
On my Wildtrak the smart charge alternator is running to an Anderson Plug on the rear bumper to supply a charge to the twin 110 a/h batteries in our off-road Camper trailer and we have a 120 a/h lithium auxiliary in the back of the tub that is charged by a Redarc BCDC1240D charger.
The photo is of my Ultragauge ( in neutral ) and at idle with the charge rate just above 14.2 volts Once all the 4 batteries are fully charged it drops down to around 13.4 volts so I see no need to have the smart charge deleted or disconnected.

RossPat wrote: ↑Mon Apr 09, 2018 1:46 pm My dealer told me that they can disable the Smart charger so it works like a normal charging system but like any info you get from Ford who knows.

Ask 5 Ford dealers the same question and I am sure that you will get at least 3 different answers.

My caravan has a compressor type fridge and runs off the battery when travelling.

It also runs off the battery when stopped but auto changes to 240v when detected.

I was told I will need some fancy ($800)charger installed in the van to charge the battery via an Anderson plug from the car.

I ran 50amp wire from the battery to the Anderson plug and 100amp wire from the Anderson plug to the van battery and never had any problems.

Car battery voltage at idle was 14.3 volts and 14 at van the battery.

The battery is a 105ah AGM.

I have read/seen as much negative as positive on disabling the Smart charge.

Once disabled it puts out a constant voltage, not regulated so cooking a battery can happen.

After all this discussion I bit the bullet as it were and I've installed a Redarc BCDC1225D charger in our Signature off-road camper-trailer to maintain the charge to the two existing OE 110/ah AGM batteries.

I have to say that I'm impressed.

In the trailer we have a 85 litre dual compartment MyCoolaman fridge / freezer and it pulled down to -16 in the freezer and -1 in the fridge and the 160 watt solar panel, through the BCDC1225D maintained the batteries at 100% (13.8 volts) without having to connect to the Wildtrak.

I had to bypass and bridge out the solar panel's own regulator so that I was running an unregulated power supply to the BCDC1225D as it already has its own regulator.

The only hassle if you could call it that was running an ignition supply to the purple connection (pin 9 ) on the 12 pin socket - this I ran from the ignition supply that exists on the BCDC1225D in the Wildtrak that charges the lithium auxiliary. I then had to draw a wire from the 9 pin on the trailer plug through the trailer chassis(s) to the electrical control panel where I located the new BCDC unit. That was a real hassle even with the use of my neighbors flexible draw wire !

In short the 6 mm double insulated power supply cable for the trailer Redarc comes from a 100 amp MIDI fuse from the main starter battery to a Redarc VSR with a 50 amp MIDI fuse protecting a 6 mm again, double insulated and in flexible conduit supply to the Anderson socket on the rear bar. As per a Redarc wiring diagram there is a 40 amp MIDI fuse between the BCDC and the copper buzz-bar joining the two AGM 100 a/h batteries. Protection wise its possibly overdone.

Conclusions :
I should have done this years ago when we first took delivery of the Signature and without the need to first pressure flush red dust mud out of the trailer chassis rails - luckily they are fully galvanized ehh and if nothing else its highlighted yet another "service" item that has to be carried out at the end of every trip !!

As far as I know the smart charge can be switched off on 3.2l models, but not on 2.0l biturbo models.

That said, if you put your headlamps on, ie on "ON", not on "auto" (which arguably they should be when towing anyway) then that is sufficient to keep the alternator at full output and not let the "smart" part reduce output. That's what I do and never had an issue since I started that.

3.2l and 2.0 can be changed.

In reality smart charge is never entirely disabled in any of the vehicles. All you are doing is setting the battery SOC % of when the alternator will switch off.

Dual battery mode when done with Fords software is 100% and 100% only. When the main battery reaches 100% SOC the alternator will turn off and the vehicle will load shedding.
Set it to 90% and when it reaches 90% or above it will again switch off and start load shedding.

Hence depending on the quality of the main battery and if it can ever reach 100% is to whether a DC/DC is really necessary.

There are some other factors involved but this is basically the guts of it.

I have just purchased my Ranger, 21.75 with led headlights. Connected to my caravan which has a Redarc Bms30. After 15 mins the car battery voltage drops to low 12v and the BMS in the caravan automatically disconnects. Tried turning on headlights as suggested elsewhere but not enough load with LED's to alter the smart charge output. Set the voltage to 90% which was supposed to be 14.4v but gave me 14.9v. Have now set it to 80% which is giving me 14.2 to 14.4v. I will see how it goes on my next trip.