Hey everyone -- please forgive my ignorance as I beg those with knowledge to enlighten me...


Hoping someone can help me figure out if this is the norm on the superduty set up or if something is screwy on mine. So, obviously I have 2 batteries, but what I don't have are any obvious places to attach leads to any single battery. I'm not sure if I am missing the obvious here or if the set up is just different and this being my first superduty and dual battery vehicle I just don't know the proper way to do it for this truck. In the past there has always been an obvious place to add a lead to the battery, a post and nut that you just slip the lead over and retighten.


This set up has me confused because one battery has a pos terminal you can add to and the OTHER battery has a neg terminal that you could add to (although there is nothing on the neg side or a nut to use to hold things on it).



Driver side (above) has a threaded stud on the neg side, no nut, but nothing on the pos side. (please ignore my hack job of a connection, I was just checking to make sure the wire had electricity at the other end...)

Pass side (above) has a threaded stud on the pos side that is being used by a couple connections held in place by a nut but nothing on the neg side.


So am I
a)supposed to connect things to both batteries, pos on one side and neg on the other?
b)missing some part of the battery connection that should be there to add a set of wires for an always on connection?
c) is there some other location I am supposed to make this connection? ( I am trying to NOT use an upfitter as I need this always on)
d) am I so far off base that you are rolling on the floor laughing hilariously at my ignorance???


Also, the bolt and nut to the side of the terminal (black bolt coming out of little black block and silver nut) are not usable, even though the bolt itself does carry electricity from the battery. The block part is not metal and getting something to stay attached in a solid way is not really an option.


OK.... have at it! Please explain what the heck I am missing here.


Any help will be greatly appreciated!!!!


Thanks!
ej

 

The bolt and nut on the side actually tighten the wedge pieces under them. That's what forces the terminal to clamp down on the stud.

The 2 batteries are wired in parallel. So if you connect to the 2 points you noted in a), you'll be just fine. You'll get 12V.

Quite possible C) is the correct answer. I just don't know where that is.

 

Cool, thanks for the info!!!!... at least you didn't pick D (or at least were kind enough not to tell me ).


I wonder if anyone actually has an answer about C?

 

Go to the positive side of the passenger side and then find a good grounding point around there. Has to be something close by to ground to.

 

I don't have a Powerstroke yet. How are the 2 batteries set up in terms of powering the truck and accessories? Is one a back-up to the other (which one)?

 

C. You can have 2 upfitter switches always on, not a hack, a feature.

 

 

 

This vid is long but the relevant info is at 10:30 to 11:30 mark, sharing this one specifically for the/a proper GROUND location.

 

Regarding A:
Someone smarter than me can chime in and clarify this; it is not recommended to connect things directly to the battery as it bypasses some sensor that regulates how much charging the alternator needs to do to keep your batteries healthy, so bypassing (BCM module I think) would charge your batteries less than actually needed if you are connected directly to battery.

 

This is an interesting question for me as well, I ordered a gasser with dual batteries (Medium Duty Battery) dual option 86M
Is one considered primary/secondary, which one for jump start, etc.

 

Do you have a fuse box under the hood? There should be a stud in there to tie power into. In my gasser, the fuse box is on the passenger side near the firewall. As for the ground, I would look for other ground rings bolted to the body.

 

The Ford Body Builders Guide covers many of the questions raised in this thread, as well as other 'upfitter' related items. In terms of electrical add-ons, for incremental loads of less than 35amps the positive wire is supposed to be fed from the main power lead on the starter. For incremental loads greater than 35 amps the load is to be fed from the positive terminal on the battery.

In terms of the negative wire, connect to either a suitable frame or block ground location. Do not connect the ground wire for the incremental load to the battery or you will be bypassing the BCMs ability to regulate alternator output.

 

https://www.fleet.ford.com/truckbbas/non-html/Q-252.pdf
Wiring directly to starter is contrary to the purpose of the upfitter switches.

 

Not really, the switches are just that, switches. If you have something that you want to always have power, or pull more than 40 amps, you'll need to look elsewhere. The body builders guides are very helpful for this, too. That said, the upfitter wire bundle has a couple other power sources that might help, including an always hot 20 amp supply, as mentioned in the pdf.

The battery charge system uses a hall-effect sensor, which on the F-150 and others is part of how the charge profile is determined. On the super duties, I think they realized that politely asking people to not hook up to the battery directly wouldn't stop them from doing so, so (I am fairly confident) they would prefer you pull from a different power source, but on the super duty it won't overly confuse the system if you connect directly to the battery. That said, if you are pulling 20amps or less, I'd use the brown/red always-hot in the upfitter bundle.