How does a winch under load perform on the 4xe?

[BringTheLightnin]

It’s a little confusing; normal operation, with the hood up the ICE is running but the dashboard message says the battery is not charging. I am not sure the engine is charging the 12V battery when using the air compressor. It would be nice if it did.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by the dashboard message says it's not charging. Personally, I've never had an issue with the 12V dying or being too weak so far with this jeep. I had a gladiator before my 4xe and it never gave any messages, just straight up died one day before a trip to TN.

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[LAM]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by the dashboard message says it's not charging. Personally, I've never had an issue with the 12V dying or being too weak so far with this jeep. I had a gladiator before my 4xe and it never gave any messages, just straight up died one day before a trip to TN.

Your guess is as good as mine as to what this really means.

 

[BringTheLightnin]

Your guess is as good as mine as to what this really means.

I'll have to check mine. Don't remember ever seeing that before

 

[Tyler-98-W68]

I'd like to mention here that the HV battery does a horrendous job of "Recharging" the 12v battery. It works great for topping it off, but once it becomes discharged it takes an obscene amount of time before the battery gets to a reasonable charge level again. In normal vehicle operation the 12V stays nearly fully charged since its only job is to close the HV contactors before the IDCM puts out voltage to power everything. In extended accessory use it can become discharged pretty easily

Just something to be aware of if you plan on doing a lot of winching. In a normal ICE you can usually just drive for like 30-45 minutes and a good battery will recharge itself enough for it to no longer be an issue. This isn't the case for the 4XE

That is completely wrong........have you actually tested out how the 4xe charges 12V batteries? Bet you haven't.

The onboard DC/DC charger that charges and maintains the 12v battery is very powerful and will charge the 12v battery very fast.

Apparently you haven't heard of the "boost" feature, where when the vehicle's 12v battery is at a level determined by the BCM to be "low" it will give a huge boost of current for 2 minutes to quickly recharge the battery.

Shown here:



You can also see the same behavior here



Then knowing how the vehicle utilizes the 2 minute boost feature



I had the battery charged for 22% to 83% in 40 minutes........by simply forcing the vehicle to use the 2 minute boost feature.

So the system can easily charge over 100amps to a very low state of charge battery.

How can you say it does a poor job based on all these facts?

 

[alphawolff]

That is completely wrong........have you actually tested out how the 4xe charges 12V batteries? Bet you haven't.

The onboard DC/DC charger that charges and maintains the 12v battery is very powerful and will charge the 12v battery very fast.

Apparently you haven't heard of the "boost" feature, where when the vehicle's 12v battery is at a level determined by the BCM to be "low" it will give a huge boost of current for 2 minutes to quickly recharge the battery.

Shown here:



You can also see the same behavior here



Then knowing how the vehicle utilizes the 2 minute boost feature



I had the battery charged for 22% to 83% in 40 minutes........by simply forcing the vehicle to use the 2 minute boost feature.

So the system can easily charge over 100amps to a very low state of charge battery.

How can you say it does a poor job based on all these facts?

I have a lot of experience with 4XEs and low voltage scenarios. For example, if a battery tender isn't used during flashing, and a battery drops under ~11.0v or so during the flash procedure, we've had them come back in a day or two due to requiring a jump start. I've seen it happen a good amount of times at this point. We've also had this low voltage condition cause a 4XE stall scenario. We had like a dozen return within 48 hours with a stall/dead battery after the 04B recall release due to some technicians not using tenders during all the flashes. the battery would drain to ~10.6-11.0v and the IDCM just wouldn't recharge it enough. It'd start fine after the flashes and leave the dealership without issue, then boom, towed in with a dead battery a few days later.

This is just my experience on the matter, nowhere in my training did it mention using a "boost" feature to force rapid charge the battery via the IDCM. Not to say it isn't capable of doing such a thing, as you've shown. It just doesn't seem to happen with the default software logic. If it's nearly dead it never seems to re-charge them effectively like a normal generator would.


Since I brought it up, I do not know why a low 12v battery would cause a 4XE stall like this, but they all happened during highway driving within a day or two of the 04B. After replacing the battery it never happened again. My best guess is the HV battery depletes enough under EV use to shift the load onto the ICE, and during the momentary load shift the IDCM no longer outputs voltage and the 12v drops enough to power cycle some module resulting in the shut down. A similar thing happens on the ICE engines with auxiliary batteries. If the aux battery is *completely* flat you won't be able to start the vehicle, even if the primary is perfectly fine. During first start the PCM does load shift to the aux to test its health, but because it's completely flat the interior modules just lose power and the process stops. Normally if it's just partially depleted the vehicle will fail to crank but crank properly on the second key cycle as the module knows to not re-run the load test.



Anyway, thanks for the videos. That's pretty cool. I didn't know you could force the IDCM to do that, our factory scanner doesn't support that function as far as I'm aware. As your video is from 2022, it's possible the recent IDCM updates have changed that software logic. I only started experiencing 4XE battery issues after the B9A/04B recalls started coming out. It might explain why we've had completely difference experiences in the matter.

 

[us3r1d]

I had the battery charged for 22% to 83% in 40 minutes........by simply forcing the vehicle to use the 2 minute boost feature.

How do you "force" it to do a rapid charge like that?

(Not that I could test a procedure; my 12v battery seems to be fine so far, but it'd be useful to know if my 4xe decides to join the xmas tree dashboard crowd.)

 

[Slate]

Your guess is as good as mine as to what this really means.

This disables the HV system so you or the mechanic don't shock yourselves messing around in the engine bay. This only applies to the HV battery when you are plugged in, it doesn't mean or do anything about the 12V battery.

 

[skipdup]

Did anyone ever figure out how to force the boost recharge?

 

[Slate]

Last two times using my winch, I got the check engine light, DTC, B21E3-00.

First time I wrote about it here - (https://www.jlwranglerforums.com/forum/threads/need-some-help-with-this-code-b21e3-00.157438/) I was able to reset the DTC, using my Jscan.

I have the Genesis system and this time I had the Jeep engine on and had it on eSave to prioritize the engine. I even popped a hood latch which forces the engine on.

We were just respooling a new winch line, using the Jeep weight itself, on the road in front of my house, very slight incline.

So it doesn't seem like it should be pulling that much voltage or that it would cause the DTC, but I wonder if I should have the Genesis Power Hub on "On" - which effectively connects both batteries together, as it seems I am pulling alot of voltage with the winch and the HV battery just doesn't like that and the HV can't keep up with supplying power to the 12V?

Thoughts and ideas? @Genesis Offroad @alphawolff @Tyler-98-W68

Just seems like I shouldn't be tripping the DTC with normal winch use. I assume it would happen if I was on the regular battery.

 

[Tyler-98-W68]

Just seems like I shouldn't be tripping the DTC with normal winch use. I assume it would happen if I was on the regular battery.

You are always on the "regular battery"

You can't directly tap in to the HV battery, well you could but it's dangerous and not worth it.

Simplified. A 4xe doesn't have an alternator but has a DC/DC charger that functions identically to one.

So your winch is hooked up to your 12v battery, that battery is fed by the "alternator" which is active if the ignition is on ACC or Run, the vehicle doesn't have to be "running" and having the ICE running is completely irrelevant to how much power you have available.

What type of battery do you have? Stock aftermarket AGM?

What I think is happening is the winch is drawing too much current all at once at a certain point in time which is causing that DTC, which is an overcurrent.

Now in my cases when I was testing out how much power I could pull before the DC-DC charger couldn't keep up, my loads were not "peaky" if that makes any sense. it was simply space heaters.

It's possible your winch even upon initial spool (even unloaded) is creating a surge current that the HCP does not like.

In my testing I was only drawing around 210amps from my battery and the DC-DC charger couldn't quite keep up at that level. It's not a problem if it can't keep up because if the battery is high quality enough it should be able to handle some discharge and then recharge again during a short break in the winch pull.



here is a video showing how the system works with a 200 or so amp load.

What I would suggest doing, is getting J-Scan set up to monitor like I have and watch the current going in and out of the battery during winching so we can get some values and see if your power draw is greater than mine (which i suspect it is)

Also stole this from your original post

Set Conditions:

• When the Integrated Dual Charge Module (IDCM) detects greater than 230.0 amperes on the B(+) circuit or the internal hardware protection signal is active.

So I never drew more than 230amps..........and I didn't have issues, so my guess is that when using the winch, because you have 2 batteries, they are able to take more current than a single smaller battery, the DC-DC charger is trying to put out more than 230amps....and the check engine light goes on.

Way around this............not ideal but.

Have vehicle "off" ignition off while doing the pull for a bit, then put the ignition to acc or run for a bit to recharge the batteries, then turn the vehicle off again and rinse and repeat. That way you are not stressing/maxxing out the DC-DC charger

 

[alphawolff]

Last two times using my winch, I got the check engine light, DTC, B21E3-00.

First time I wrote about it here - (https://www.jlwranglerforums.com/forum/threads/need-some-help-with-this-code-b21e3-00.157438/) I was able to reset the DTC, using my Jscan.

I have the Genesis system and this time I had the Jeep engine on and had it on eSave to prioritize the engine. I even popped a hood latch which forces the engine on.

We were just respooling a new winch line, using the Jeep weight itself, on the road in front of my house, very slight incline.

So it doesn't seem like it should be pulling that much voltage or that it would cause the DTC, but I wonder if I should have the Genesis Power Hub on "On" - which effectively connects both batteries together, as it seems I am pulling alot of voltage with the winch and the HV battery just doesn't like that and the HV can't keep up with supplying power to the 12V?

Thoughts and ideas? @Genesis Offroad @alphawolff @Tyler-98-W68

Just seems like I shouldn't be tripping the DTC with normal winch use. I assume it would happen if I was on the regular battery.

Your PCM sense voltage is dropping under 12v. Something in your battery system is probably loose. Service information indicates to check the 12v system thoroughly. It's possible your winch is also failing and overdrawing current, though I doubt it.

 

[Slate]

I have the Genesis Dual Battery system with two AGM's. One is used as the normal 12V and the other is for the accessories (the system either links the two batteries or keeps them separated based on need, etc.). In this case I wasn't using any other accessories (lights and fridge), just the winch.

The VERY first time I used the winch, it was all sunshine and rainbows. The second time I was doing a lot of pulls, some pretty heavy pulls to be honest, but we took time in between to reset (and to relook how we were doing it), so I had thought it was cooling down the winch and possibly letting the 12V "recharge". I didn't think about having the engine on, or setting it to eSave, just let it sit in Hybrid mode running off the HV battery while we were winching. That 2nd time is when I got the check engine light and wasn't able to pull the code until I got home. I eventually reset it and all was well, until today.

Today was the 3rd pull, and we were just replacing the winch line. We didn't pull the line all in one go, but would hit the button while I guided the rope back on and then hit the button again, so it was a series of tapping the button. Maybe it was a bit "peaky", I am not sure.

But, yes, I agree, I am certainly pulling too much voltage that the 12V doesn't like and the HV doesn't like it either and maybe can't keep it.

Just trying to figure out a better practice, since this is the second time it has tripped the DTC. I can easily add more time in between pulls, but if it is a case of the 12V dipping too low and the HV not being able to keep up, I am not sure what that interval should be.

My question to Genesis, is if it makes sense to press "On" which essentially combines the two batteries together - this seems like the two batteries would better absorb the voltage "spikes" (if that is even the right word) and would be a better practice, but I haven't read or seen anyone use this.

 

[Slate]

Your PCM sense voltage is dropping under 12v. Something in your battery system is probably loose. The amount of dual battery systems Service information indicates to check the 12v system thoroughly. It's possible your winch is also failing and overdrawing current, though I doubt it.

I will double-check all the connectors tomorrow and see. I will also check the grounds as that was a problem with my sons Willys.

It won't hurt for me to check with Winch connectors either. The winch was fine when we were unspooling the old line, just didn't like the load I guess.

 

[Tyler-98-W68]

Combining the 2 might help but I don't think it's a voltage drop issue I think it's a current draw issue, which might be amplified (current wise) with 2 batteries together.

I wish I still had my 4xe's because I now have heated lithium batteries, which would be a ton of fun to test out and see how the system reacts to charging them, and putting them under heavy load (because they hold voltage better under higher loads)

 

[THAW]

@Slate, is your winch connected to the Genesis Power Hub? Is your IBS connected to the Genesis accessory battery? Do you have the Genesis Engine On Sensor Cable?

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