Charging/ range correlation

[cornbinder89]

1st let me say I don't have Leaf Spy, or at least not yet.
My car came from the 2nd owner with both the 120 volt trickle charge cable and a Primecom adjustable rate charger that has input limits from 10 amps to 32 amps 240 volt. (anything over 27 amp input is more than the 2015's 6.6 charger)
I've been playing around with charging times and input current, and see almost no change in usable range. For the last week or so I have the charge timer set for 1hr 50min, and the current set for 24 amps (5.75 Kw) input. Although the dash says 3 hr to charge it says 100% charged with this setting (around 7.5 Kwh used per cycle). I normally return home with upper 20's-low 30's miles remaining. One day I took it out until I was down to around 10 miles, next morning it showed 100% charged and 56 miles of range! It can't be. Still the car did its normal run and returned home with about the same miles remaining, and again this AM I showed 71 miles range.
My next plan is to drop the input to 20 amps while still keeping the 1hr 50 min time, and see what it shows. It has never shown less than 100% charge regardless of what I do.
I'd like to get it down to 80% or so on a normal charge during the week and then have one night slow charge to 100% to equalize. Set the input at 10 amps (2.4 Kw) and let the BCM turn the charger off when it says it is done.
It doesn't seam I can use any of dash gauges to judge percent of battery charge.

 

[cornbinder89]

Ok, today's experiment, I ran to town, then returned, same as normal, and returned with the normal range still left of the GOM. Capacity listed was in the high 40%. Showed 3 hr to charge on the dash at 6Kw.
Set the charger to 20 amps max input, and the charge timer I left at 1 hour 50min. and this morning it still said 100% charged and 71 miles on the GOM.
Charger showed 7.05 Kw used. Most trips to town my power useage show high 7's to upper 8's in Kwh used on the charger.
SO it seams I am charging to less than full but the dash gauges don't seam to show that.
I guess the next thing is to either reduce the charge current again, to 15 amps, or to reduce the charge timer setting. Timer setting are likely a smaller step than charger input capacity, when decreasing.

 

[SageBrush]

Charger showed 7.05 Kw used

Are you saying that the EVSE reported 7.05 kWh delivered ? 16 Amps for 110 minutes is about 7 kWh metered. It should not surprise you than faster charging also reaches 100% SoC within 110 minutes.

I don't own a LEAF anymore so I cannot verify, but one possible answer to the odd charging time estimates has to do with the last couple percent before 100%. Trickle charging is done while the pack balances.

Since you seem (not seam) to be interested in learning about car charging, let me make a few suggestions:

1. Get LeafSpy yesterday
2. Drive down to below 5% SoC and charge up to 100%. Calculate your 100% SoC capacity in kWh from your EVSE readings, but keep in mind that only ~ 88% of metered energy is stored in the pack.
3. As a not particularly accurate but useful sanity check, learn how to reset your trip meter. The LEAF will tell you distance and miles/kWh average since the reset, making it easy to mentally calculate kWh used during a trip. I'll guess it is about +/- 5% accurate
4. With the information from (2) and (3), you can:
   1. Trend battery degradation (although LEAFSPY will do the same via SOH)
   2. Have a better grip on remaining range
   3. Make reasonable estimates of energy consumed during a trip, and how long it will take to recharge the battery at your chosen rate.
5. Completely ignore the idiotic GOM (aka distance remaining estimate that the car provides.)

 

[cornbinder89]

Yes I'm saying 7.05 Kw at the input. and yes a quite aware that input doesn't equal output.
I will likely eventually get Leaf Spy but have to get a wi-fi dongle as I don't have or want a smart phone. I don't think my laptop has bluetooth, but might have one that does.
Does anyone know if Leaf spy plays well with Linux operating system?
As most of us know the battery doesn't charge at a constant rate but tapers as nears full charge.
I am well aware how to calculate current and voltage to get Kw's used.
I found you post rather condescending, not sure if you meant to be or not.
My question, such as it is, has anyone found the Soc or the bars on the dash to have any accuracy, or does it just go to 100% charge regardless of when the charging was stopped?

 

[SageBrush]

Charger showed 7.05 Kw used. Most trips to town my power useage show high 7's to upper 8's in Kwh used on the charger.

Power is not measured in kWh, so I'm left guessing what you are trying to say. If you are able to communicate clearly, please do so. Distinguish correctly between the charger and the EVSE, and between kW and kWh

As an aside, people in the electrical trade are very comfortable with Amp(eres) and Volts, and have to get comfortable with watts and VA if they do commercial work. But energy is not their daily bread, and it is easy to find electricians that stumble when energy comes up. I come across it with EV topics, and I come across it with PV. Grab 10 US electricians off the street and ask them to explain the relation between a watt and a joule. I bet a good half (if not more) will be flummoxed and wonder what a jewel has to do with electricity. They can still be very good electricians, but their comfort zone is pretty narrow. Good electricians are good installers (which by the way, can be extremely difficult and takes years to really master) and good troubleshooters (which can also be a formidable challenge that can take decades to master), but for many, energy is a foreign topic.

 

[cornbinder89]

After making my normal run to town yesterday starting with 98% charge, and returning round 20% and less than 14 miles range, I slow charged at 10 amp on my level 2 charger. The results show over 12 Kwh used and over 6 hr of charge time on the charger or about double the Kwh it normally gets for the 98%-100% charge on the dash. SO I would say both the range and percent charge of the battery indicated on the dash is way off and can't be relied on for charging calculations. As charge current tapers near the end, you can't set 80% of time used to get to 80% SoC.
So At least with what I have available to me at present, there is no accurate way to determine how to charge to 80% SoC.
I am going to continue my experiments charging 1.5 hrs @ 20 amp input /night with a weekly long slow charge once a week to see where that gets me. I definitely see reduced range at the end of the week compared to the beginning even though the SoC remains near 100% on the dash after each charge cycle.

 

[Stanton]

My question, such as it is, has anyone found the Soc or the bars on the dash to have any accuracy, or does it just go to 100% charge regardless of when the charging was stopped?

Not really...and you are wasting your time with anything related to the "guess-o-meter".
If you want to do any sort of monitoring/analysis on a Gen1 Leaf (which is what a 2015 is), then I recommend getting LeafSpy+dongle (many threads on this).

 

[cornbinder89]

So far I have not got an answer if Leaf Spy will work on a Linux operating system or will I need a emulator for the Android operating system also. Not all programs work the same on emulators as they do on the operating system they were programed for.
I do not own and "smart phone" and am unlikely to.
So, until I know, I don't have the Leaf Spy option.

 

[SueC56]

Would it work to buy a cheap, used smart phone and then use Bluetooth to communicate with LEAFSpy? You wouldn't need mobile cell service.

Greetings from a fellow Iowan.

 

[LeftieBiker]

A cheap or used smartphone works fine, just as long as the Bluetooth version is modern enough to communicate with the dongle. (For that reason, cheap new may be better than older used.) And the dongle in my signature works fine.

 

[cornbinder89]

Due to my aging eyesight I would prefer to be able to look at it on my laptop. So I would really like to know the answer to my question. There are Android simulators for Linux but I don't know how troublesome they would be, they're more aimed at people developing app's for Android on desk top computers running Linux.
I can do some stuff but a long way from a "geek" that would feel comfortable playing around with simulators and de bugging problems that pop up.

 

[cornbinder89]

Would it work to buy a cheap, used smart phone and then use Bluetooth to communicate with LEAFSpy? You wouldn't need mobile cell service.

Greetings from a fellow Iowan.

I am diagonally across the state from you. Other than trying to figure out a charge regiment that will give me reliable 80-90% I have no problems.
I like to be able to diagnose even if I am no longer up to making the repair myself. Often knowing what needs to be done, makes paying someone cheaper, where I don't have to pay for their diagnosing or learning about what needs to be done.

 

[cornbinder89]

Due to my aging eyesight I would prefer to be able to look at it on my laptop. So I would really like to know the answer to my question. There are Android simulators for Linux but I don't know how troublesome they would be, they're more aimed at people developing app's for Android on desk top computers running Linux.
I can do some stuff but a long way from a "geek" that would feel comfortable playing around with simulators and de bugging problems that pop up.

It seams I can't even download Leafspy and try a Android simulator on my lap top because none of the sites will allow a download if, when they check the OS of the system, it isn't Android. So I guess that is not an option.

 

[pendclocks]

It seams I can't even download Leafspy and try a Android simulator on my lap top because none of the sites will allow a download if, when they check the OS of the system, it isn't Android. So I guess that is not an option.

Ask around , on or off social media for a gift of an old android cell phone.
People upgrade and have no use for their old phones. WFM

 

[cornbinder89]

Still doesn't get it to my laptop or desktop, however.

 

[Dooglas]

You might want to consider an inexpensive Android tablet. I got one from Dell a while ago at under $100.