How long to recharge the 12v from the HV after a jump start?

[csites]

The owner manual states that after jump-starting a Leaf, I should leave the car in ready-to-drive mode for 20 minutes so the 12v battery can be recharged from the HV (high-voltage) battery.

I tried this one evening, and the 12v battery was dead again in the morning.

Anyone know how long it really takes? Thanks.

(I've posted a separate thread regarding why the battery keeps dying in the first place:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=17889)

 

[DNAinaGoodWay]

You could always Pull the battery and put it on a charger.

But if you start charging on your home EVSE, and manually stop it by pushing the button on the EVSE, leaving the car plugged in, the 12v battery gets charged. Works with my Schneider anyway.

 

[dhanson865]

fully charging a battery that was weak enough to not start the car will take 12-36 hours. The safety police at Nissan/Toyota/etc don't like to charge batteries quickly because there is a chance of damaging the battery, fires, etc if you charge too fast.

If you have a problem with a 12v battery and you can't get it easily replace by the dealer under warranty you'll have to grab something like a CTEK Battery charger. It is a smart charger and can charge the battery safely and more thoroughly than the car will. Of course you will have to hook it up somehow.

The most convenient way is to have a cigarette lighter jack wired for always on and to use the CTEK 56-263 Comfort Connect Cig Plug to plug the charger to the car and charge the 12v while the car is off.


cheap http://www.amazon.com/CTEK-800-Smart-Battery-Charger/dp/B002QUT8IC/ref=sr_1_60?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1410015393&sr=1-60&keywords=ctek+charger" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

mid http://www.amazon.com/CTEK-Multi-12-Volt-Battery-Charger/dp/B000FQBWCY/ref=sr_1_69?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1410015393&sr=1-69&keywords=ctek+charger" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

deluxe http://www.amazon.com/CTEK-Multi-7002-Battery-Charger/dp/B000FRLO9Y/ref=sr_1_95?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1410015638&sr=1-95&keywords=ctek+charger" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

CTEK 56-263 Comfort Connect Cig Plug http://www.amazon.com/CTEK-56-263-Comfort-Connect-Plug/dp/B0016LA5O8/ref=sr_1_1?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1410016108&sr=1-1&keywords=ctek+charger+adapter" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

for the small 12v battery you'll have in a hybrid or EV even the cheapest charger of the three will get the job done nicely, its just the user interface that gets nicer if you pay more (the more expensive ones will charger larger batteries but you won't care about that).

Even with one of these a weak battery might take a full day to charge, the charge rate with this isn't much faster than with the car charging, its just nice to be able to tie the 12v to the AC outlet and let a smart charger do the work since cars are so bad at maintaining 12v batteries.

 

[bbrowncods]

This is not normal. If it is dead then something is wrong. If I had to guess I would pick the most likely, a bad battery. It is covered under the 3/36000 Leaf warranty. If you are beyond that, take it to an AutoZone, or Advance store and they can put a tester on the battery and determine if it is good or not (free service). If it is bad, buy a 84 month battery from them.

 

[Nubo]

The onboard DC-DC converter can supply 90 amps or more, iirc. The rate at which your dead battery accepts charge will depend on its condition.

Note that an ordinary (non deep-cycle) automotive 12V battery is NOT designed to withstand deep discharge. They'd really rather not go below 50%. 80% in a pinch. Taking them down to 100% discharged can cripple them pretty severely.

It takes very little current to start a LEAF, compared to "cranking" the starter motor on an ICE vehicle. So any 12V that can't start a LEAF is pretty much dead flat and doesn't have a promising future.

So, even though the car should be able to put a pretty good bulk charge into a 12V battery in 20 minutes, your severely depleted battery may not have been able to accept it.

It's sometimes possible to nurse such a battery back to health with a "trickle charge", which would be a rate of 1 amp or less, which could take a couple of days. Even so, it would probably not regain its original capacity.