shale
Member
alozzy said:
Very interesting and helpful! Thank you, alozzy! Good to hear your reassurance about the drive train. And I should perhaps listen to your wife...
newbie starting & battery issues
- Thread starter shale
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Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:
Very interesting and helpful! Thank you, alozzy! Good to hear your reassurance about the drive train. And I should perhaps listen to your wife...
shale
Member
GerryAZ said:
Thank you for your coaching around charging, Gerry. I really appreciate it. It sounds like your fears about my having damaged my good 12v battery are right, alas.
Your 12 volt battery is toast. Just the starting voltage indicates that. So you'll have a new 12 volt deep - or semi-deep - cycle battery, and you have a good battery maintainer, so once you get the error codes reset you should know if that was the issue. Resetting the codes may just require LeafSpy Pro, or you may have to reset them and then disconnect the 12 volt battery again a time or two. Fingers crossed that this is your only issue with the car. You should be able to find a pigtail that lets you have a hardwired connection in the motor compartment for the battery maintainer. Pro Tip: if you can drill a small hole in the plastic back wall of the charge port compartment, you can run the hardwired lead into the charge port, and use the maintainer once a week when you plug the car in. Plugging it in with the car would also end worries about forgetting to unplug the car.
I was curious about the pack size because the 24kwh "Lizard" battery used in 2016 is very good, while the larger capacity 30kwh battery used in the SV and SL (and later builds of the S) that year is notable mainly for how fast it degrades - especially in hotter climates.
I was curious about the pack size because the 24kwh "Lizard" battery used in 2016 is very good, while the larger capacity 30kwh battery used in the SV and SL (and later builds of the S) that year is notable mainly for how fast it degrades - especially in hotter climates.
shale
Member
LeftieBiker said:
Ah, this is all very reassuring. I would rather have a dead 12 volt battery than have to tackle the PDM (though I know that may still be an issue, we shall see). I will definitely do your pigtail-into-the-charge-port-compartment trick and follow your excellent advice on using it. That will be a great relief to know how to take care of my replacement battery. I feel badly that I killed this one.
One question: If I charge the new battery as soon as I get it and then wait 4 or 5 days before I clear the codes, will that hurt anything? It will take me a few days to get the dongle and LeafSpy up and running. If I need to, I will wait to get the new battery.
And sounds like I really lucked out with the 24kwh "Lizard" battery. It certainly seems to be maintaining bars well for being five years old. Curious to see what LeafSpy says...
(I will also start pumping my tires up to 40psi from now on, too, as I just read you recommend that. Eager to see how that will affect things.)
I can't thank you enough for all your help. It would be illuminating to know how many tons of CO2 you and the forum have saved through helping ignorant but well-meaning folks keep their Leafs on the road... Honestly, you should recruit a grad student to research this.
Nope, waiting is no problem. Either those codes aren't real (very likely) or if they are real then doing a reset won't make any difference anyway.
It's gratifying to see people here get their issues solved. I don't think, though, that I need to look for someone to do research so that I and the other regulars here can more loudly blow our own horns.
shale
Member
LeftieBiker said:
Nope, waiting is no problem. Either those codes aren't real (very likely) or if they are real then doing a reset won't make any difference anyway.
It's gratifying to see people here get their issues solved. I don't think, though, that I need to look for someone to do research so that I and the other regulars here can more loudly blow our own horns.
Great news! Blow away....!
One more thing about the battery maintainer hardwire lead: connect the Negative lead to one of the small bolt heads near the top of the PDM Stack - the area that looks like the valve cover for a gasoline engine. There is a current sensor* on the Negative terminal at the battery that you want to avoid.
* An alternative way to keep the 12 volt battery better charged is to simply remove the current sensor from the Negative battery terminal. This will result in the battery being charged pretty much continuously. The drawback is that under certain conditions - like a long drive in Hot Summer weather - the 12 volt battery can get overcharged and boil.
* An alternative way to keep the 12 volt battery better charged is to simply remove the current sensor from the Negative battery terminal. This will result in the battery being charged pretty much continuously. The drawback is that under certain conditions - like a long drive in Hot Summer weather - the 12 volt battery can get overcharged and boil.
Sorry, I disagree with Leftiebiker on this issue. I recommend against disconnecting the current sensor in the negative battery lead. The 12V battery will be overcharged during overnight traction battery charging and AGM batteries do not tolerate excessive overcharging very well (especially in high ambient temperatures). The charging algorithm of the DC-DC converter in the LEAF is actually ideal for an AGM battery. Your issue was likely caused by leaving the EVSE connected for the weekend so the 12V battery became deeply discharged. FWIW, I have never connected an external charger to the 12V batteries in any of my LEAF's so far--the DC-DC converter keeps them charged with my drive/charge patterns. If you do connect a pigtail for an external trickle charger, connect it directly to the positive and negative terminals so the charging current will not go through the current sensor at the negative terminal. I strongly recommend that you fuse the pigtail as close to the battery terminals as possible to minimize the risk if the wires get damaged. Note, if you want to connect a load to the 12V battery (such as to run an inverter), then you should make the negative connection to a bolt on the DC-DC converter so that the load current does not flow through the current sensor. If a load is connected directly to the 12V battery, then the DC-DC converter will run at about 14 volts instead of float voltage (about 13 volts) so the 12V battery could be overcharged. The current sensor in the negative lead is there to tell the control modules and DC-DC converter in the car whether the 12V battery is almost fully charged or not. If the 12V battery is low, then higher current will flow into the battery so the DC-DC converter runs at about 14V to recharge the battery quickly. The current into the 12V battery drops as the battery approaches full charge so the DC-DC converter drops back to float voltage of about 13V to avoid overcharging during traction battery charging or extended driving.
I thought that I'd made it clear that I also oppose disconnecting the current sensor - because like most people, I think that boiling one's accessory battery is not a desirable thing. It should be noted, though, that none of the folks who have disconnected their current sensor seem to have had this happen. It just isn't something that I'd be willing to do, except as a last resort. Now, as for connecting a battery maintainer negative lead directly to the battery terminal: I've done this both ways, using the Negative terminal when using alligator clips, and using the PDM stack bolt for a hardwired lead or two. It seems to work fine both ways.
Sorry LefteBiker, that is what I get for reading too fast. My main concern with disconnecting the current sensor is overcharging the 12V battery while the traction battery is charging. Since the 2011 and 2012 models have maximum 3.3 kW onboard charger, they take more time to charge the traction battery than later cars with 6 kW onboard chargers. Your are right, it probably does not make any difference how the trickle charger is connected since the current is low, but I tried to explain the function of the current sensor because it does matter if someone wants to supply an external load from the 12V system.
shale
Member
Thank you both for this discussion. I like understanding the details of how things work, even when some of it is over my head. Piece by piece, it starts to make sense. I especially appreciate the cautions from both of you on how to protect my car from harm. This is a great forum!
jlv
Well-known member
You might consider changing the title of this thread (by editing the first post), since so far non of this is about how to install the IPDM.
shale
Member
Good idea, jlv. Just did that.
I notice you're from MA. You don't happen to know of a good EV mechanic in MA do you? Especially western MA? The dealer out here seems to be pretty clueless about Leafs. Many thanks!
I notice you're from MA. You don't happen to know of a good EV mechanic in MA do you? Especially western MA? The dealer out here seems to be pretty clueless about Leafs. Many thanks!
Just to chime in, I had the *exact* same issue with my 2011 Leaf. I-key failure, etc. But I had just replaced the 12V battery and that didn't stop it.
The mechanic first switched some of the relays in the IPDM (i.e. switching out the flaky one for the one that controlled the rear windshield wiper, so low risk) and that bought me another year of life. But then this year, on another humid day after brutal cold, the same failures happened (turning itself on and unable to be turned off) . But IPDM modules are not available anywhere in CAnada anytime soon, and the used one the mechanic found last time was not in any shape he wanted to work with.
So in my experience the 12V didn't seem to the root of the issue. A flaky IPDM that is sensitive to extreme cold + humidity might have been it.
The mechanic first switched some of the relays in the IPDM (i.e. switching out the flaky one for the one that controlled the rear windshield wiper, so low risk) and that bought me another year of life. But then this year, on another humid day after brutal cold, the same failures happened (turning itself on and unable to be turned off) . But IPDM modules are not available anywhere in CAnada anytime soon, and the used one the mechanic found last time was not in any shape he wanted to work with.
So in my experience the 12V didn't seem to the root of the issue. A flaky IPDM that is sensitive to extreme cold + humidity might have been it.
alozzy
Well-known member
Can't you buy the IPDM (284B7-3NA1A) new anywhere? I would have thought you could order one from Nissan, or elsewhere.
