Ingineer
Well-known member
I have run many tests on the LEAF, Including charging down to 90 volts, and have not seen anything over 12.5 amps (and that was only transient). I have never seen 17 amps! I find this hard to believe given the architecture of the charger. The primary transformer winding is optimized for 200v 16a charging, so when you run them at 100v, you get very high duty cycles on the primary switch to keep the output high enough to deliver the required voltage to the pack. This means there simply isn't enough headroom to go much higher at these low input voltages. It would be difficult to design a charger that can deliver high power levels at this wide a voltage swing, so they simply don't. You can't trust a cheap Kill-a-watt meter to be accurate, I have seem them wildly inaccurate when exposed to harmonic distortion and non-unity power factors.
Keep in mind the Japanese market LEAFs routinely charge at 100/200v, which is what Nihicon designed the charger for originally.
-Phil
Keep in mind the Japanese market LEAFs routinely charge at 100/200v, which is what Nihicon designed the charger for originally.
-Phil