L2 not charging, L1 ok

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pjoseph

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 31, 2011
Messages
111
Location
Austin, Tx
At almost 3 months and 4K+ miles.

L2 failed at multiple locations around town and the home garage. Home EVSE shows ground fault. L1 is working ok, but not pliable for charge-and-go situations.

Leaf wiki searches turned up nada.

Hope to take it to the dealer (with appointment) asap. Need to thumb through the manuals. i have read exactly 0 pages so far. Plan to call Nissan CS as well.

Suggestions gratefully accepted.
 
Odd that L1 works ok. Might have something to do with one leg being
at ground potential where with level two both legs are hot?

At any rate, I think you have it right. If it fails on multiple L2 EVSEs,
there is probably a problem with the car. :(
 
We had one other member report a problem like this. It turned out the car was failing the diode check used to be sure that the handle is actually connected to the car. The L1 that comes with the car and the AV EVSEs used at the dealer don't do the check and worked with his car, but the Blink he had at home DID do the check and failed. He had a real difficult time convincing the dealer that there was actually a problem. If I recall he ended up having engineers from Nissan and Blink involved before Nissan finally fixed it.

If the EVSE you have at home and the public ones you tried follow the standard and make the check, this would be the result.
 
Appreciate the response, Dave. Yours is the most plausible explanation i've heard so far. Thanks..

My home EVSE is from Schneider. It worked flawlessly for 2 months before starting to fail intermittently. Then charging stopped altogether. Schneider was gracious enough to send me a replacement unit, which had the same results. Then it failed on multiple EVSEs i tested around town (Chargepoint, from Coulomb Technologies).

Have not tried charging on AV since the problem started. Called the dealer and found out that they have AV. Am taking the car in tomorrow morning.
 
pjoseph said:
Am taking the car to the dealer tomorrow. Think they have Chargepoint as well.

Have not charged on AV yet.
The dealers use AeroVironment (AV). They are Nissan branded and look like this:
Aerovironment_EVSE-RS_0.jpg
 
Took the car in to the dealer's service department. We managed to duplicate the problem just exactly as Davewill had mentioned above. Charging works on L1 & AV, but fails on Chargepoint & Schneider.

Awaiting an answer from the dealer after they get in touch with Nissan.

Everything else about my car has been just fine. The dealer was very patient in diagnosing this.

A big shout out to South Point Nissan in Austin, Texas. My guesstimate is that they have sold 100+ Leafs in the past year. The Leaf master technician told me that just one or two cars have been back at the dealer with minor troubles.
 
pjoseph said:
A big shout out to South Point Nissan in Austin, Texas. My guesstimate is that they have sold 100+ Leafs in the past year. The Leaf master technician told me that just one or two cars have been back at the dealer with minor troubles.

A bit off topic... I would love to know the LEAF-sold count per certified LEAF dealer across the country.

Sales rates down here in South Florida seem to be very low (which is sad, but not very surprising). Maybe a half dozen, or so, on the high side with many dealers having sold only one or two.


Now, back on-topic, as a Schneider EVLink owner it's nice to know that's not the problem. Here's hoping whatever the issue is with your car's charger is resolved quickly.
 
pjoseph said:
Took the car in to the dealer's service department. We managed to duplicate the problem just exactly as Davewill had mentioned above. Charging works on L1 & AV, but fails on Chargepoint & Schneider.
Ding! I know what the problem is!

The diode in your charger unit is fried. The L1 & AV units don't test for the +/- 12 volt signal, while the ChargePoint, Schneider, and Blink do.

A guy here in Portland had to get his whole charger unit replaced in his Leaf because of a problem with very similar symptoms.
 
DarkStar said:
pjoseph said:
Took the car in to the dealer's service department. We managed to duplicate the problem just exactly as Davewill had mentioned above. Charging works on L1 & AV, but fails on Chargepoint & Schneider.
Ding! I know what the problem is! ...
Yawn...that is so yesterday. :mrgreen:
 
DarkStar said:
The diode in your charger unit is fried. The L1 & AV units don't test for the +/- 12 volt signal, while the ChargePoint, Schneider, and Blink do.

I assume is there for safety in the Leaf, what does it actually do?
 
Herm said:
I assume is there for safety in the Leaf, what does it actually do?
The car signals to the EVSE to turn on power by placing a specified resistive load on the +12v/-12v pilot signal. It is theoretically possible to get the same load from dropping the handle into a puddle of dirty water. The diode allows the load to only affect the positive side of the signal, and the EVSE is supposed to check for this to be sure that it's really a car that's loading the signal before turning on the high voltage. Some EVSE manufacturers figure that their GFI circuitry is sufficient protection in this admittedly rare happenstance, and don't bother to implement the diode check.

Not having a functional diode in the car doesn't create a safety hazard, but does create the described scenario where the car doesn't work with some EVSEs.
 
A simple resistance check between the CP (Control Pilot) input pin and the Ground pin on the LEAF's J1772 socket, with the LEAF Off ... should check for the diode:

The resistance should be about 3k ohms in one direction (polarity) and very high resistance (probably over 100k ohms) in the other polarity.
 
garygid said:
A simple resistance check between the CP (Control Pilot) input pin and the Ground pin on the LEAF's J1772 socket, with the LEAF Off ... should check for the diode:

The resistance should be about 3k ohms in one direction (polarity) and very high resistance (probably over 100k ohms) in the other polarity.
I'm not sure you can count on seeing the diode when the circuit isn't active. I'd use a O-scope to look for -12v on the pilot signal during normal charging.
 
After ~5 days of L1 charging and a further 9 days of just sitting in the garage (road trip in the ICE car), the Leaf is now charging again from our L2 EVSE (Schneider).

Am baffled and intrigued. Had planned to drop it off at the dealer later this week, but will wait now. The dealer technician had mentioned earlier that Nissan is anxious to troubleshoot it. Wondered whether they would replace the $2,000 onboard charger or the $0.50 diode.

So the error is transient, what car makers sometimes call as a soft error. An analogy of a check engine light coming on occasionally in an ancient ICE car.
 
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