Trickle Charging

hello,
I just bought my 1st Leaf yesterday, a 2013 SV. I currently have it plugged into my apartment's outlet with the 120v 'trickle' charger, but the charger it blinking the ready light, but not the charging light, and carwings is telling me that it's not plugged in, and thus not charging, is my charger defective or is this normal?

Thanks

Not normal, make sure the receptacle is grounded. I once tried using an extension cord without a ground prong, and I think it did the same as yours.

yea it's grounded, plugged into the wall directly, i looked at the car's instrument panel, and the panel is telling me that it's plugged it, and the charging light is blinking

Exercise caution.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=15784
http://priuschat.com/threads/need-advice-outlet-caught-fire.118751/

Have the outlet inspected by an electrician and get an approval from your apartment manager to charge your car there.

Could be a timer is set? the SVs have a timer function that won't let the Leaf charge until the set time occurs. Sorry, I can't remember the menu option it is under. Maybe the settings or vehicle options?

Echappell said:

yea it's grounded, plugged into the wall directly, i looked at the car's instrument panel, and the panel is telling me that it's plugged it, and the charging light is blinking

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How old is the building? Even if the outlet is 3-prong it doesn't necessarily mean it is actually grounded..

finman100 said:

Could be a timer is set? the SVs have a timer function that won't let the Leaf charge until the set time occurs. Sorry, I can't remember the menu option it is under. Maybe the settings or vehicle options?

Click to expand...

Carwings should say it is plugged in if a timer is set, the OP says it doesn't.

Could be normal. The car is probably not charging due to a timer, and Carwings could just not be updated - you might need to either manually update it or the car could be parked somewhere without reception - if the car says it's plugged in it's probably fine. As far as the blinking ready light - I'm not sure if that's normal with the stock EVSE, but perhaps your car came with an EVSE upgraded by EVSEupgrade.com - in that case I know a blinking ready light is normal.

wow, thanks for all the replies. I'm not sure how old the building is, but I had the apartment's maintenance guy check the plugs to make sure they could handle the load, and to my knowledge i don't have a timer set up, when i went to the nearby Nissan dealership to use thier 240v charger it started charging right away, and they was reflected by the carwings app.

You said "the charging light is blinking". What does that mean exactly? There are three charging lights in the middle of the dash under the windshield - if they blink in an alternating pattern then you definitely have a timer set. Find and push the timer override button and the charge should start. Then dig around in the menus to figure out how to set/unset the timers as you please.



Supposing it's not a timer issue, then it's probably a grounding issue - that's what the blinking ready light indicates on a stock EVSE. Here's a thread describing that.

Echappell said:

wow, thanks for all the replies. I'm not sure how old the building is, but I had the apartment's maintenance guy check the plugs to make sure they could handle the load

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I wouldn't trust some maintenance guy on this. If this is a pre-1970 construction with original wiring there is a good chance the outlets are not grounded. Grounding is a safety issue and EVSE will not charge if it detects the ground path is open, bad ground can kill you but unlikely to start a fire. Even if grounded the outlets are typically daisy-chained together and in the older building there is a higher risk of a bad connection in the current path (back-stabbed outlet connection come to mind) which can overheat and cause fire. The EV charging load exacerbates these issues as it is continuous and long lasting. The electrician should inspect the whole circuit starting from the breaker to the outlet in question for any problematic symptoms like aluminum wiring, loose connections, signs of previous overheating, etc. It needs to be able to handle 12A continuously. If this is a 15A circuit you can't use any other non-trivial load on it as it will be pretty much maxed out at 12A continuous.

I'm assuming you got this sorted by now, otherwise you've probably been doing lots of walking.

Also assuming you mean the flashing light on the EVSE "charger" not the car...

A flashing green light = bad ground. The car will show a connection, but the EVSE won't allow it to initiate a charge. You should have maintenance check the oultet with an outlet tester.

I'm having the same issue with my new 2016 Leaf. Plugged in with an extension cord in the garage that leads out into the driveway. The charger "charge" light is blinking (and clicking on and off), and all three blue charge indicator lights on the Leaf are blinking. Owner's portal says that it is not plugged in.

I have an old house and the use of the extension cord is not ideal. But I've charged using this setup twice before and not had this issue so it's the same plug, same cord, same leaf, new problem.

Anybody else have this issue? Tomorrow I'll likely run the extension cord into the house to one of the updated GFI plugs in the kitchen to see if that fixes the issue.

We're also planning on running a 240v line from the breaker box and intalling a level 2 charger so hopefully that dedicated charging breaker will fix the issue but, in the mean time and for future reference, it'd be great to learn what's going on.

I should be clear that it's not just the ready light blinking like what's shown in the video below, but the charge light. No lights are blinking until I plug into the Leaf.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dANrFCevQks

Thanks!

MyLeafScreech said:

I'm having the same issue with my new 2016 Leaf. Plugged in with an extension cord in the garage that leads out into the driveway. The charger "charge" light is blinking (and clicking on and off), and all three blue charge indicator lights on the Leaf are blinking. Owner's portal says that it is not plugged in.

I have an old house and the use of the extension cord is not ideal. But I've charged using this setup twice before and not had this issue so it's the same plug, same cord, same leaf, new problem.

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Are the outlets properly grounded?

Flashing ready light = bad ground. When all else fails, read the manual...it's in there.