Dead 12V battery question

[DaveinOlyWA]

Yesterday we had a dead leaf again, this is getting annoying.

Friday night I topped up the 12v battery, took less than an hour to hit the green. The car ran fine Saturday, was at 65% so we didn't charge it Sunday morning. Sunday afternoon we went to run one of the kids and got the dreaded dash blinking and all kinds of warnings. Turned it off and went to another car. I threw the 1.25 amp deltran charger on it right away and checked the 12v battery, not surprisingly it was at 10.1v An hour later I check the voltage to find it still low at 10.2v. I put a clamp on meter on the leads and sure enough there was a about a 1.1 amp load leaving he battery with 1.2 going in to the battery from the charger. I disconnected the car and then put a larger 4 stage 5 amp charger on the 12v battery overnight. The 12v battery was full this morning, I reconnected the car, checked and the 1.1 amp load was gone, just the usual, .1 amp load, started the car and all is fine with the traction battery at 64%.

So there is something significant staying on, maybe a pump? I don't know what it is, but once in a while something stays on. Its not the headlights (they shut them selves off), not leaving in acc mode (again it shuts itself off), but something that fails to switch off when the car shuts off.

My only thought is to check the load on the battery every time to see what if it is staying on. I believe it is a random thing that sometimes it stays on and sometimes not and power cycling the car to drive mode would likely fix it. Its not a bad 12v battery, it wouldn't have taken more than 4 hours at 5 amps to top it back up if that were the case. I used to think it was the car undercharging the 12v battery, but 95% of the time when I put the chargers on it is "full" in 20 minutes and the fact it took over 30 amps to "fill" the battery back up. I am familiar with dying and dead 12v lead acid batterys and this isn't behaving like them.

something is wrong with your programming. Tyrel is also having the same issues with his 2013 (dead battery 3X) but mine is fine after 16,000 miles. I have one of the last 2013's off the line so wondering if they did some last minute program changes that might be hidden in the recall programming (which I have not yet done)

Try this;

I fully charged my LEAF last night. I went out measured voltage; 12.35 not good imm.

I plugged in LEAF, measured voltage, it started at 14.40 volts and eventually dropped to 13.00ish which is what it always measures when the charging lights are on unless its actively charging then it will be at 14.40 volts. Apparently this time, my LEAF decided the 12 volt battery did not need a boost and that is why it settled to 13 volts (generally happens within 45-60 seconds) Other times, the voltage remained at 14.40 volts for an unspecified period. twice it did this and both times I forgot to check back although I can verify it lasted at least 30 minutes one time (was checking in 10 min intervals but....life intervened)


if your LEAF is not acting EXACTLY like this, then you have a problem or you need a programming update. FYI; I have not heard or do not remember any mention of a specific update to address this issue.

 

[BrockWI]

I will try this, but I am now convinced it isn't the charging of the 12v aux battery, it is a load that "sticks" on. I have put it on the Deltran Battery Tender every night since then and it has gone to green blinking (absorb) in less than 30 minutes. This is my test and I hope to catch it when it takes forever to charge and then try to figure out what the load is that is still on.

When I saw the 1.1 amp load with the car off last time I swore I heard the high frequency whine from the motor/inverter stack, not as loud as usual, but something. I didn't really dig in to it because that was right after I had the crazy dash flashing and all the errors so maybe the car just hadn't shut down correctly even though I heard the main contactor snap out. The noise did go away when I removed the 12v battery

 

[boba]

Where is the ELM327 and how does one unplug it on a 2015S?

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Where is the ELM327 and how does one unplug it on a 2015S?

this is a CAN BUS device that sends signals via Bluetooth. it simply reads data moving on the BUS and plugs in under the dash below the steering wheel. Any Scan tool used by a tech is usually plugged in here as well

 

[TimLee]

Where is the ELM327 and how does one unplug it on a 2015S?

But most people have it plugged into an extension cable.
Bluetooth can hang up occasionally so it is not uncommon to have to unplug it once a week or more depending on your vehicle use.

See the WIKI:
http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/Leaf_Battery_Application" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You probably want to use an extension cable or splitter cable so that you don't have to keep plugging and unplugging the OBDII Scanner because:

The Leafs OBD port is not designed for frequent use, so you want to plug in a cable which can be replaced if the socket at the end where the scanner is plugged in wears out
You don't want to damage your OBD port, which is also used by Nissan Service during the Battery Pack check and probably to diagnose and repair other problems

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

My ELM stays plugged in all the time. I had intended to unplug it when I was out of town for a week but forgot but still had no issues when returning 6 days later.

Have repeated my battery measurements and the pattern remains the same. When charging the traction pack, the 12 volt battery either gets charged at 13.0 volts or 14.4 volts. Every time I plug in car, it starts at 14.4 volts and either drops to 13.0 volts within a minute or two or stays at 14.4 volts until it lowers the charge to 13.0 volts. I have only seen it at 14.4 volts for an extended period one time and it was at that level at least 30 mins. I had intended to check it every 10 mins but got sidetracked...

Not sure at what voltage the 14.4 volts wants to kick in but it appears to be relatively low. I have had times when the battery was only 12.32 volts before plugging in and that did not kick in the higher voltage. the one time the 14.4 did kick in, I did not measure the voltage before plugging in (doesn't that just figure!)

 

[TimLee]

...
So there is something significant staying on, maybe a pump? I don't know what it is, but once in a while something stays on. Its not the headlights (they shut them selves off), not leaving in acc mode (again it shuts itself off), but something that fails to switch off when the car shuts off.
...

You have had a long irritating saga with your 2013 LEAF.
Your signature says March 2013. Is that the manufacture date as you got the vehicle in March 2014?

Top off charge took five hours when you had the vehicle a little more than two weeks, and then first dead battery was after July 4th weekend this year, and then one or more failures since then.

But with all the failures I don't know why you would ever use auxiliary even though it is supposed to automatically turn off.
Best way to avoid battery problems is to never use anything but Ready mode.

You clearly have bad relay(s) or switches that are leaving something energized, although several people had the same problems on 2013.
Could be software or bad DC to DC power supply with intermittent problem.
But could be the automatic auxiliary shutdown relay or the headlights auto relay.
Safer to not use those.

 

[BrockWI]

I don't ever use the car in "aux" mode, only in ready mode, I might have been referring to the aux battery, meaning the 12v battery, not the mode the car is in. I did leave the car in aux mode after the first test just to see if it would run the battery dead while I was watching it and that is when I confirmed it does shut off from aux mode after 30 minutes. So that is very unlikely what caused it.

We got the car in March of 14, so only about 7 months ago. The car has a manufacture date of 11/13 on the door.

I totally agree that something is sticking on intermittently and that's what causing these problems for me. I wish it would break and I could track it down or work fine, but causing a problem every month or two is annoying.

My solution for now is to leave a 12v 12ah sla in the trunk that I can plug in parallel to the 12v battery under the hood to get it going. I figure if I have the backup in there I will never need it.

 

[gonefishin]

I first ran into this problem in 2012 and posted this thread on it. I've managed to avoid it untIil now but I just had it happen again after a trip away for 10 days. I'm surprised it's still an issue, but I guess I wasn't very clear about my proof & conclusions. http://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=9118 I was hoping that by now either Blink would have found & fixed the bug or the car would have been updated but apparently not. So, let me try to be more clear.

The problem occurs when you leave the car for more than 5 days and will result in a dead battery by approx 8 days. The car is supposed to self-charge the 12v battery every 5 days. The bug is that if it is plugged into an early Blink charger it will start a never ending connection to the charger. My proof is that my house has a dedicated power monitor on my charger and while it normally just wakes up for an hour every midnight, after 5 days it was continually on using 30 watts of household power / hour. I don't know how many watts the car was using but assuming the car was also burning 30 watts / hr x 34 hours = 90 AHr, which is about the capacity of a 12v car battery.

You can avoid the problem by not leaving the car plugged in, or by setting it to charge just a small amount every few days.

 

[wtc88c]

How often, and under what conditions, does the 12V battery charge in a 2015 Leaf?

 

[GerryAZ]

How often, and under what conditions, does the 12V battery charge in a 2015 Leaf?

The DC-DC converter charges the 12-volt battery when the car is in ready to drive mode, when the traction battery is being charged, and periodically when the car is completely off and parked for extended time. The 2011 charged the 12-volt battery for a few minutes every 5 days when parked, but it seems like the 2015 varies its charging schedule when parked (I suspect it monitors the 12-volt battery voltage instead of charging on a fixed schedule). The most important thing to remember is that the 12-volt battery is not being charged (and is actually discharging slowly) if the Leaf is plugged in but not actively charging. This slow discharge will result in a completely dead 12-volt battery if the Leaf is left plugged in while on vacation, etc.

Gerry

 

[BrockWI]

My experience and this may not be typical, and while I don't doubt that is when the car is supposed to charge the aux 12v battery many times ours has been in drive mode and the 12v low battery warning light comes on. That is the one that bugs me because the car should have no problem maintaining the aux battery with the traction pack. When this does happen I will charge the aux battery via external charger and it is truly low and takes a while to fill it back up, often about 12 + amp hours. Then we are good for a week or so. As I mentioned, when we charge to 100% I have yet to see this problem pop up.

 

[TimLee]

...
The DC-DC converter charges the 12-volt battery when the car is in ready to drive mode, when the traction battery is being charged, and periodically when the car is completely off and parked for extended time. ...

But it only does that based on what it was able to observe via the 12V current monitor and maybe the 12V voltage.

That does not mean it does a good job keeping the 12V charged during those conditions.

For some it is completely inadequate.

 

[GerryAZ]

...
The DC-DC converter charges the 12-volt battery when the car is in ready to drive mode, when the traction battery is being charged, and periodically when the car is completely off and parked for extended time. ...

But it only does that based on what it was able to observe via the 12V current monitor and maybe the 12V voltage.

That does not mean it does a good job keeping the 12V charged during those conditions.

For some it is completely inadequate.

All I can say is that the DC-DC converters have been the only source of charging for my 12-volt batteries in over 60.000 miles of Leaf driving even with frequent long-term parking.

Gerry

 

[TimLee]

All I can say is that the DC-DC converters have been the only source of charging for my 12-volt batteries in over 60.000 miles of Leaf driving even with frequent long-term parking.

Gerry

Results vary.
I'm on my third 12V battery.

 

[Nubo]

For what it's worth, my Sun Xtender battery gave out.

Pretty sure it was an id-10-t error. When attaching the SAE terminal adapters I used the hillybilly torque wrench. I.e., tighten until you hear it crack, and then back off a quarter-turn. I suspect this allowed the AGM plates to slowly dry out.

The thing that threw me off in troubleshooting is that it would accept a charge and maintain decent voltage and seemed to charge normally (i.e., taking a few hours at 10 amp charge). So I kept suspecting a drain somewhere but after 2 weeks couldn't find it; meanwhile the battery was draining with increasing frequency. I finally applied a fairly gentle load test of 17 amps, and it cried uncle in less than a minute. :roll:

I still think the Sun Xtender is an excellent choice for this application, if you can avoid buggering it up when adapting it to car use.

But in the interest of expediency, the Bosch Platinum-series AGM, size 51-R (located one at Pep Boys) seems like a decent choice.

 

[mgs333]

So long thread, skimmed through, I will be leaving my car parked for 8 weeks in a driveway where I can't keep a trickle charger hooked up. Should I expect a dead 12V battery when I return? It's possible the car could be driven once every few weeks by the people there but if I wasn't to count on that, should I expect a dead 12V battery?

 

[TimLee]

Just disconnect the 12V cable from the battery.

Or you can get a solar powered very low current trickle charger and use that.
I got one I think at Northern Tools or it may have been Amazon.

 

[Levenkay]

Park the car at somewhere between 60 ish and 80ish percent charge, and your only worry will be whether the folks you have minding it will take it out on too many errands.

 

[GerryAZ]

So long thread, skimmed through, I will be leaving my car parked for 8 weeks in a driveway where I can't keep a trickle charger hooked up. Should I expect a dead 12V battery when I return? It's possible the car could be driven once every few weeks by the people there but if I wasn't to count on that, should I expect a dead 12V battery?

If you have not had issues with 12-volt battery before, it should be fine. Try to park with 60 % to 70% SOC on the traction battery (6 to 8 bars), make sure there is nothing plugged in to the OBDII port, and make sure the car is completely powered off. The car will turn on the DC-DC converter periodically to charge the 12-volt battery. I have parked the 2011 and 2015 at the airport or my office numerous times (longest so far has been 3 weeks) with no problems.

Gerry