Scheduled Preconditioning Not Working

My parents finally have an EV, a 2012 top trim Leaf.

I read through the manual cover to cover and set the cabin preconditioning. It's set for a departure time of 7:40am M-F, and I even set conditioning to have priority over charging (no charging timers are set anyhow). The car is plugged in. It will not precondition.

What am I missing? I thought maybe it wouldn't run if it detects the keys nearby, so I had my parents move both of them away from the front door, which is only 10ft from the car. Still no preconditioning.

Would be good to get this feature working on days like today where we had a temperature inversion and freezing rain.

Have you verified that the clock the system uses is set to the correct time?

There are two clocks (one in the "eyebrow" display above the steering wheel and one in the center screen (navigation system). Make sure both clocks are set correctly, set the climate control timer for desired time (either use 24 hour time or make sure AM/PM settings are correct), and make sure the timer is enabled.

Wouldn't be surprised the dash clock was changed for Daylight Savings but the Nav clock wasn't and is running an hour ahead.

Thanks all. I'm fairly confident the clock is correct in the NAV screen, but didn't check the eyebrow one. I know the timers are enabled and set to the correct departure time (7:40am).

I'll have to take another look at it. The car isn't doing them any good at the moment since power has been out since Friday.

https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/what-im-up-39123.html#post642527

Power was restored at my house, so I decided to drive my parent's Leaf with 12 miles of range remaining to my garage to charge.

I got a message to charge soon, but no turtle mode.

Anyhow, I plugged in last night to L1 charge, and this morning it was still charging when the preconditioning kicked on. I noticed it on at 7:30am, which is 10 minutes before the scheduled departure of 7:40am. I have no idea what time it came on.

It appears the car will only precondition when it's actively charging, so something isn't right. If it's plugged in and not charging, it ignores the climate control timer.

redpoint5 said:

Power was restored at my house, so I decided to drive my parent's Leaf with 12 miles of range remaining to my garage to charge.

I got a message to charge soon, but no turtle mode.

Anyhow, I plugged in last night to L1 charge, and this morning it was still charging when the preconditioning kicked on. I noticed it on at 7:30am, which is 10 minutes before the scheduled departure of 7:40am. I have no idea what time it came on.

It appears the car will only precondition when it's actively charging, so something isn't right. If it's plugged in and not charging, it ignores the climate control timer.

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Did the car ever charge successfully at your parent's house, with the same outlet you were attempting to use for preconditioning?

Nubo said:

Did the car ever charge successfully at your parent's house, with the same outlet you were attempting to use for preconditioning?

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My parents have a 240v SolarEdge EVSE they have successfully charged with. They keep it plugged in over night, so it's available to provide power for scheduled cabin conditioning.

I used the stock EVSE at my house, and due to the slowness of L1 charging, it happened to still be charging when preconditioning was scheduled. If my theory is correct, it will miss preconditioning tomorrow because the car is now fully charged at my house, on L1. I've got my wife driving it while my parent's power is out so I can convince her that our next vehicle should be EV.

redpoint5 said:

Nubo said:

Did the car ever charge successfully at your parent's house, with the same outlet you were attempting to use for preconditioning?

Click to expand...

My parents have a 240v SolarEdge EVSE they have successfully charged with. They keep it plugged in over night, so it's available to provide power for scheduled cabin conditioning.

I used the stock EVSE at my house, and due to the slowness of L1 charging, it happened to still be charging when preconditioning was scheduled. If my theory is correct, it will miss preconditioning tomorrow because the car is now fully charged at my house, on L1. I've got my wife driving it while my parent's power is out so I can convince her that our next vehicle should be EV.

Click to expand...

Sorry to be a pain, but has the car successfully charged on your parents' 240V charger *after* you noticed that preconditioning was failing? What I'm trying to rule out is a wiring or evse problem. For example there is a failure mode (bad diode) where the L1 and some L2 EVSE will work but some L2 EVSE will not.

The Leaf cabin heating was on when I checked at 7:23 am this morning (7:40 departure), and I'm sure the car had been fully charged since it was plugged in to L1 all night and was already mostly charged. That kinda puts holes into my theory about it only working when it's already charging.

Looking at the graph of power consumption at my house, it looks like I plugged in at 8:45 pm last night, and charging completed at 11:15 pm. The cabin conditioning began at 7:15am, which is 25 minutes before the set departure.

Now the question is why it won't work on my parents L2 charger?

Nubo said:

Sorry to be a pain, but has the car successfully charged on your parents' 240V charger *after* you noticed that preconditioning was failing? What I'm trying to rule out is a wiring or evse problem. For example there is a failure mode (bad diode) where the L1 and some L2 EVSE will work but some L2 EVSE will not.

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Thanks for sticking with my issue. My parents L2 EVSE has worked flawlessly since they got the Leaf a month ago, which is when I set the preconditioning up. It has never preconditioned at that set time at their house on that L2 EVSE. It's a brand new SolarEdge EVSE.

The car has spent 2 days at my house now and it successfully preconditions on the stock L1 EVSE.

Either my parents are lying to me about the car being plugged in when it's supposed to precondition, or there's something funky with that EVSE that the car doesn't like to precondition with it.

I thought the car was supposed to precondition even if it's not plugged in so long as the battery was charged above a certain percent?

The "failure mode" that Nubo refers to is of the car's onboard charging system, not of the EVSE. When one of the diodes fails in the onboard charger, the car will charge on L-1 but not on most L-2 charging stations and cables.

The climate control timer will not activate preconditioning if the car is not plugged in (at least on 2011 through 2015 models). Preconditioning will operate for 15 minutes on battery power if initiated through Nissan Connect EV, not by timer. The climate control should activate from the timer for 2 hours if the car is plugged in to a live EVSE even if the car is not actively charging. I looked up Solar Edge EVSE and see that these are "smart" models which integrate with PV systems. Therefore, I suggest that you check the programming of the EVSE carefully to make sure it is actually providing power to the car starting at least 2 hours before the car's programmed climate control departure time. It appears that the car is working correctly on the standard EVSE and since you said it charges on the solar edge, then it is not likely to be a problem with the car's onboard charger.

LeftieBiker said:

The "failure mode" that Nubo refers to is of the car's onboard charging system, not of the EVSE. When one of the diodes fails in the onboard charger, the car will charge on L-1 but not on most L-2 charging stations and cables.

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Right, but if it fails the test, I suspect the main contactors wouldn't close for climate control either. Maybe I'm mistaken?

Nubo said:

LeftieBiker said:

The "failure mode" that Nubo refers to is of the car's onboard charging system, not of the EVSE. When one of the diodes fails in the onboard charger, the car will charge on L-1 but not on most L-2 charging stations and cables.

Click to expand...

Right, but if it fails the test, I suspect the main contactors wouldn't close for climate control either. Maybe I'm mistaken?

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I honestly don't know. The car takes power from the battery for climate control, not the EVSE, so it could possibly be activated by that brief handshake.

I set the timer to accomodate my wife's work schedule, so I should see it ready to go by 8:30am Monday.

I modified a Leaf EVSE for 120/240v back when I owned a plug-in Prius, so if I make a dryer adapter I can test out L2 charging at my place... come to think of it, my receptacles might already be configured to accept a NEMA 14-50 plug. I'll have to take a look when I get home. Will also have to track down where I put that modified EVSE or modify another one.

If it preconditions on a modified 240v EVSE, then it would tend to suggest something funky with that SolarEdge EVSE, but if it fails, perhaps that diode issue? Heck, if that board is easy enough to get at I could test the diode. Probably not the same board that has the cell phone transceiver, right? Does Nissan still offer those at a discount so I can activate Nissan Connect?

The diode in question is inside the liquid-cooled onboard charger (under the plastic hump behind the rear seat in 2011 and 2012). A modified Nissan EVSE (such as from EVSE Upgrade which works on both 120 and 240 volts) does not do the diode check so it would work even with a failed diode. You could try an L2 public charger to verify that L2 charging still works and the diode is OK. You could also just confirm that the Solar Edge EVSE will still charge the car. If it charges the car, then there must be some issue with its programming.

I don't have much of an update on this. It seems the vehicle is hit or miss on preconditioning the cabin for my parents, with no pattern recognized so far.

I'm highly suspicious my mom could be doing something weird, but then you'd think she'd get into a habit and either do that weird thing all the time, or not. She claims it's plugged in at night, so it should precondition in the morning at the set time. Should it precondition when not plugged in assuming sufficient remaining charge?

Anyhow, it's not needed this time of year as it's not so cold in the morning. We'll see in the fall if preconditioning is reliable or not.