2011 Not Charging. Bad diode. Aerovironment Works.

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Oh good. I figured that I must have posted my final set of pictures. With my comments, that pretty much tells the story. Been a while though.... and I'm old... so I forgot. :)
 
Greetings. I just purchased a 2012 Leaf that will not charge on any L1/L2 charger. I knew this issue existed when I bought the car. I still tested on my Aeroenvironment L2 charger, as well as tried the EVSE from my 2019 SL plus, and it shuts off after a few seconds, as has been discussed previously in the thread. I did the "diode test" with a multimeter, and it's showing good. Is it still possible that the diode is still the issue? I want to make sure I'm looking at the proper issues before I go cutting into factory wiring, or ripping the interior apart to get to the charger in the car. TIA.

EDIT: Additional digging in these forums had me look at some other things to try. I do have LeafSpy Pro and did the DTC read. I have the following two codes:

B2840 016C Charger On Board Charger VC-74 (repeated 4 times FWIW)
P3173 00C0 EV/HEV On board Charger Sys EVC-236.

I plugged in the cars original 120V EVSE and no charge. I cleared the codes and tried again with the same result - the charger shutting down after 5 or so seconds, and the above codes all coming back.
 
Based upon your experience with the charging session quitting after a few seconds, and those two codes--this is an indication of a serious internal problem in the OBC.

There are fuses on both the AC input and the DC output side which can be checked once you get to the chargger.

We have seen failures of the AC input side: EMI filter capacitors, the turn-on relay and it's drive circuit, and the precharge resistors that bypass the relay. On the HV DC output side: current sense circuitry, HV snubber caps, and output fuse.

i'm assuming that you were using a strong and good 12V aux battery. A weak, old or worn out aux will cause numerous problems including preventing charrging.
 
Before giving up, try disconnecting the 12-volt battery for a couple minutes, reconnecting, clearing DTCs, and the try charging with the AeroVironment EVSE. If it still fails to charge, read and clear DTCs then disconnect/reconnect 12-volt battery, clear DTCs, disconnect/reconnect 12-volt battery, clear DTCs, and then try charging again. It sometimes takes multiple attempts to clear DTCs and disconnecting/reconnecting the 12-volt battery in order to completely clear CAN Bus communication errors.
 
nlspace said:
Based upon your experience with the charging session quitting after a few seconds, and those two codes--this is an indication of a serious internal problem in the OBC.

There are fuses on both the AC input and the DC output side which can be checked once you get to the chargger.

We have seen failures of the AC input side: EMI filter capacitors, the turn-on relay and it's drive circuit, and the precharge resistors that bypass the relay. On the HV DC output side: current sense circuitry, HV snubber caps, and output fuse.

i'm assuming that you were using a strong and good 12V aux battery. A weak, old or worn out aux will cause numerous problems including preventing charrging.

The battery has a 10/19 date sticker on it and it looks new. I have four days of working until my next run of days off, so I can try some more of the little things.

Forgot to include that the car does charge normally when using the HVDC charger.

UPDATE: I did the code clear, disconnected the 12v battery for 24 hours (day job), and put it on a trickle charger. I hooked everything back up, and still the same result, and same codes. I guess I'm looking at exploratory surgery? Can this be opened up from the top without draining the coolant for the initial inspection for any "smoking gun" causes?
 
darelldd said:
Oh good. I figured that I must have posted my final set of pictures. With my comments, that pretty much tells the story. Been a while though.... and I'm old... so I forgot. :)

To follow up on my own charging problem .. after successfully charging at a chademo a month ago, my regular charging here at home has been fine. No reoccurrence of the error in charging.
 
Wolfy said:
nlspace said:
Based upon your experience with the charging session quitting after a few seconds, and those two codes--this is an indication of a serious internal problem in the OBC.

There are fuses on both the AC input and the DC output side which can be checked once you get to the chargger.

We have seen failures of the AC input side: EMI filter capacitors, the turn-on relay and it's drive circuit, and the precharge resistors that bypass the relay. On the HV DC output side: current sense circuitry, HV snubber caps, and output fuse.

i'm assuming that you were using a strong and good 12V aux battery. A weak, old or worn out aux will cause numerous problems including preventing charrging.

The battery has a 10/19 date sticker on it and it looks new. I have four days of working until my next run of days off, so I can try some more of the little things.

Forgot to include that the car does charge normally when using the HVDC charger.

UPDATE: I did the code clear, disconnected the 12v battery for 24 hours (day job), and put it on a trickle charger. I hooked everything back up, and still the same result, and same codes. I guess I'm looking at exploratory surgery? Can this be opened up from the top without draining the coolant for the initial inspection for any "smoking gun" causes?

Assuming this is the 2012 that's having the problem, I think your OBC is bad. No way to "open it up from the top" as you said. Video of OBC replacement here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R4dGg8nIUs
 
Wolfy said:
nlspace said:
Based upon your experience with the charging session quitting after a few seconds, and those two codes--this is an indication of a serious internal problem in the OBC.

There are fuses on both the AC input and the DC output side which can be checked once you get to the chargger.

We have seen failures of the AC input side: EMI filter capacitors, the turn-on relay and it's drive circuit, and the precharge resistors that bypass the relay. On the HV DC output side: current sense circuitry, HV snubber caps, and output fuse.

i'm assuming that you were using a strong and good 12V aux battery. A weak, old or worn out aux will cause numerous problems including preventing charrging.

The battery has a 10/19 date sticker on it and it looks new. I have four days of working until my next run of days off, so I can try some more of the little things.

Forgot to include that the car does charge normally when using the HVDC charger.

UPDATE: I did the code clear, disconnected the 12v battery for 24 hours (day job), and put it on a trickle charger. I hooked everything back up, and still the same result, and same codes. I guess I'm looking at exploratory surgery? Can this be opened up from the top without draining the coolant for the initial inspection for any "smoking gun" causes?

Hi Wolfy

Hope you are keeping well

I Have the exact same issue that you reported ,the only difference is that i took the car to a Nissan dealer and they stated that there wasn't any fault codes and that the onboard charger had to be replaced (3500 euros).

I'm about to check the resistance of the pilot wire to see if the fault is related with the Diode and can be fixed using that method, but wanted to ask if you were able to sort out your issue and if so,how?

thanks in advance
Bruno
 
If you can still charge with the stock EVSE but not other L2 EVSEs, then it's almost certainly a diode problem. I haven't gone through this entire thread, so I can't recall if the inline J1772 port mod is in this thread, but that method is definitely the way to go.
 
bdias said:
...

i took the car to a Nissan dealer and they stated that there wasn't any fault codes and that the onboard charger had to be replaced (3500 euros).

thanks in advance
Bruno
Howdy Bruno,
This sounds fishy--there are always fault codes, especially when an OBC fails. Maybe a lazy mechanic or dishonest dealer. You could read the codes yourself using the Leaf Spy app and an OBDII dongle.
 
Here is a picture showing the failed diode D547 from the repair video circled in red. On my 2012 board (Nichicon PA4063RP120) that diode has been etched such that the marking code can't be read.

i traced that diode circuit forward thru the board to the inverting input pin 2 of a dual 2252A op amp IC522; i traced it back to pin 13 of the CN502 connector which exits out the OBC to either pin 7 or pin 9 of B25 of the three control connectors (10-pin B25, 12-pin B26, and 8-pin B27).

Could anyone help to identify a few items?
1. For some reason the pinout diagrams of B24, B26 and B27 are shown, but B25 is not found in the FSM...?
2. The diode in the yellow box area is marked "2U" and i can't find a datasheet for it; it is SMA sized.
3. There is another similar SMA diode marked "S4"--maybe Schottky 40V?
Similar size and marking type so probably the same vendor (Japanese?) but i'm not having any luck finding these.

E74yt2P.png
 
nlspace said:
2. The diode in the yellow box area is marked "2U" and i can't find a datasheet for it; it is SMA sized.
According to this page (4th last entry), it may be this 200V 1.1A fast silicon diode:
https://pdf1.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/view/43694/SHINDENGEN/D1FL20U.html

Edit: this PDF shows the 2U marking code: https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/2/366/J532D1FL20U-1202930.pdf
 
nlspace said:
3. There is another similar SMA diode marked "S4"--maybe Schottky 40V?
Maybe this one, which is Schottky 40V and does have marking code S4, but a different manufacturer [ edit: and different layout of digits ] :

https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/2/345/fm120-fm1200-34759.pdf
 
Thanks for the help Mike, those are likely the diodes in question, and that's a good smd search site that i've not seen before. kenny
 
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