2013 "s" Climate control question

[johnrhansen]

Now that it's getting cold, I have some simple yes/no questions I am still unclear about. Evan after researching! I charge level 2 with a full size 30 amp EVSE (Aerovironment) and I have the charge package on my car.

Do I need to do anything to make the climate control go on except to turn on the timer itself and plug the car in? I understand the temperature setting is automatic. But lets say I turn the car off with the heat and a/c off, just having it in a vent mode, will the heat or a/c turn itself on anyway, or do I have to leave it on when I turn off the car for it to work? How about if the whole thing is off (by pushing the fan speed control button). Will it go on anyway?

What mode does it go on in once it comes on? I'm assuming it's the same mode if you were to hit the "auto" button on the temperature control but I'm not sure. I think it would be cool to have the defroster on instead so the heat goes onto it and defrosts/deices the windshield.

Does the charge control timer affect it at all? I've noticed once the charge timer is done, everything goes off. Does it wake back up again if the climate control timer calls for action? What I want to do is leave at 5:30, Set the charge control to end at 4, set the climate control to end at 5:30. Will that work? Would it work if I set them both for 5:30 when I leave? What about if I set it the other way... so the climate control timer ended first...

thanks,

John

 

[stjohnh]

Read this thread and see if it answers your questions.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=14593" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The overriding principle is that for pre-heat or pre-cool to work the car must be plugged in AND CHARGING at the time the pre-heat starts. If charging is cut off by the timer (but not because of reaching full charge), the climate control stops too.

 

[johnrhansen]

I'm doing an experiment tonight. My car is plugged in, the climate timer is set to 5:40, the charge timer set to 5:30. I know for a fact that my car always finishes charging way before the end time set on the charging timer... So if I go out there tomorrow morning at 5:30 I will see what the car does. My guess is I will see the charge lights off and the heat blowing out of the feet vent, and the car should have over 80 percent charge when I turn it on (after I unplug it) (It's set to go off at 80 percent).. I played with the climate timer once, and the car charges while the heat is going with the climate timer. More later.

 

[johnrhansen]

Pretty much as predicted. I forgot to say that I had the climate control in a vent mode, no heat or ac on, and finally just turned the whole thing off before I powered down. IN the morning at 5:35 the Auto, heat, and rear defogger light were illuminated on the climate control panel, the heat was blowing out the floor vent, and the fan was on a pretty high speed. as a bonus the steering wheel heat light was also on. I did not select it on when I turned the car off the night before. The blue dashboard light on the drivers side was blinking, and the other 2 were off. On my EVSE the vehicle charging light was blinking. The car was toasty warm. Funny thing though I attempted to disconnect the charging cord before the climate timer was done, and when I pushed the button on the plug, the blue dashboard light kept blinking and the timer didn't appear to shut off. Good thing I am aware not to pull the plug until the lights go off or I may have drawn an arc. This might be a safety problem Nissan should look into. After about 5 seconds of holding the button the car beeped and everything stopped, then I pulled the plug. When I do this when it's just the car charging, the process stops immediately when I push the button as it should do. When I powered up, my charge was at 83 percent. Tomorrow I'm going to leave it in defrost mode before I turn the car off to see what happens. I'm also going to leave the charging timer off. I normally only use 20 percent charge per day and I'm at 80 now.

 

[davewill]

... Funny thing though I attempted to disconnect the charging cord before the climate timer was done, and when I pushed the button on the plug, the blue dashboard light kept blinking and the timer didn't appear to shut off. Good thing I am aware not to pull the plug until the lights go off or I may have drawn an arc. This might be a safety problem Nissan should look into. After about 5 seconds of holding the button the car beeped and everything stopped, then I pulled the plug. When I do this when it's just the car charging, the process stops immediately when I push the button as it should do. ...

No need to worry. The car stops pulling current as soon as the button is pressed. The J1772 standard requires that to happen within milliseconds so that it is not possible to pull the plug while current is flowing. Many people are confused because the car and the EVSE show no visible sign that this has happened and the car will silently resume if you just release he button. Several people have verified this behavior with instrumentation.

 

[LeftieBiker]

Since there doesn't seem to be a topic for assorted CC questions (someone will now post links to ten of them that the Google search didn't show), I'll add one here. Sometimes when I switch the climate control off (to engage Recirculate or to save power) it clears the settings: I have to then re-select a fan speed and either heat or A/C. It's annoying that the #@! thing won't allow recirculation in the modes that need it most, but having to do this is both annoying and dangerous when done on the highway. Anyone know anything about this...?

 

[planet4ever]

Well, this thread is supposed to be for the S model, which certainly has a very different climate control system from the 2011/1012 LEAFs. I'm not sure whether the function of the 2013 SV and SL is closer to the 2011/2012 or to the S model, but the user interface is certainly closer to the older LEAFs. So I think it would confuse the issue to try to discuss SV and SL here.

Ray

 

[LeftieBiker]

The lower case "s" in the title didn't register as a model when I saw it. Fine, whatever.

EDIT: I started a new topic, so please delete my earlier post here.

 

[johnrhansen]

I pretty much figured out what I needed through experimentation, If you plug the car in and turn the timer on, in the morning if you go out to the car just before the end time set on the timer, you will find the heat or a/c going just like if you had pushed the "auto" button. If it's heating, air will be blowing out of the foot vent, regardless of what you have the climate control set to when you turned the car off the night before. The steering wheel heater goes on, and if you had it turned on the night before, the seat heaters will be going. The rear defogger will be on. If you set the charge timer end time close to your departure time, and have it set to shut off at 80 percent, in the morning you will have a little more than 80 percent charge. Apparently the battery can't help but charge when power is flowing to the car. If you set the charge timer to well after your departure time to deactivate it, the climate control will still go on so the car is warm when you leave and you'll have about 5 percent more charge in the battery than the night before. This pretty much answers all the questions for the modes of the timer I will be using. What I'm going to do is set the end time of the charger and the climate control to the precise time I plan to leave. In my experience the charger quits early, so I'll have about 87 percent charge when I leave. The only thing I wonder about is what if I set the charge timer for 100 percent. Will the car still allow power to flow to the climate control after the battery has had enough? It seems both work together and they would shut it off early so that the battery won't be over charged. I will test this the next time I charge that full which isn't very often.

 

[EddyKilowatt]

For another data point, my new S was charging in timer-override mode and I set the climate timer to be ready about an hour after the battery would reach full charge. 30 minutes before the climate-ready time (i.e. 30 minutes after battery-full time), the A/C switched on (it was a warm day), with air from the dash vents and recirc on. This surprised me a bit since I'd been led to believe (by comments here) that the climate control would switch on only if the battery was actively charging. But what it did makes more sense than what I'd expected, so, point LEAF.

I did not notice if a temperature setpoint was showing on the climate control panel, but as JohnRHansen noted, the basic configuration was as if Auto Climate had been selected.

Battery charge was still at 79% 30 minutes later when we unplugged and started the car up for departure.

Figuring out all these mode transitions gives me sympathy for the folks who fly glass-cockpit airplanes. I hope theirs are better documented! The Nissan manual is comprehensive good effort, but could use a few more state-transition diagrams.