Help with Charging to 80%--what am I doing wrong?

[davewill]

Keep in mind what it says in the manual (p. CH-19):
"When only the charging timer end time is set, the system automatically determines
when to begin charging based on the Li-ion battery charge level."

Thus if you come home at 5:00PM and have only an end time set at 5:00AM, not a start time, the car may not start charging until it needs to, which may not be until sometime after midnight, depending on its state of charge when you parked it. If you have the timer set to 80% charge level, and you park the car and plug it in at 5:00PM with 20% SOC remaining in the pack, it may not start charging for 6 or 7 hours. In such a case, you only need a 60% charge to "top it off," which will only take about 3 hours with the Blink EVSE, so it will not start until 3-4 hours before the end time, or about 1-2:00AM.

That's the first I've heard of that behavior. It makes a lot of sense. I especially like that if you were to set the end time to be the end of Super Off Peak, any charge time that didn't fit into SOP would end up in regular Off Peak instead of in Peak.

 

[derkraut]

ttweed said:

"Hey--why am I helping you? Aren't you the guy who insulted me multiple times in earlier threads?

Never mind...forget I said anything. Call CS again and follow their excellent instructions. They're all experts and know everything about your Leaf."

Hey Tom----that's funny (and true, eh?) :lol: :lol:

 

[svBackstreets]

Set my timer to start at 12:00AM stop at 12:00AM and 80% charge. Charge started immediately at plugin. iPad now says charge at 83%, blink says not charging and dash has top two bars unlit and range of 85 miles.

Perfect! Thanks TT.

 

[ttweed]

Hey Tom----that's funny (and true, eh?) :lol: :lol:

Yah, they're especially good at telling you when your car will be delivered, as we all know. :roll:

TT

 

[LEAFfan]

Tom, that's what I want to do too. I will just plug it in sometime late morning or around noon, go to 80% charge and be done. But how will you do your pre-cooling when you want to leave an hour later after the car already has been charged?

 

[AmarilloLeaf]

One of the biggest oversights (IMO) is that charging on a timer only occurs if the car is plugged in at exactly the time the timer triggers. Otherwise you will have to hit the manual button and will go to 100%.

That's not what is happening for me at all.

I have my timer set from 12:10am to 11:50pm, at 80%

I get home around 7pm, I plug in, it charges for 2 - 3 hours, to 80%.

Every night. I never have to hit the manual button.

Turbo, maybe you should try this again.

 

[ttweed]

But how will you do your pre-cooling when you want to leave an hour later after the car already has been charged?

Living in such a temperate climate, I have no need to pre-heat or cool, so I haven't tried that yet, but it seems to me there are several ways to do this. The easiest and most flexible way would be to use Carwings to activate pre-cooling remotely before you are about to leave. As long as the car is still plugged in and OFF, it should start immediately and pre-cool the car with power from the wall outlet, not the pack. I just tried it and it worked fine for me. The car is in the garage right now, plugged in and off, as charging to 80% was completed already around midnight last night. I opened another window in my browser, went to my Carwings account, and clicked on the "Turn On" button in the Climate Control section, and it sent a signal to the car to start. I walked out to the garage and checked, and the CC is indeed actuated and pre-conditioning the car right now. There is also a choice in that section of Carwings to set a CC timer remotely.

If you have a regular commute (which I don't) and want the car to be ready and preconditioned to leave at a certain time every weekday, you could set one of the the Climate Control timers in the car and not use the remote function through Carwings. From reading the manual, it appears there are two CC timers, separate from the two Charge Timers. See section 4-6 through 4-8. You can also set the priority to be higher for charging or for CC. It shouldn't matter whether the CC or charging has priority if your charging is normally completed hours before the CC timer starts. The manual warns that if charging is not completed, and it has priority, pre-cooling may not be completed before you leave.

This car is smarter than I am. Every time I think something is broken, it turns out to be user error (not understanding exactly how it works). It reminds me of my early days with computers, back in the late '60s. The darn computer would always do exactly what I told it to do, not what I WANTED it to do. Most of the time, I simply didn't know how to tell it to do what I wanted.

There's a learning curve involved here, just as with any complex device.
TT

 

[LEAFfan]

But how will you do your pre-cooling when you want to leave an hour later after the car already has been charged?

Living in such a temperate climate, I have no need to pre-heat or cool, so I haven't tried that yet, but it seems to me there are several ways to do this. The easiest and most flexible way would be to use Carwings to activate pre-cooling remotely before you are about to leave. As long as the car is still plugged in and OFF, it should start immediately and pre-cool the car with power from the wall outlet, not the pack. I just tried it and it worked fine for me. The car is in the garage right now, plugged in and off, as charging to 80% was completed already around midnight last night. I opened another window in my browser, went to my Carwings account, and clicked on the "Turn On" button in the Climate Control section, and it sent a signal to the car to start. I walked out to the garage and checked, and the CC is indeed actuated and pre-conditioning the car right now. There is also a choice in that section of Carwings to set a CC timer remotely.
If you have a regular commute (which I don't) and want the car to be ready and preconditioned to leave at a certain time every weekday, you could set one of the the Climate Control timers in the car and not use the remote function through Carwings. From reading the manual, it appears there are two CC timers, separate from the two Charge Timers. See section 4-6 through 4-8. You can also set the priority to be higher for charging or for CC. It shouldn't matter whether the CC or charging has priority if your charging is normally completed hours before the CC timer starts. The manual warns that if charging is not completed, and it has priority, pre-cooling may not be completed before you leave.
This car is smarter than I am. Every time I think something is broken, it turns out to be user error (not understanding exactly how it works). It reminds me of my early days with computers, back in the late '60s. The darn computer would always do exactly what I told it to do, not what I WANTED it to do. Most of the time, I simply didn't know how to tell it to do what I wanted.
There's a learning curve involved here, just as with any complex device.
TT

Thanks Tom!