Any problem charging at leaf at a lowly 8 amps.

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webeleafowners

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 5, 2015
Messages
1,306
Location
Okanagan Valley British Columbia
Hi all. John and Angela here again. We are a two EV household. We have a smart ED and a 2016 Leaf SE. The smart game with this nifty 8/12 amp 120 volt pushbutton selectable EVSE. We really haven't used it that much since we got the Juice box 40 amp wifi EVSE a couple years ago. But this year Angelas wants more room in the garage for her projects so the leaf is out and the smart is in. If I need a faster charge on the Leaf I can just run the cable under the door from the Juice box. However I will be using the old smart EVSE for the leaf as I have it up on the columnt by the door and plug it into the Christmas light plug. See pic. We live in Canada and most of the year it is not a really hot climate but in summer we can hit 37 degrees C. Here is what I was thinking. On days when I want to start out with a 100 percent full charge I'll plug it in before bed when it is cooler and time it so that it will be 100 percent just before I hit the road in the morning. That way its not at 100 percent for very long. On days where it is not down to much but I still need that 100 percent in the morning I can use the 8 amp setting for even a slower charge. Thoughts on the low current charging?

Also, any problem having the car plugged into the EVSE but the EVSE not being plugged in? (or in this case the light switch for the outside plug not being turned on?) Then I can plug it in when i come home but not turn the switch on till I go to bed.

The car is two years old next month. I don't have leaf spy so don't know how my battery is doing but it still charges to 180 ish kilometers at 18 degrees C. About 10,000 ish KM on the car. I have heated it up a couple times (consecutive fast charges on long hot trips but probably less than 20 fast charges overall. We love the car and have had zero problems. Planning on a long range generation 2 leaf to replace the smart ED in 2020.

As per usual, thanks for your comments. Great knowledgeable community here.

40237191974_33cb5e94d7_c.jpg
 
I will pass on the switch thing but there is no issue with 8 amp charging other then efficiency.

It will take a LONG time to get significant charge. BMS management will take ~ 300 watts from the 960 going in so you will have to charge quite a long time even if starting at a relatively high SOC.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
I will pass on the switch thing but there is no issue with 8 amp charging other then efficiency.

It will take a LONG time to get significant charge. BMS management will take ~ 300 watts from the 960 going in so you will have to charge quite a long time even if starting at a relatively high SOC.

Yah we get that. But some trips I need to start out at 100 percent to be in my comfort zone so for example if the night before I come back with say 83 percent and I want 100 in the morning....you get the picture.
 
webeleafowners said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
I will pass on the switch thing but there is no issue with 8 amp charging other then efficiency.

It will take a LONG time to get significant charge. BMS management will take ~ 300 watts from the 960 going in so you will have to charge quite a long time even if starting at a relatively high SOC.

Yah we get that. But some trips I need to start out at 100 percent to be in my comfort zone so for example if the night before I come back with say 83 percent and I want 100 in the morning....you get the picture.

oh not dissing on the full thing especially if you don't have the 40 kwh version :cool: but better to pound it with 240! I have a lot of times when I don't charge overnight and simply plug in when I get up and it gets to or very near 100% just before I leave. It only takes an hour to boost 30 kwh to full from 80% on L2.

my home version does 5.76 KW and that puts 5.3 KW into the battery (per LEAF Spy) so a good percentage. When I did the L1 thing, I was only getting 1070 in... pretty big chunk lost
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
webeleafowners said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
I will pass on the switch thing but there is no issue with 8 amp charging other then efficiency.

It will take a LONG time to get significant charge. BMS management will take ~ 300 watts from the 960 going in so you will have to charge quite a long time even if starting at a relatively high SOC.

Yah we get that. But some trips I need to start out at 100 percent to be in my comfort zone so for example if the night before I come back with say 83 percent and I want 100 in the morning....you get the picture.

oh not dissing on the full thing especially if you don't have the 40 kwh version :cool: but better to pound it with 240! I have a lot of times when I don't charge overnight and simply plug in when I get up and it gets to or very near 100% just before I leave. It only takes an hour to boost 30 kwh to full from 80% on L2.

Yah, we have done that more than a few times. Plug it in to the juice box when you get up and ready to go pretty quick. But on hot days this would allow me to at least start out with a little cooler battery. Still at 12 bars right now. I don't think I notice any range change but hard to say with temps up and down. I'll probably care less about retaining the range when we get the long range gen 2 in a couple years. :)

John
 
Turning on the EVSE with the switch is not a big deal. The EVSE will initialize, then the car should start charging just fine. However, I would avoid turning off the switch while the car is actually charging. If nothing else, it may cause the car to show a fault.
 
davewill said:
Turning on the EVSE with the switch is not a big deal. The EVSE will initialize, then the car should start charging just fine. However, I would avoid turning off the switch while the car is actually charging. If nothing else, it may cause the car to show a fault.

Ahhh. Ok. Resetable faults?
 
Interesting, the SmartEV has a coiled j1772 cable? If so that's a really nice feature. Some around here have asked about coiled cords but the cheapest EVSEs with that feature seem to start >$1000USD :shock:
I'd also advise against flipping the switch during charging, probably not good for your switch at all. Other than being quite inefficient I don't see any problem charging at 8a @ 120v, just slow as heck :D

edit:
Yes the fault should go away as soon as power is re-applied.
 
jjeff said:
Interesting, the SmartEV has a coiled j1772 cable? If so that's a really nice feature. Some around here have asked about coiled cords but the cheapest EVSEs with that feature seem to start >$1000USD :shock:
I'd also advise against flipping the switch during charging, probably not good for your switch at all. Other than being quite inefficient I don't see any problem charging at 8a @ 120v, just slow as heck :D

edit:
Yes the fault should go away as soon as power is re-applied.

Yah. The coiled cable works well in this situation. The black button (hard to see) switches between 8 and 12 amps. I hose clamped it to the board and screwed the board to the wall. Need to repaint the board yet but it looks pretty good and isn’t visible from the street.
 
Also, any problem having the car plugged into the EVSE but the EVSE not being plugged in?

It may drain the 12 volt battery if done for enough hours. I'm not entirely sure that the car can detect the EVSE if the latter isn't plugged in, but it may take nothing more than having it plugged into the charging port. Or it may not...
 
LeftieBiker said:
Also, any problem having the car plugged into the EVSE but the EVSE not being plugged in?

It may drain the 12 volt battery if done for enough hours. I'm not entirely sure that the car can detect the EVSE if the latter isn't plugged in, but it may take nothing more than having it plugged into the charging port. Or it may not...

Ahh. Makes sense. Well. It’s only 6 steps out the door so no real excuse not to just plug it in.
Thanks again.
 
8A will work fine but why. The spec says 6A max but why. The car can take whole lot more. 8Aa is just to p protect poor 120VAV wiring.
 
GlennD said:
8A will work fine but why. The spec says 6A max but why. The car can take whole lot more. 8Aa is just to p protect poor 120VAV wiring.

Its just a timing thing. Timing it to be full just before I hit the road. Honestly most of the time it will be on 12 amps. We charge 2 or 3 times a week. When we need to charge fast we use the Juice box.
 
webeleafowners said:
GlennD said:
8A will work fine but why. The spec says 6A max but why. The car can take whole lot more. 8Aa is just to p protect poor 120VAV wiring.

Its just a timing thing. Timing it to be full just before I hit the road. Honestly most of the time it will be on 12 amps. We charge 2 or 3 times a week. When we need to charge fast we use the Juice box.

Does your LEAF have built-in timer? If so then you can program an "end-time only" timer that does that. Sorry I don't know what the "SE" trim level means for Canadian LEAFs.
 
Nubo said:
Does your LEAF have built-in timer? If so then you can program an "end-time only" timer that does that. Sorry I don't know what the "SE" trim level means for Canadian LEAFs.
There's no such thing as an SE trim for Canada. See specs tab of http://nissannews.com/en-CA/nissan/canada/presskits/ca-2016-nissan-leaf-press-kit.
 
cwerdna said:
Nubo said:
Does your LEAF have built-in timer? If so then you can program an "end-time only" timer that does that. Sorry I don't know what the "SE" trim level means for Canadian LEAFs.
There's no such thing as an SE trim for Canada. See specs tab of http://nissannews.com/en-CA/nissan/canada/presskits/ca-2016-nissan-leaf-press-kit.

YAh. That’s a typo. It’s an SV.
 
Our EVSE is on a heavy duty "time of use" contactor that shuts off when it hits the high rate and turns on at the low rate (the utility can also load shed and shut it off if they want). A lot of times I will get home and plug it in and it will start charging and then hit the on peak time and the evse is essentially "unplugged" and the can sits for a bit waiting and goes to sleep. If you don't change anything once the EVSE gets power again it will wake up the car and start to charge again, I have done this many times with no issues so far. I also often come home and plug in during the on peak time and once we hit the off peak the car will just start charging. I have never had any faults or warnings from the car doing this.

As was mentioned a regular light switch shutting off with the EVSE load on probably isn't the best for the switch, but being only 8 amps I don't think it is a safety issue, it may just wear out that switch sooner. You could swap that switch with a heavy duty 20a one if it does fail.
 
webeleafowners said:
jjeff said:
Interesting, the SmartEV has a coiled j1772 cable? If so that's a really nice feature. Some around here have asked about coiled cords but the cheapest EVSEs with that feature seem to start >$1000USD :shock:
I'd also advise against flipping the switch during charging, probably not good for your switch at all. Other than being quite inefficient I don't see any problem charging at 8a @ 120v, just slow as heck :D

edit:
Yes the fault should go away as soon as power is re-applied.

Yah. The coiled cable works well in this situation. The black button (hard to see) switches between 8 and 12 amps. I hose clamped it to the board and screwed the board to the wall. Need to repaint the board yet but it looks pretty good and isn’t visible from the street.

Mercedes supplies a Lear EVSE that comes with a coiled cable but the Lear has a poor reputation for reliability.
 
GlennD said:
webeleafowners said:
jjeff said:
Interesting, the SmartEV has a coiled j1772 cable? If so that's a really nice feature. Some around here have asked about coiled cords but the cheapest EVSEs with that feature seem to start >$1000USD :shock:
I'd also advise against flipping the switch during charging, probably not good for your switch at all. Other than being quite inefficient I don't see any problem charging at 8a @ 120v, just slow as heck :D

edit:
Yes the fault should go away as soon as power is re-applied.

Yah. The coiled cable works well in this situation. The black button (hard to see) switches between 8 and 12 amps. I hose clamped it to the board and screwed the board to the wall. Need to repaint the board yet but it looks pretty good and isn’t visible from the street.

Mercedes supplies a Lear EVSE that comes with a coiled cable but the Lear has a poor reputation for reliability.

Well, the smart is a Mercedes product so it’s probably the same one. We haven’t had any problems in the three years we have had it. Either with the EVSE or the car.
 
My stock EVSE is in a sealed bag. I have an OpenEVSE unit as carry along. I will turn in the stock EVSE at lease turn in. I could set the EVST to 16A for a 20A circuit. But why bother. I carry it along for an emergency but I really do not plan to use it. .

M old OpenEVSE had a bad 120V adapter but since I never used the EVSE I did not notice.

I am sure that some are happy with L1 charging but I am not that person. For Me I charge at L2 240VAC and 40A. That fits my needs.

Quick Charge Power has a L3 adapter but I really do not need the added range and shorter charging time. For me 40A at 240. If I traveled to San Diego it would make sense.. It is priced similar to Tesla" Super Cahrge's rates.

But for most Mercedes owners that is pocket change. I think the whole adapter is 3K plus install.
 
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