poweredbysun
Member
- Joined
- May 12, 2012
- Messages
- 15
I am in Northern VA, and luckily (for us) the storm went mostly to the north.
My tree and house damages were within acceptable limits. Power hardly went off.
I've been using a 250 watt inverter running off the cabin light fuse on
the fuse panel on the left of the steering wheel, for a couple of months.
I'm running a Win8 laptop which is recording the CAN bus data from the serial port
on the GID meter, a CLEAR WIMAX modem on a Cradlepoint router, and some
other assorted electronics. The ground is attached to one of the seat bolts.
I have a Series 29 (biggest) Marine battery in parallel in a battery box.
I can watch the voltage and power in and out of the inverter on its display.
I have some questions about running inverters off the Nissan LEAF 12 volt supply.
In the 2012 Nissan LEAF:
When the engine is OFF, the DC/DC converter cycles on at infrequent intervals.
Without putting my foot on the brake, pushing the power on switch once gives
me the radio and accessories (will turn itself off after an hour or so) but does
not seem to change the DC/DC converter cycling frequency.
Without putting my foot on the brake, pushing the power on switch a second
time gives me climate control and seat heaters but again does not seem to
drastically increase the frequency with which the DC/DC converter cycles on.
When I put my foot on the brake and push the on button to turn on the car,
the DC/DC converter seems to come on and stay on.
When I let this setup run for over 8 hours with the engine off, the 10 amp
"add on" fuse will typically blow from the inrush current when I turn on the car.
Sometimes I will get in the car and find the fuse blew while I was out and the
DC/DC converter cycled. The laptop and cradlepoint router have their own batteries,
so they will continue operating for some time, but
this setup leaves some room for improvement. I ordered a large package of
10 amp fuses off Ebay, direct from China, to satisfy this requirement.
Questions I have are:
1. Is there a pin that controls the DC/DC converter "ON", or is it under software
control on the CAN bus? Or both.
Should it not be possible to decrease the interval between
"ON" cycles so that it comes on once every ten minutes for ten seconds, for
example? I would not think this would heat up the DC/DC converter to the point that
the liquid coolant would need to be circulating.
2. Has anyone found a 400 volt DC input inverter which is actually obtainable?
3. What is involved in upgrading the Chademo software version from the one
that will not do LEAF to home to the newer version that will? Where does this
software or firmware actually reside? Is there somewhere the Miev power device
can actually be purchased?
4. The Nissan LEAF 12 volt batteries seem to run down if the car is not cycled to
the engine on position. Should there not be some adaptive learning that takes
place so the car's brain looks at the state of charge of the battery and makes
some determination of how often to cycle the dc/dc converter? This could be
reset once a day to the default state.
5. Does the Nissan LEAF sense the state of charge of the 12 volt battery, and if
so, where does this take place and what data would be transmitted on which bus?
The "dummy lights" on the dash do not seem to indicate when the 12v battery is low.
6. I was thinking of running a larger inverter to power a microwave oven in the
cargo bay so I could warm up one of those seat warmer pads to keep from having
to use cabin climate control in the winter. A mini refrigerator would also be nice
in the summer. If I were able to obtain a 400 volt inverter, could an adapter be
made up to connect it to the plug from the charger to the battery (which is
already located in the back)? Would someone be interested in making this up?
Thank you for any and all input.
Jim
My tree and house damages were within acceptable limits. Power hardly went off.
I've been using a 250 watt inverter running off the cabin light fuse on
the fuse panel on the left of the steering wheel, for a couple of months.
I'm running a Win8 laptop which is recording the CAN bus data from the serial port
on the GID meter, a CLEAR WIMAX modem on a Cradlepoint router, and some
other assorted electronics. The ground is attached to one of the seat bolts.
I have a Series 29 (biggest) Marine battery in parallel in a battery box.
I can watch the voltage and power in and out of the inverter on its display.
I have some questions about running inverters off the Nissan LEAF 12 volt supply.
In the 2012 Nissan LEAF:
When the engine is OFF, the DC/DC converter cycles on at infrequent intervals.
Without putting my foot on the brake, pushing the power on switch once gives
me the radio and accessories (will turn itself off after an hour or so) but does
not seem to change the DC/DC converter cycling frequency.
Without putting my foot on the brake, pushing the power on switch a second
time gives me climate control and seat heaters but again does not seem to
drastically increase the frequency with which the DC/DC converter cycles on.
When I put my foot on the brake and push the on button to turn on the car,
the DC/DC converter seems to come on and stay on.
When I let this setup run for over 8 hours with the engine off, the 10 amp
"add on" fuse will typically blow from the inrush current when I turn on the car.
Sometimes I will get in the car and find the fuse blew while I was out and the
DC/DC converter cycled. The laptop and cradlepoint router have their own batteries,
so they will continue operating for some time, but
this setup leaves some room for improvement. I ordered a large package of
10 amp fuses off Ebay, direct from China, to satisfy this requirement.
Questions I have are:
1. Is there a pin that controls the DC/DC converter "ON", or is it under software
control on the CAN bus? Or both.
Should it not be possible to decrease the interval between
"ON" cycles so that it comes on once every ten minutes for ten seconds, for
example? I would not think this would heat up the DC/DC converter to the point that
the liquid coolant would need to be circulating.
2. Has anyone found a 400 volt DC input inverter which is actually obtainable?
3. What is involved in upgrading the Chademo software version from the one
that will not do LEAF to home to the newer version that will? Where does this
software or firmware actually reside? Is there somewhere the Miev power device
can actually be purchased?
4. The Nissan LEAF 12 volt batteries seem to run down if the car is not cycled to
the engine on position. Should there not be some adaptive learning that takes
place so the car's brain looks at the state of charge of the battery and makes
some determination of how often to cycle the dc/dc converter? This could be
reset once a day to the default state.
5. Does the Nissan LEAF sense the state of charge of the 12 volt battery, and if
so, where does this take place and what data would be transmitted on which bus?
The "dummy lights" on the dash do not seem to indicate when the 12v battery is low.
6. I was thinking of running a larger inverter to power a microwave oven in the
cargo bay so I could warm up one of those seat warmer pads to keep from having
to use cabin climate control in the winter. A mini refrigerator would also be nice
in the summer. If I were able to obtain a 400 volt inverter, could an adapter be
made up to connect it to the plug from the charger to the battery (which is
already located in the back)? Would someone be interested in making this up?
Thank you for any and all input.
Jim