Replaced 12v Lead with 12v Lithium

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hey Nerys,

So the leaf is known, at least the 2012 and older models, for not being very good at looking after and charging the 12v battery. I figured that out after having all sorts of issues with my 2012 leaf and they were resolved with a new battery and I've changed how I behave.. I now don't just plug in my car anytime I'm home as this pulls juice from the 12v all the time to keep the car charging system ready even if it's not charging. I also plug it in to a battery tender every few weeks. My 12v battery was replaced after 3 years.. but I hope that my new behavior will allow this replacement battery to last a little longer.. more like 7 yrs and getting closer to your average you mentioned. Most ICE cars are good at looking after 12v batteries and it's so strange that nissan didn't make the leaf be just as good.

i think that is what the other posters are saying and why they are asking about your location.. I'm Utah and the winters are cold and long enough to stress out a poorly maintained 12v battery.
 
My batteries last ten plus years what other options would I need to look for?

I have yet to have to replace a battery because it wore out the only thing that has ever killed a battery for me is neglect on my part.

if I ever have to replace the 12 volt battery in my leaf, ever, short of neglect, I would consider it defective.

Now the lithium battery that's pissing me off I am well below 70% capacity but it won't drop the third bar somehow I think it's programming.
 
I should start checking my 12 volt battery to see if anything might have improved as far as maintaining a more optimal resting voltage while connected to the car. As far as batteries lasting, I have also seen several in my area go 8-10 years or more but I am in a unique area that is vastly different that most of the US.
 
Great topic, and makes perfect sense to eliminate a problem with the poor charge management of the 12v system in the Leaf by removing a component that was not designed to be discharged and recharged like this. It would have made more sense if the 12v accessory battery was a deep cycle battery. That being the case it would make sense to replace the lead acid with a lithium battery for this application.

The price for the battery the OP paid is way outside what I am willing to pay for the 12v battery. What other options have you guys come up with and what did you have to do to make it work? I see there is a Battery Tender motorcycle battery with the largest AH capacity of up to 35ah, but does not looks like the posts/terminals would work on the Leaf.

So looking for your input on how you guys have addressed the 12v accessory battery replacement with a LifeP04. Thanks.
 
VitaminJ said:
Ok, so this thread is almost 4 years old. The batteries being posted about then were way too heavy and way too expensive. There is no need for a large AGM or lithium battery designed to start an ICE car.

What we need is an exceptionally lightweight battery like this motorcycle battery:
https://www.batterystuff.com/powersports-batteries/LFX14L2-BS12.html#WayPointTechSpecs

2lbs, $145. That's more like it.

How do you adapt the battery terminal connections from the Leaf to this battery? Thanks! Would love to see how to make this work.

I am looking at this battery on Amazon and looking at the higher AH capacity so that there are some reserves to draw on and was wondering if there is a way to make it fit in the existing battery mounting area and how to adapt the connections to it.

https://www.amazon.com/Battery-Tend...rd_wg=xyzSO&psc=1&refRID=QKGM5MNEYJ5199SF8WXR
 
I'm guessing that you could bolt the existing cables to two of those "quad terminals" just by bypassing the clamp and using the clamp bolts as the terminal bolts. Failing that, there are all sorts of terminal adapters available out there.
 
GerryAZ said:
That Battery Tender brand motorcycle battery has only 96 watt hours (8 ampere hours at 12 volts) of energy storage. I doubt that is sufficient to reliably handle residual load of the Leaf when parked.

Style: (12V, 26-35Ah, 480 ICA, 102.4 Watt Hrs.)

I assume this means it's 20AH at least? Adequate if not generous. Personally, I think the best most reliable way to go is with a larger AGM battery.
 
LeftieBiker said:
GerryAZ said:
That Battery Tender brand motorcycle battery has only 96 watt hours (8 ampere hours at 12 volts) of energy storage. I doubt that is sufficient to reliably handle residual load of the Leaf when parked.

Style: (12V, 26-35Ah, 480 ICA, 102.4 Watt Hrs.)

I assume this means it's 20AH at least? Adequate if not generous. Personally, I think the best most reliable way to go is with a larger AGM battery.

102.4 watt hours divided by 12 volts equals 8.53 ampere hours. I am not sure what the rating of the original lead acid flooded battery is, but the Optima D51R yellow top deep cycle AGM that I put in my 2011 was rated at 38 ampere hours (C20 capacity) and it worked very well. I will buy one for my 2015 as soon as the Nissan original starts showing weakness.
 
GerryAZ said:
That Battery Tender brand motorcycle battery has only 96 watt hours (8 ampere hours at 12 volts) of energy storage. I doubt that is sufficient to reliably handle residual load of the Leaf when parked.

The battery tender one is a 26-35ah battery or so it claims on the specs. There are at least 3 sizes smaller, but this is the largest capacity one that they have. Looking at what others were saying about at least 20ah I thought this one might work.

If anyone knows other LifeP04 options do not cost an arm and a leg please share. I think it makes a lot of sense to have a lithium battery for this purpose.
 
I was just digging through some of the comments on that Battery Tender LifeP04 and someone stated it's real capacity is only about 10ah. So that wouldn't be thing. So I will keep looking.
 
The battery that Stanton bought (link in original post) is a high quality battery with energy storage equal to or better than the original lead acid. The little motorcycle style batteries being discussed lately are no where near the same capacity as the original lead acid. They will probably work fine if the car is driven every day, but could be an issue if the car is parked for extended time. FWIW, the battery store where I buy my batteries no longer sells the motorcycle style lithium batteries because they had too many problems with them. I was planning to buy one for a motorcycle that has an alarm system which discharges the battery when parked. After prematurely replacing a couple of batteries due to failure from sitting discharged, I intended to buy a lithium until I learned that they no longer sell them. Also, the manufacturers of the small lithium batteries like to express capacity in terms of watt hours instead of the more familiar ampere hour rating for 12-volt batteries because it makes them sound more powerfull. 96 watt hours sounds a lot more powerful than 8 ampere hours when comparing them to conventional or AGM batteries that have capacities of 12 to 20 ampere hours.
 
^ ^ ^ THIS (mostly)

The original (stock) lead-acid battery for the Leaf is ~40 AHrs; the Lithium battery I bought (and still have) is ~20 Ahrs.
I had a smaller capacity (~10 Ahr) battery in there on a very temporary basis, and while it did "work", I wouldn't recommend it long-term (there were also some mechanical issues).
The saying "you get what you pay for" is no different with LiFePO4 batteries; the cheap ones typically don't have any sort BMS (built-in) which may lead to failures. Especially with the Leaf, it's nice not having to worry what charge level the 12v battery is at, because they can operate continuously at capacity levels a lead-acid would basically be worthless.
 
maini said:
looks like a good one for the price
https://www.batterystuff.com/batteries/lithium-iron-batteries/sstx30q-fp.html

Yes it does. Mentions "internal cell balance" and the Leaf will never exceed the 15v rated max charging voltage.
They only mentioned 530 CCA in the spec (not too bad); is there a way to convert CCA -> AHr?
 
MalcolmReynolds said:
The battery tender one is a 26-35ah battery or so it claims on the specs. There are at least 3 sizes smaller, but this is the largest capacity one that they have. Looking at what others were saying about at least 20ah I thought this one might work.

Be careful when determining specs of these 12V automotive Lithium replacements. The sellers like to invoke "amp-hour equivalency" for actual amp-hour measurements. The following quote from Thomas Edison still holds true:

Thomas Edison said:
The storage battery is one of those peculiar things which appeals to the imagination, and no more perfect thing could be desired by stock swindlers than that very self-same thing. Just as soon as a man gets working on the secondary battery it brings out his latent capacity for lying.
 
Stanton said:
maini said:
looks like a good one for the price
https://www.batterystuff.com/batteries/lithium-iron-batteries/sstx30q-fp.html

Yes it does. Mentions "internal cell balance" and the Leaf will never exceed the 15v rated max charging voltage.
They only mentioned 530 CCA in the spec (not too bad); is there a way to convert CCA -> AHr?

It looks like a great motorcycle starting battery and I am considering one for one of my motorcycles. The reason these suppliers do not publish the AHr ratings is because they are much lower than the lead acid originals they are intended to replace. The AHr rating does not matter for starting, but it makes a big difference if there is residual load while parked (such as the power off draw of the Leaf). Lithium batteries have low internal resistance so small lightweight batteries can deliver high starting current while maintaining higher terminal voltage than lead acid batteries they replace. This gives them high CCA ratings compared to conventional batteries even though they have much less energy storage (lower actual AHr ratings).

CCA is based upon 30 seconds of cranking so 530 amperes for 30 seconds would be about the same energy as 8.5 amperes for 1 hour (assuming nominal voltage). This is not a valid calculation to determine actual AHr rating, but is probably a reasonable estimate to compare lithium batteries without published AHr numbers.
 
has anyone tried Ballistic Performance batteries?
https://www.ballistic-batteries.com/category.php?cPath=141

I had a 12-cell EVO2 a few years ago in my race car (mazda miata) which basically only got driven about once a month for race days and it worked great and saved a ton of weight.

I started thinking about eventually replacing the 12v in my Leaf with one of these and started reading a few of the threads and its a bit over my head so i was hoping to get some feedback

i have a 2011 Leaf with the solar panel on the spoiler. while i'd prefer covered parking, it's not available to me so it parks in the sun (at least i can use that panel on the spoiler). i'm in a part of Japan where the temps throughout a year might get as low as around single digit -C and up to mid-30C. i drive the car only about once a week on the weekend for groceries/errands (i commute by bike for work), typically not going more than 5-10mi each trip. i rarely use the car in ACC mode. my priorities are reliability and weight savings.

seems like the ballistic offerings and other motorcycle batteries would be appropriate for my use-case. is there anything i'm missing?

thanks!
 
I emailed batterystuff about the Scorpion battery and here's their response:

"Sorry, that is a powersport battery only and is only warrantied in applications we have listed. In automotive use the battery would not hold up long, as it is very low in capacity."

Using it in the Leaf would void the warranty, so you're on your own.
 
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