Leaf Battery ran out of charge & 12 volt battery dead

[planet4ever]

Perhaps the title of this thread can be changed to, "12V battery dead" instead of the more provocative title we have now, considering how these titles show up easily when FUD makers search

Good Idea. silentguy, you've been around for a long time, but you haven't posted much. You may not know that you can change the thread title by editing your original post.

Ray

 

[silentguy]

Yes

I'll change title
But both batteries were dead
So will call it something like that

 

[DanBaldwin]

Just so you know in the future the 12v battery on the average car will only run the emergency flashers for a matter of 5 to 15 minutes without causing problems. If you leave the flashers running too long it will damage the 12v battery just as seen here with the battery drained down to the 4v level.

If you have to turn on the flashers turn off everything else (interior lights, radio, cell phone charger, anything you can think of that isn't the emergency flashers that runs off of the electricity provided by the car).

If you have to leave the car in a situation where you want the flashers on long term you'll have to make a choice and either turn off the flashers after a few mintues or sacrifice the 12v battery.

I don't know the amp-hours rating of the leaf battery or the drain of the flashers so I'm just going based on my life experience here. The first time I killed a battery this way was when I was a kid and turned on the flashers in my moms car and didn't have the strength to turn them off. It required pulling out on a round peice of plastic with more strength than I or the nearest adult had (which is a very poor design but that car was made in the 70s if I had to guess, it's been too long now for me to remember the exact make/model).

I just checked current on my leaf with emergency flasher on. It looked like about 11 amps when the bulbs were on, and 0 amps when they were off, which is about half the time, so effectively about 5.5 amps. I don't know what the capacity of the Leaf accessory battery is, but I would assume that it's at least 20 amp hour. If it is 20 amp hour, and you have roughly 50 % of the battery's capacity left due to age, you should be able to run the emergency flashers for almost 2 hours before it's completely dead.

 

[Nubo]

Just so you know in the future the 12v battery on the average car will only run the emergency flashers for a matter of 5 to 15 minutes without causing problems. If you leave the flashers running too long it will damage the 12v battery just as seen here with the battery drained down to the 4v level.

If you have to turn on the flashers turn off everything else (interior lights, radio, cell phone charger, anything you can think of that isn't the emergency flashers that runs off of the electricity provided by the car).

If you have to leave the car in a situation where you want the flashers on long term you'll have to make a choice and either turn off the flashers after a few mintues or sacrifice the 12v battery.

I don't know the amp-hours rating of the leaf battery or the drain of the flashers so I'm just going based on my life experience here. The first time I killed a battery this way was when I was a kid and turned on the flashers in my moms car and didn't have the strength to turn them off. It required pulling out on a round peice of plastic with more strength than I or the nearest adult had (which is a very poor design but that car was made in the 70s if I had to guess, it's been too long now for me to remember the exact make/model).

I just checked current on my leaf with emergency flasher on. It looked like about 11 amps when the bulbs were on, and 0 amps when they were off, which is about half the time, so effectively about 5.5 amps. I don't know what the capacity of the Leaf accessory battery is, but I would assume that it's at least 20 amp hour. If it is 20 amp hour, and you have roughly 50 % of the battery's capacity left due to age, you should be able to run the emergency flashers for almost 2 hours before it's completely dead.

Yeah, that 5-15 minutes runtime sounds like it was already an indication of a toasted 12V battery.

 

[ahnx0027]

hey guys.. newbie here.. I also had my Leaf's 12V battery replaced after dealer tried to trickle charge it once, but it died again after 3 weeks. When it first happened, I freaked out because car wouldn't start with only 1800 miles on it, and when I tried to turn the car on, it acted really funny... All windows would work except driver side, navigation screen went off after few attempts to start the car, and of course when I called roadside assistance, we couldn't tow it because we couldn't get parking brake disengaged... Even mechanical disengaging didn't work....
so, we decided to jump the car for about 5 min, and every thing became normal and I drove to the dealer to check my car out. After dealer charged the 12V battery all was fine and than after few weeks car started to act funny again. ie backing out of my garage, Leaf lost all power brake and steering but it came back after few seconds. Love this car so far but things like this is really annoying and that includes CarWings... Ewwwwwwwhhhhhh~!!!!

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

I just checked current on my leaf with emergency flasher on. It looked like about 11 amps when the bulbs were on, and 0 amps when they were off, which is about half the time, so effectively about 5.5 amps. I don't know what the capacity of the Leaf accessory battery is, but I would assume that it's at least 20 amp hour. If it is 20 amp hour, and you have roughly 50 % of the battery's capacity left due to age, you should be able to run the emergency flashers for almost 2 hours before it's completely dead.

problem with that;

LEAF does not maintain 12 volt battery at 100% SOC as evidenced by relatively low measurements in the mid 12's that most people seem to be getting

Lead Acid loses a good chunk of capacity very quickly, probably near 20% in the first few months. after that, it levels off a bit, at least in a regular car where the battery is kept fully charged most of the time. I am beginning to wonder if the 12 volt battery management system is not as badly designed as the traction BMS

 

[Nubo]

I wonder if an occasional top-off with my 12V trickle charger is in order?

 

[DanBaldwin]

I started my Leaf (turned it on?) and checked charge current, and voltage on the 12 volt battery. It started out at 14.4 volts and about 6 amps, which sounds about right, but dropped within a minute or so to 12.9 volts and about an amp of charge current. I may have to come up with a way to monitor the voltage as I'm driving to see what it really does.

 

[TomT]

That sound reasonable.

I started my Leaf (turned it on?) and checked charge current, and voltage on the 12 volt battery. It started out at 14.4 volts and about 6 amps, which sounds about right, but dropped within a minute or so to 12.9 volts and about an amp of charge current. I may have to come up with a way to monitor the voltage as I'm driving to see what it really does.

 

[JimSouCal]

Investing in a better 12v battery prior to failure seems like certain form of economy to prevent grief and hassle. That's the lesson I am taking from this...

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

I started my Leaf (turned it on?) and checked charge current, and voltage on the 12 volt battery. It started out at 14.4 volts and about 6 amps, which sounds about right, but dropped within a minute or so to 12.9 volts and about an amp of charge current. I may have to come up with a way to monitor the voltage as I'm driving to see what it really does.

that is pretty much how a good battery should act. a top off at startup and 12.9 volts with a load is pretty much right where you want to be

 

[sling]

i think I am going to investigate rigging a secret manual hood latch instead. obviously dont want people to know about it so it would be small and insignificant. it is still one of the few mechanical things on the LEAF

I'm actually working on this atm. I've had mine for a couple weeks and this is the first mod i'm working on b/c it looks to be the easiest on my list. I'm planning to use a bicycle brake or shifter cable and either couple it to the existing cable or attach it to the lever. The other end can go where you want but i think i'll stick it just under the back of the hood in front of the driver. I'll post pics when i'm done, prob in a new thread.

Edit: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=11124" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;