Any LeafSpy experts here?

waynegalway

Hi

I got an OBD2 dongle today and it’s working fine with my iPhone and LeafSpy.

Couple of questions.

1. Is there any possibility in messing around with LeafSpy that I could have messed with the charging timer? Since using it, I can’t get the car to charge past 80%, even when I turn the charge timer off using the button by the steering wheel. I’ve even gone into the settings on the computer in the car to turn off the schedule (which I usually leave set up to stop charging at 80%), but it still won’t charge past 80%. I’d like to charge it to 100 to balance the cells and get a better idea of SOH.

2. What other things should I look for in the app? There’s a bewildering amount of info on the screens, with no in-app explanation for what the (non obvious) ones actually mean.

Thanks

mordeith

Isn't there an actual option on the car to charge to 100% irrespective of the charge schedule?

waynegalway

mordeith wrote: »

Isn't there an actual option on the car to charge to 100% irrespective of the charge schedule?

Yes. If you press the button to the right of the steering wheel it should ignore the schedule and charge up to 100%. But that’s not working since earlier today. It could be just a coincidence, but it’s not working since about the time I used LeafSpy for the first time. Not blaming the app, but maybe I did something in the app that has mucked up the settings.

I got SOH of 86.5%, and I was expecting higher (151 Leaf24), so I thought I’d charge it up to 100 to try and balance the cells. Haven’t been able to do that so far.

KCross

1. Im not aware of anything in the app that messes with the 80% setting. It is a setting in the menus in the car itself. "Long life mode" or something its called. Have a scrummage for that and see whether its on or of... presumably you flicked it on by mistake.

2. Post up the main screenshot (The one with SOH) and we'll explain it to you.

waynegalway

KCross wrote: »

1. Im not aware of anything in the app that messes with the 80% setting. It is a setting in the menus in the car itself. "Long life mode" or something its called. Have a scrummage for that and see whether its on or of... presumably you flicked it on by mistake.

I usually have long life mode turned on. I want to turn it off. Normally that can be turned off by the button below the steering wheel. When that didn’t work, I went into the settings in the car and turned off charging schedule. Still wouldn’t go past 80%

I’ve just gone into the settings and turned on a schedule that would to charge to 100% everyday. I’ll see if that makes a difference and get back.

KCross

waynegalway wrote: »

Yes. If you press the button to the right of the steering wheel it should ignore the schedule and charge up to 100%. But that’s not working since earlier today. It could be just a coincidence, but it’s not working since about the time I used LeafSpy for the first time. Not blaming the app, but maybe I did something in the app that has mucked up the settings.

The button to the right of the steering is a timer override only. It doesnt, AFAIK, override the 80% long life mode setting which can be turned on/off in the "Zero emission" button by the sat nav screen.

Go in there and look for long life mode and disable that setting which you must have turned on at some point.

Then press your override timer button and let it charge.

NOTE: You can also set long life 80% mode in the individual timers but thats a different setting to the one in the Zero emission button.

waynegalway wrote: »

I got SOH of 86.5%, and I was expecting higher (151 Leaf24), so I thought I’d charge it up to 100 to try and balance the cells. Haven’t been able to do that so far.

That's about right. Its a 151 so approaching 4yrs old. 10-15% degradation is what you should expect. What you will find is that it will go up slightly as the weather gets colder (dont know why).

Expect to lose your first bar next summer would be my guess.

waynegalway

KCross wrote: »

2. Post up the main screenshot (The one with SOH) and we'll explain it to you.

Attached

waynegalway

Well, it’s charging past 80% now anyway, which is good.

Strangely though, the Nissan app is not displaying time to full, see attached screen shot.

KCross

Ahr=56.58. <-- THats the one that decides your SOH. A new 24kWh Leaf will have about 65Ahr hence 87% SOH in your screenshot.

Hx=82.6% is a measure of the battery cell resistance. Higher the better which means less resistance hence less heat when it is charging/discharging. This reduces with SOH. Not much you can interpret from it really just another data point on your SOH.

Odo <-- Obvious enough
131 QC's is the number of rapid charges it has done
1664 L1/L2's is the number of slow charge sessions. The gotcha with this one is that if you use the charge timer (which you do) it counts each daily charge as two so you have actually done half that figure. You'll note when you have a timer active and you plug the car in it turns on the charge for a few seconds to interrogate the EVSE to see what power it can deliver and then it turns off again until the timer start time. This interrogation clocks up as one charge session.

SOC at the bottom is obviously what your current charge level is. Its true SOC, not the SOC on the dash so they wont align. When you see 100% on the dash that will be something like 97%

The lighbulb with 11.68V is your lead acid battery voltage level... which seems low actually.... you should pop the bonnet and take a look into the inspection hole at the top of the battery and see if the green ball is floating or not. If not, I'd connect it to a lead acid charger overnight to give it a good recondition.

If you use 80% long life mode and do alot of short journeys its possible that the lead acid isnt ever getting a good top up. The car charges the lead acid while driving but it also charges it at the end of the charge session and is signified by the 3rd blue charge light flashing on its own. Do you ever see that happening?
Letting it do a full 100% charge tonight will charge it but if you have one of those lead acid chargers it might be a good idea to let it at it as they do de-sulphation etc which your battery might need if it has been left go low.

The graph in the middle shows the cells and they seem balanced enough. You can click the top and bottom of the graph to change the scale on the left.... get it down to 50mV and then you'll see if its balanced or not. Looks OK though.

The other numbers below the graph are the cell voltages... min/max/avg ... wiuth a 17mV diff between min and max.... mine usually gets down to about 12mV when fully charged I think. If you get a very high number here you then need a full cell balance... yours seems OK.

And finally battery temp.... there are 3 sensors in the pack so 3 values.

KCross

waynegalway wrote: »

Well, it’s charging past 80% now anyway, which is good.

Strangely though, the Nissan app is not displaying time to full, see attached screen shot.

I dont use the Nissan app anymore. I use EVA (iOS only I think). Quicker and better.

Did you check the Zero emissions button and the long life mode setting in there?

n97 mini

waynegalway wrote: »

Well, it’s charging past 80% now anyway, which is good.

Strangely though, the Nissan app is not displaying time to full, see attached screen shot.

I think long life mode must be enabled somewhere. The app shows -.-- when it is and the battery is already at 80%+

waynegalway

KCross wrote: »

Ahr=56.58. <-- THats the one that decides your SOH. A new 24kWh Leaf will have about 65Ahr hence 87% SOH in your screenshot.

Hx=82.6% is a measure of the battery cell resistance. Higher the better which means less resistance hence less heat when it is charging/discharging. This reduces with SOH. Not much you can interpret from it really just another data point on your SOH.

Odo <-- Obvious enough
131 QC's is the number of rapid charges it has done
1664 L1/L2's is the number of slow charge sessions. The gotcha with this one is that if you use the charge timer (which you do) it counts each daily charge as two so you have actually done half that figure. You'll note when you have a timer active and you plug the car in it turns on the charge for a few seconds to interrogate the EVSE to see what power it can deliver and then it turns off again until the timer start time. This interrogation clocks up as one charge session.

SOC at the bottom is obviously what your current charge level is. Its true SOC, not the SOC on the dash so they wont align. When you see 100% on the dash that will be something like 97%

The lighbulb with 11.68V is your lead acid battery voltage level... which seems low actually.... you should pop the bonnet and take a look into the inspection hole at the top of the battery and see if the green ball is floating or not. If not, I'd connect it to a lead acid charger overnight to give it a good recondition.

If you use 80% long life mode and do alot of short journeys its possible that the lead acid isnt ever getting a good top up. The car charges the lead acid while driving but it also charges it at the end of the charge session and is signified by the 3rd blue charge light flashing on its own. Do you ever see that happening?
Letting it do a full 100% charge tonight will charge it but if you have one of those lead acid chargers it might be a good idea to let it at it as they do de-sulphation etc which your battery might need if it has been left go low.

The graph in the middle shows the cells and they seem balanced enough. You can click the top and bottom of the graph to change the scale on the left.... get it down to 50mV and then you'll see if its balanced or not. Looks OK though.

The other numbers below the graph are the cell voltages... min/max/avg ... wiuth a 17mV diff between min and max.... mine usually gets down to about 12mV when fully charged I think. If you get a very high number here you then need a full cell balance... yours seems OK.

And finally battery temp.... there are 3 sensors in the pack so 3 values.

Very thorough, thanks.

Do you ever look at the other screens for specific info?

waynegalway

n97 mini wrote: »

I think long life mode must be enabled somewhere. The app shows -.-- when it is and the battery is already at 80%+

Hadn’t seen the - - - before when charging past 80, thought it always showed time to complete.

I’ve obviously done something to the settings that I can’t remember doing.

For about the past month I’ve had a charge timer set up for every day from midnight to midnight to 80%. So, even though it’s technically on a schedule, it should charge to 80 whenever I plug in. A few times over the past month I’ve hit the override button below the steering wheel, and it has charged to 100 no bother.

Apart from playing around with LeafSpy today, I’ve not gone near any settings in the car to do with charging. I did turn on the climate timer last Sunday night to preheat the car for Monday morning, but that’s it.

Funny coincidence that it behaves differently on the same day I first used LeafSpy.

KCross

Did you check the Zero emission button? Its in there.

waynegalway

KCross wrote: »

Did you check the Zero emission button? Its in there.

Yep. Just checked. Long life mode was turned on.

So, would I be better off leaving that turned off, and using a charger timer set to 80 for midnight to midnight every day? And then if I need a boost to 100, just override that with the button below he wheel?

See attachment. I’ve currently set the 24 schedule 7 days a week to 100, which is what I had to do about an hour ago to get past 80%. But after tonight, I’ll set a 24 timer to 80% for each day.

Is having the charger timer set up like this effectively the same as having long life mode turned on?

KCross

waynegalway wrote: »

Yep. Just checked. Long life mode was turned on.

So, would I be better off leaving that turned off, and using a charger timer set to 80 for midnight to midnight every day? And then if I need a boost to 100, just override that with the button below he wheel?

Yes, exactly.

I would also recommend you set it to charge to 100% once a week. It will be good to balance the cells and it will also ensure your 12V gets adequate topup charge at the end of the charge cycle... which your LeafSpy report suggests it might not be getting.

Whatever day you pick you need to ensure that its the car disconnects the charge session rather than the timer. If the timer stops the session the 12V wont have been topped up or the cells balanced fully.

waynegalway wrote: »

Is having the charger timer set up like this effectively the same as having long life mode turned on?

Pretty much, yes.
If you set a timer for every day and use the 80% option it is the same as having long life mode on in the Zero emission menu.

n97 mini

waynegalway wrote: »

Is having the charger timer set up like this effectively the same as having long life mode turned on?

That is long life, but for the charge timer. I guess they didn't have the space to put in the letters "Long life" and just used "80%" instead. Same thing.

waynegalway

KCross wrote: »

Yes, exactly.

I would also recommend you set it to charge to 100% once a week. It will be good to balance the cells and it will also ensure your 12V gets adequate topup charge at the end of the charge cycle... which your LeafSpy report suggests it might not be getting.

12v was showing as 12.88 in LeafSpy this morning after an overnight charge to 100%

KCross

waynegalway wrote: »

12v was showing as 12.88 in LeafSpy this morning after an overnight charge to 100%

12.7V+ is what you need but you need to check it ideally a few hours after the charge has stopped and the car shouldnt be turned on (on but not in "drive mode") as it would show a misleading figure as the car will be topping it up if turned on.