Just bought a Gen 1 leaf. First EV car

handofdog · 27-08-2019 9:25am

obi604 wrote: »

ok, where or how do yo lock it

I think you have a 2012 Leaf and AFAIK it doesn't support native locking.

There are some good alternative suggestions on this page: https://insideevs.com/news/323954/how-to-protect-your-nissan-leaf-level-1-charger-from-theft-video/

obi604 · 27-08-2019 9:37am

handofdog wrote: »

I think you have a 2012 Leaf and AFAIK it doesn't support native locking.

There are some good alternative suggestions on this page: https://insideevs.com/news/323954/how-to-protect-your-nissan-leaf-level-1-charger-from-theft-video/

Yeah, mine is 2011.
Few great ideas on the page you linked !!!

obi604 · 27-08-2019 12:01pm

McGiver wrote: »

I use D while driving in flowing traffic and flick it to B followed by right foot up when slowing down e.g. to turn or exit or even to stop.
I mostly use B in tight slow traffic in town.

But this is really a personal preference thing. I like high regen hence I do as I described.

Note: leaf doesn't show break lights when regen breaking in the B mode, which is in my opinion a design flaw and a bit dangerous, so I always touch the break pedal briefly in tight traffic to show the lights to the traffic behind me.

I have a gen 1 and it does not have a B button (as far as I am aware)
Is there an equivalent of B in the gen 1

September1 · 27-08-2019 1:03pm

obi604 wrote: »

good call, I haven't used a granny cable yet.

When they are plugged in, are they 'locked' in to the car end? or can it just be simply unplugged from both ends at any time (e.g. a stranger walking down the road could just just saunter up and steal)

In Gen. 1 it does not lock on car side, so best option is to drive over the cable.

KCross · 27-08-2019 1:13pm

September1 wrote: »

In Gen. 1 it does not lock on car side, so best option is to drive over the cable.

Huh? You mean to put the wheel on top of the cable? :eek:

September1 · 27-08-2019 1:47pm

KCross wrote: »

Huh? You mean to put the wheel on top of the cable? :eek:

Yes ;-)

KCross · 27-08-2019 2:00pm

Have you done that yourself?

Thats asking for trouble, imo. The cable wont be able to withstand that on an ongoing basis. It would be a matter of time before the insulation starting breaking down or you snap it inside. Definitely not a recommended approach.

If you want to protect your cable just lock it to the wall. There have been a few pics on the forum where people do that. You cant pull the ends of the cable (i.e. the connectors) through a lock and as long as the lock is securely fixed to the wall it will stop the casual thief.

They can of course still cut the lock. There is no dead cert way to prevent it. Even if the cable is locked to the car they can easily unlock cars now and unlock the cable from inside the car and take the cable and car!

September1 · 27-08-2019 4:26pm

KCross wrote: »

Have you done that yourself?

Thats asking for trouble, imo. The cable wont be able to withstand that on an ongoing basis. It would be a matter of time before the insulation starting breaking down or you snap it inside. Definitely not a recommended approach.

Yes, it didn't cause any visible damage.

unkel · 27-08-2019 8:20pm

September1 wrote: »

Yes, it didn't cause any visible damage.

That's because the outside is rubber. The damage will be done on the inside. I agree with the advice here. Don't drive over your charge cable!

McGiver · 27-08-2019 8:38pm

unkel wrote: »

September1 wrote: »

Yes, it didn't cause any visible damage.

That's because the outside is rubber. The damage will be done on the inside. I agree with the advice here. Don't drive over your charge cable!

Absolutely. Running over a cable with 1.5 tons and leaving the weight on it repeatedly....

obi604 · 28-08-2019 10:26am

obi604 wrote: »

Hi. I bought a Carista dongle, arrived today and all good. Works fine.

I just left it plugged in.

I passed by the car there, was locked about 30 minutes ago. There is still a little light coming from the carista dongle. Is this light on the whole time?

Could it affect or drain the normal battery?

I don’t want to go out in morning and the car does
not start due to this dongle sapping power.

Hi, so this dongle does indeed stay powered on all the time.

I mailed Carista and got this reply: "Power consumption-wise, the adapter draws around 45mAh @ exactly 12V"

Is this enough to potentially drain the battery if left plugged in all the time?

samih · 28-08-2019 2:39pm

obi604 wrote: »

Hi, so this dongle does indeed stay powered on all the time.

I mailed Carista and got this reply: "Power consumption-wise, the adapter draws around 45mAh @ exactly 12V"

Is this enough to potentially drain the battery if left plugged in all the time?

I would be more worried that the dongle may stop one of the ECUs going to sleep mode and that ECU draining the battery.

PS. the unit for power drain is mA and 45mA over 24h results in capacity loss of about 1 Ah (45mA x 24h = 1080 mAh) from your 55 Ah 12 battery which is quite insignificant.

obi604 · 28-08-2019 4:15pm

samih wrote: »

I would be more worried that the dongle may stop one of the ECUs going to sleep mode and that ECU draining the battery.

PS. the unit for power drain is mA and 45mA over 24h results in capacity loss of about 1 Ah (45mA x 24h = 1080 mAh) from your 55 Ah 12 battery which is quite insignificant.

Thanks, ive left it plugged in since I got it last week without issue.
car has been started and driven everyday.

not sure if I should leave it in long term. just handy for leaf spy, to keep an eye on things as im very new to EV's so having leafspy to help me initially until I get comfortable is good.

obi604 · 29-08-2019 12:14am

Which of these 2 home chargers would be the Best Buy

1. A 16 amp “Eco Cars” branded one. 120 Euro

https://www.adverts.ie/18427898

2. A 16 amp “ESB ecars” branded one. 150 Euro. Comes with: fuse board breaker.

https://www.adverts.ie/18549300

obi604 · 02-09-2019 11:47pm

Hi. I charge my car and it seems to be finished charging. All blue lights have stopped flashing and charging is finished.

When I check Via leafspy immediately afterward the status of charge is always around 93%, never goes any higher. Any reason for this?

McGiver · 03-09-2019 12:31am

obi604 wrote: »

Hi. I charge my car and it seems to be finished charging. All blue lights have stopped flashing and charging is finished.

When I check Via leafspy immediately afterward the status of charge is always around 93%, never goes any higher. Any reason for this?

What does the car dash say? 100%?

Can you post the LeafSpy screenshot?

obi604 · 03-09-2019 7:39am

McGiver wrote: »

What does the car dash say? 100%?

Can you post the LeafSpy screenshot?

It’s a gen 1. So no percentage on dash. Will post screenshot again

KCross · 03-09-2019 10:57am

Its normal. Fully charged is not really fully charged. The car will stop the charge early as charging it to absolute 100% everyday would damage the battery so the car manages that by stopping the charge before 100%.

In your case its 93%. It is working as normal. Just drive it!

obi604 · 03-09-2019 11:14am

KCross wrote: »

Its normal. Fully charged is not really fully charged. The car will stop the charge early as charging it to absolute 100% everyday would damage the battery so the car manages that by stopping the charge before 100%.

In your case its 93%. It is working as normal. Just drive it!

fair enough, thank you.

obi604 · 07-09-2019 7:25am

My leaf is a 2011.
10 bars.
Status of health is 76%.
Real world Range is about 80km based on my driving when battery fully charged.
I don’t use fast charging at all so won’t be abusing the battery in this way.

I see from reading that it’s better for the battery to only charge to 80%. Due to my limited range, this will be a bit awkward and bring my range down more. Fine if my car had a range of 150km

but it doesn’t.

Based on the age of the car (8 years old) and it’s relatively decent health, is it worth while even bothering with only charging to 80% each time. If the car was brand new I’d probably want to be diligent with the charging.

Is it ok just to charge to 100% and just drive it.....as opposed to this 80% thing.

obi604 · 08-09-2019 9:37am

Bump.

samih · 09-09-2019 12:43pm

obi604 wrote: »

Bump.

As said before just drive and charge as needed. If you absolutely know you don't need to drive more than 50 km charge to 80 percent.

Charging to 80% means you might hit low battery which is also not ideal. Avoid leaving the car sitting at 100% needlessly (don't charge if you don't go anywhere the next day) is what I would be prepared to do. Nothing more, nothing less.

obi604 · 09-09-2019 1:01pm

one thing ive noticed: on the guess o meter it says I have 9km left and then it gives a low battery warning.

But on leaf spy, it is usually around 20% battery left/status of charge at this point.

Is it ok to drive for another 10km or so when it’s like this? Or should I heed what the car is saying and charge it ASAP.

Gumbo · 09-09-2019 1:30pm

obi604 wrote: »

one thing ive noticed: on the guess o meter it says I have 9km left and then it gives a low battery warning.

But on leaf spy, it is usually around 20% battery left/status of charge at this point.

Is it ok to drive for another 10km or so when it’s like this? Or should I heed what the car is saying and charge it ASAP.

You may have 20% of a degraded battery left.

Once you hit the --- on the GOM you only have 1-3km of slow driving left. Turtle mode comes next, and that means pull in safety NOW.

obi604 · 10-09-2019 8:37am

kceire wrote: »

You may have 20% of a degraded battery left.

Once you hit the --- on the GOM you only have 1-3km of slow driving left. Turtle mode comes next, and that means pull in safety NOW.

Are you saying 20% left in a degraded battery is flip all? Like less than 10km

obi604 · 10-09-2019 9:20am

one thing I noticed too, at the public 22kw chargers where you plug in your own cable between charge point and car. To open the charge point you swipe your card and it opens and you plug in etc

I was under the impression that when you wanted to disconnect again that you had to swipe your card to 'unlock' the cable from the charge point end. However, as a test the other day, I didn't swipe my card and I could just unplug the cable from the charge point.

Is this correct or is this public charge point faulty?

krissovo · 10-09-2019 10:36am

I assume you were using your own type 2 and not chademo. Only the Chademo connector locks from the charger, type 2 is locked by the car. There is a switch to change between Auto, lock & unlock.

obi604 · 10-09-2019 10:48am

krissovo wrote: »

I assume you were using your own type 2 and not chademo. Only the Chademo connector locks from the charger, type 2 is locked by the car. There is a switch to change between Auto, lock & unlock.

Yeah, was using my own cable (not the chademo)

I have a 2011 leaf and dont think it has this lock function.

_dof_ · 10-09-2019 11:00pm

obi604 wrote: »

Is this correct or is this public charge point faulty?

The public 22kW chargepoints do lock the cable on their end too.

It seems to be that at many charge points, once you've finished the charge, and unlocked from the car end and plugged out from the car, the charge point unlocks its side of the cable even without scanning your card.

Some people on here have advised that it's bad for the chargepoint though, so you should avoid doing it apparently. So safest thing is scan the card first.

obi604 · 10-09-2019 11:05pm

_dof_ wrote: »

It seems to be that at many charge points, once you've finished the charge, and unlocked from the car end and plugged out from the car, the charge point unlocks its side of the cable even without scanning your card.

Some people on here have advised that it's bad for the chargepoint though, so you should avoid doing it apparently. So safest thing is scan the card first.

Ok. Right.
Wonder if the car was not fully charged, would it allow me to disconnect. Again a 2011 leaf.

Just bought a Gen 1 leaf. First EV car

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