Is there a 12 volt battery

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DanDietrich

Member
Joined
Nov 22, 2017
Messages
15
Hi,
Pardon my ignorance. I have a Nissan Leaf, and it uses a 12 volt battery for accessories which charges from the main battery. It has given me enough trouble that I am ready to sell the car and buy a different electric car. The main issue is that if the car is plugged in, charging or not, the 12 volt battery will not be charged or maintained by the main battery. I have a small drain somewhere that sometimes leaves me bricked. Please tell me that the Bolt uses some kind of different system, even if it is a pair of bicycle pedals.
Thanks
 
The Bolt has a 12V battery.

bolt-motor.jpg
 
This thread looks to have some good info on that:
http://www.chevybolt.org/forum/82-charging-batteries/10290-12v-battery-charging-2.html

desiv
 
Putting an AGM battery in the Leaf seems to work. The issue may be that the Leaf was designed for a larger capacity battery than was eventually used.
 
Related, there is a "transport mode" for long term storage, or when the Bolt is waiting to be acquired by it's new owner :p


" Transportation Mode ... feature reduces the electrical load on the battery when the vehicle is parked, which extends the battery standby time."

http://www.mychevybolt.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=7310
 
Thanks. There's another topic covering this ground.

So far the battery is holding its charge: 12.5 V.

I did notice that when the lights came on the dashboard switched to "night" mode. This hadn't happened before. (We've only had it a week and Chevy had it for 6 days.)

When Chevy reset "the trouble codes" they may have turned off some feature that was set at the factory.

Paul
 
Keep in mind that 12.5 volts is only about 80% charged. That's where a typical Leaf's voltage resides.
 
If you wish to prolong the life of your 12V battery, here's a post I made quite a while ago on another forum :


It is important to make sure that the 12V (accessory) battery in your BEV is fully charged regularly so that it won't go bad. (Older Nissan Leafs were notorious for destroying 12V batteries in a short time, 6-18 months, due to their horrid 'keep battery charged' logic, which was crap.)

If one would like the 12V battery in an EV to last 8-12 years (instead of 1-4 years), I highly recommend a smart 'battery maintainer' to make sure that your battery is FULLY charged a couple of times a month. A 'fully charged' (saturated)12V lead-acid battery *should* read around 12.65-12.7V (with NO load). A lead-acid 12V battery that is 'low' (under 80%) and frequently under load (even a small load) will start to sulfate (crap sticks to the plates). One can prolong the life of the battery by doing a full charge every now and then, as a FULL (saturation) charge will get (almost) all of the crap that was stuck to the plates to dissolve back into the lead-acid solution in the cells.

Driving an EV only a 'short distance' daily may do the battery in after just a short time (a year or two) as there isn't enough time to fully recharge the 12V battery. Driving an EV enough to require 3+ hours of charging every other night might keep a 12V battery pretty close to full and thus in decent shape (since the 12V *should be* charged/topped-up while the main Li battery is charging). I measured the voltage across the battery terminals in my Spark EV at different usage scenarios (car on 'ready to drive', during L2 charge, during DCFC charge) but I seem to have lost the paper I scribbled the info on. I seem to recall that 13.6V was the voltage provided to the acc battery from the main drive (L-Ion) battery when the car is being driven, but I can't swear to it (13.6V is low, IMO, if the battery needs a real charge - it's fine as a 'float' if the battery is close to full).

I bought a C-TEK battery maintainer, which I use 2-4 times a month to make sure the 12V battery in my BEV is absolutely, fully charged. It is a super-slow, auto-sensing, trickle charger (0.8A) with all the built-in bells and whistles. I used a voltmeter to check on charging behavior, and it is safe for AGM (absorbed glass mat) as I never saw the voltage go over 14.4V in ANY of the 6 charge modes. (The Battery Tender brand unit I tried *did* go over 14.6V, which is fine for old-style flooded lead-acid batteries, but not advised for AGM.) I use a standard 15A "smart" charger if a battery is darn low and really needs a significant charge; the CTEK is simply used to gently and safely top-off (fully saturate charge) the battery. Since the C-TEK has a "maintain" mode, and is pretty much, but not quite completly, sealed (although not safe to dunk) and fully automatic, I can just plug it in and let it trickle charge (as needed) overnight and unplug it the next morning when it shows that is has fully charged the battery and has switched to 'float' (maintain) mode. There are several good ones on the market - I got the C-TEK because it is AGM-safe (and has not only "de-sulfation" "bulk", and "absorption" basic charge modes, but also "float", and "pulse/check" modes, so I could leave it plugged in for weeks).
 
The Bolt EV will maintain the 12v battery from the HV battery when parked. It’s all on the other web site from the link below.

The Bolt EV sends 14.1 to 14.4 volts to the 12 volt battery while plugged in, according to other posters.
 
When hooking up a charger, any specific place you should connect the negative connector to? On the leaf there was a specific bold you needed to connect to.
 
DesertSprings said:
When hooking up a charger, any specific place you should connect the negative connector to? On the leaf there was a specific bold you needed to connect to.

No, that bolt was just conveniently located. You want to specifically avoid the negative battery terminal on the Leaf (and maybe the Bolt as well) because it will interfere with the current sensor there. Any good negative chassis ground should do for either car - preferably an unpainted bolt (which is why bolts are usually suggested).
 
paulgipe said:
Leftiebiker there is a stud near the converter, center of the compartment. Its noted in the manual - - I've already had to use it.;)

Which car are you talking about, here?
 
Most hybrids have a "jump start" terminal post pair. I guess GM included something similar in the Bolt.
 
The owners manual discusses "jump starting" starting on page 295. Page 297 says the following: "The jump start negative grounding point is a stud on a bracket located near the Accessory Power Module (APM)." There's a photo of the stud location on page 297.
 
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