12V battery

Discussion in 'Hyundai Kona Electric' started by electriceddy, Mar 18, 2019.

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  1. I am starting this thread with my observation today.
    The yellow light was on(the one between the H on the front badge) after 4+ hours of being parked.
    I remember something in the manual that was an indicator of systems active in the vehicle, so when I got home I measured the 12V directly at the battery terminals and it was 12.36 V.
    Put car in run mode and the voltage was 14.76, left on 15 minutes and rest voltage was 12.67.(Fluke 97 meter)
    Excellent! The big battery charges the little one but still have to find the low and high threshold of when that takes place,
    Have not used much of accessories so it seems a little early( 3 weeks ownership) for the 12 V battery to be that low.
    I will monitor, but at least its comforting in the fact that if the voltage is low (indicated by the yellow light in the front badge) you can put into run mode with the electric brake on and top off the battery(no external battery maintainer required).
    From previous ev experience I have found the minimum operating voltage without any software hic-ups is 12.6 V
     
    mho likes this.
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  3. CJC

    CJC Well-Known Member

    I read somewhere that the yellow light meant that utility mode was turned on. Not sure where I saw that but likely was on the UK forum. If I remember, I will turn on utility mode tomorrow and check if the light comes on. Edit: No it relates to the charging of the 12 V battery. I just read the owner's manual and the orange light inside the Hyundai emblem, and relates to the periodic charging of the Auxillary Battery Saver +. If you have that turned that feature on (and it sounds like it should be turned on and not off in the instrument panel selections) it will periodically come on and glow orange as the 12 volt battery is being charged by the big lithium battery. Hope that makes sense. All of this is in the H section of the owner's online manual at around page H60.
     
    Last edited: Mar 19, 2019
    mho, Kirk, Kitsilano and 1 other person like this.
  4. hobbit

    hobbit Well-Known Member

    I'm dredging up this old thread because it's the only one that
    touched on my present question. I also observe that the Kona
    DC/DC converter seems to hold the 12V rail *awfully* high when
    the car is powered up -- 14.5V or more, varying slightly. This
    really should be no more than 13.8 - 14 volts on a charged
    lead-acid battery, even an AGM, or it will get cooked dry in
    short(er) order. The 12V in mine feels a bit warmer than
    ambient after the car's been on for a while, and that's not
    heat drifting off the other underhood stuff, it's in the 12V
    brick itself.

    Sometimes I've seen it down to a more reasonable 13.something
    but not too often.

    For those of y'all curious and know which end of a meter to grab,
    what's your 12V running at? For longer-time owners, have you had
    any actual 12V issues/failures?

    tnx

    _H*
     
  5. I sometimes leave the car in run mode for a couple of hours to maintain the resting voltage at 12.6 V, mostly when doing a bunch of short trips. The charging algorithm seems to work fine giving the small Ah of the accessory battery and the load it has to supply. I have no problem with the 14.76 charging voltage as on my previous Leafs the battery maintainer I used supplied the same voltage. Also discussed this with the service techs at Hyundai and they confirmed this to be a good practice.
     
  6. Bugblndr

    Bugblndr Member

    I use my car in Utility mode for a few hours a week and I always have a meter on it. The 12V battery is at 14.5 volts pretty consistently throughout each session.
     
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  8. hobbit

    hobbit Well-Known Member

    I've been studying this a little more, and it just keeps getting weirder and
    weirder. I don't have the full picture yet.

    I got one of those 12V power-outlet splitters that has a little voltmeter,
    and mounted it so I could see it [could also use an OBD2 app, etc]. Here's
    my map to date, *assuming* the car thinks the 12V is fully charged and the
    "electricity use" display for electronics has stabilized down around 0.2 kW ...

    If you're sitting in Park with lights and climate off and no accessories running,
    the 12V rail rises to 14.7 - 14.8. Start driving, or just shift into anything but
    Park, it sinks down to 13.3 [a far more reasonable float level] and basically
    stays there until you Park again -- EXCEPT, when you regen at all [even in
    level 0], it flies right back up to 14.7 or more.

    *However*, everything changes when certain 12V loads are turned on, that
    bring "electronics" consumption up to 300+W or so. Then, the 12V floats at
    14.1V and does *not* change with gear/driving. Headlights will do that, as
    will the rear-defroster. The butt-cookers do *not* cause this changed
    situation. Neither does an "external" load, like an inverter or 12V appliance
    clipped onto the battery. So it's not as simple as bad voltage regulation at
    low loads, which would otherwise be a plausible explanation.

    The "electronics" figure sees the increase for any additional load, but only
    certain types of loads cause the move to 14.1V. My closest theory is that
    some loads run through the "intelligent power switch" modules do some kind
    of bus feedback that affects the LDC. I haven"t sat there and mapped every
    possible accessory's effect, and I don't have a handy map of everything that's
    relay-switched or IPS-switched.

    _H*
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2019
  9. Wayne Warde

    Wayne Warde Active Member

    I find that I need to put a bigger better 12 volt battery in the Kona. Does anyone know what size this little 400 cca battery is?
     
  10. GPM432

    GPM432 Active Member

    Why do you need a new battery?
     
  11. Wayne Warde

    Wayne Warde Active Member

    The Battery won't take a charge. I have had the battery down to 6.3 volts and i haven't been able to run seat warmer or really anything. The battery that came with the car is small with very little capacity.
     
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  13. Time to take to the dealer and have the battery replaced in warranty also check the charging system.
    One report of a defective EMCU replacement already:
    https://www.insideevsforum.com/community/index.php?threads/dead-kona-ev.6991/page-8#post-82199
    Maybe I will see you there again as I will be there later today to discuss the coolant pump repair TSB.
     
  14. Wayne Warde

    Wayne Warde Active Member

    They have tested things and it seems as though it's only the battery. They have put a "loaner"battery in until my factory replacement battery comes in in the middle of January but they say that they can only replace it with the same battery that the car came with. I want to run a dash cam and I feel that if the replace the battery with the same crap battery it will always be a weak point that I will be going back to time after time.
     
  15. GPM432

    GPM432 Active Member

    Well try the new battery and see what happens..
     
  16. If its just a consideration to run parking monitoring with your dashcam with ignition off you might want something a like a dedicated lithium ion battery back up (like cell link neo)for the dash cam or even a more energy efficient dash cam setup. I just ordered a 4K UHD thinkware u1000 dual camera setup with optional radar module( should help with more accurate parking monitoring sensing and energy efficiency) and cell link neo batttery backup. The camera power will be independent of the 12 v car battery when car is not running.
     
    Kirk likes this.
  17. Wayne Warde

    Wayne Warde Active Member

    That's cool I will check it out and crunch there numbers for that cam. Please let me know how yours works out.
     
  18. Oh, I will forewarn you that the numbers aren't pretty :) Alas the Korean dash cams are premium priced and that battery is around $400 Canadian. Its not like I didn't already pay a small fortune for the car. I have had my share of "cheap and good enough" cameras and other than initially I have never regretted buying the better ones. My only reservation is the LiPO battery unit as its unclear to me how its BMS manages cold temperature charging. The only assurance I got from the Canadian vendor is that they sell lots of these in Canada and non have blown up yet, hmmm.

    The only other thing I want to mess with is putting a HID kit into the stock low beam projectors and I will likely upgrade the high beams with LED bulbs.
     
    Last edited: Dec 30, 2019
  19. Wayne Warde

    Wayne Warde Active Member

    The Dashcam that we have is the Blacksys 100 B 2 channel. That cam was a very high end cam in 2017 when we got it but I does require a strong battery not to run the front camera but to keep the parking camera running.
     
  20. A larger accessory battery might help but the charging algorithm of Kona might not keep up. An example of Tesla and it's consumption for its multiple camera sentry mode :
    https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/sentry-mode-battery-drain.175339/
     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2019
  21. Wayne Warde

    Wayne Warde Active Member

    With the old 400 cca battery I was unable to run the heat seat warmer or really anything but that i believe is the function of a battery dying. I think that with a larger capacity battery it will catch up especially with the times that there isn't much running.
     
  22. I am not sure about the blacsys but to just give an idea on power consumption the u1000 I mentioned with 2 channels on consumes around 5.3W normal recording and 2.9W timelapse recording , the optional radar unit is meant to prevent it from waking up with just about any movement and differentiates movement by people sized objects, it also allows for pre buffering of video prior to an event where otherwise a camera in parking mode may have a 1 to several second delay to fully wake after an event is detected by motion or movement sensors. The battery 12V lead acid battery in the Kona is a relatively small one rated at 40 ah, which is really only about 20 ah usable or ~240-280 watts of potential stored energy in a healthy battery.
     
  23. Wayne Warde

    Wayne Warde Active Member

    Thank you I will look at all of these numbers. It may be time to upgrade the dash cam to a new more efficient unit.
     

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