LegoZ
Active Member
Do you have a charger you can put on it?I see white with red button - charging necessary.
Do you have a charger you can put on it?I see white with red button - charging necessary.
That is interesting I’m going to have to look more closely at my battery and post an update.The battery that came with my 2018 does not have a sight glass. I wonder if Honda didn't put the same battery in all cars.
The sight glass shows the condition of the acid solution, its specific gravity, for ion exchange on the plates, but it can't show the condition of the cell plates. You can have a blue sight, but a shorted cell, or a deteriorated or oxide plates, which can drain a battery or hold an insufficient charge.I see white with red button - charging necessary.
There’s a post around here somewhere that suggests the 12V battery does not receive a charging voltage when the car is driven under certain conditions. I’m not certain, but it may have been in HV Mode with the headlights in the Auto position. Seems odd, but we are talking about a Clarity.
As to the premature deaths of the 12V, I’d hang my hat on a manufacturer defect that results in an internal failure. Granted, it isn’t much of a battery. It also isn’t subject to the rigors of a traditional starting battery. There’s no reason that it shouldn’t last
For 7-10 years.
Also another note it will show zero range until it figures out what is going on.
Got the jump starter this morning and jump started the car. It started but engine noise was so loud and the dashboard was just full of errors and different lights come on. it's plugged in to ChargePoint right now as it turned out it has 0 charge (I thought it was fully charged the other night). 12v battery obviously needs replacement and I'll bring it to the dealership for replacement (I have the car for 2 yrs. and 10 months now and 23k mi.). Hopefully they'll replace it under warranty.
I think the theory is that it reduces the voltage when the 12V battery is fully charged.Whenever it reads 14.4V it means it's charging. It definitely does not always charge as I've driven it with the voltage reading 13.2V.
It's not uncommon to hear of Clarity owners who leave their car sitting for a week or two, only to find that the 12V battery is now dead, which normally wouldn't be the case with most cars if the battery is not that old. One theory is that the Clarity has a heavy parasitic drain. However since other people have left their Clarity for even longer periods with no problem, that seems unlikely. What could be happening is something more in the middle, maybe the Clarity has a bit more parasitic drain than normal, but it only causes a problem if the battery has already been weakened by one or more full discharge incidents and can no longer handle the parasitic drain of the Clarity for more than a week or so. Which would be true for other cars also, but maybe Clarity is a bit more vulnerable.Also, I originally assumed (due to it's small size and non existent need for CCA) that these were AGM SLA, which definitely die after 2 - 4 years. but no, they are full on liquid lead acids. I agree they should last much longer.
I have never heard of this, and it makes no sense. Charging is initiated either with the key fob, or by a scheduled timer charge, or by using HondaLink to immediately start charging. A small amount of electricity is needed to listen for the key fob, and to listen for incoming "calls" via Telematics, but it does that whether or not the car is plugged in.it sort of sounds like you may have left it on. I've done this once before. when you plug it in, it will shut off the power train, but the 12 volt system remains on and i don't think it charges the battery. it may have stayed this way and drained the 12 v..
Even if you do a charge from 30% (or lower) to 100% SOC in one charge? That's normally all that is needed to update the battery capacity. Yours must have really gotten stuck for some reason after it reset to 55 Ah.Also, your traction battery capacity may reset to 55AH as in my case and stay that way for years![]()
With honda hack you can see the 12v battery voltage level on the head unit. Whenever it reads 14.4V it means it's charging. It definitely does not always charge as I've driven it with the voltage reading 13.2V.
Also, I originally assumed (due to it's small size and non existent need for CCA) that these were AGM SLA, which definitely die after 2 - 4 years. but no, they are full on liquid lead acids. I agree they should last much longer.
I have never heard of this, and it makes no sense. Charging is initiated either with the key fob, or by a scheduled timer charge, or by using HondaLink to immediately start charging. A small amount of electricity is needed to listen for the key fob, and to listen for incoming "calls" via Telematics, but it does that whether or not the car is plugged in.
In my experience, AGM’s tend to last much longer than FLA’s, in both starting and deep cycle applications.
Oh okay you are talking about the modified version of ON mode that occurs when plugged in. However the 12V battery gets charged in that situation, i.e. I see 14V indicated in Car Scanner, and also the red battery icon is not displayed on the instrument panel like it is in regular ON mode.You're misunderstanding what I said. Try literally starting your clarity (Put your foot on the brake, press power) Then PLUG IN your clarity to an EVSE with it fully powered on and ready to drive. It will put it into a mode where the car is still fully powered on (fans running, headlights on, dash on, radio on etc.) except the 'blue' part of the dash will turn white indicating that the traction battery is offline so you can't drive it, but everything else is 'on'. I beleive this will drain the 12v battery overnight as the EVSE will not directly charge teh 12v and with the traction battery off, the DC to DC converter is not on. I have not tried this in a while so I can't remember exactly if it will charge or not in this mode, but I seem to recall being puzzled as to why it was not charging when I accidentally did this before.
except the 'blue' part of the dash will turn white indicating that the traction battery is offline so you can't drive it
When I first got my Clarity I was always perplexed hearing people describing their power circle turning white. Mine was either blue or gray but never white. So I assumed this was some type of mode that I had never seen, maybe the infamous "System Check" that many people blame (incorrectly in most cases) for their unwanted engine startup woes. I figured that since I never saw a white power circle then apparently I never experienced a System Check.except the 'blue' part of the dash will turn white
Oh okay you are talking about the modified version of ON mode that occurs when plugged in. However the 12V battery gets charged in that situation, i.e. I see 14V indicated in Car Scanner, and also the red battery icon is not displayed on the instrument panel like it is in regular ON mode.
MODIFIED ON (my name for it). If you are plugged in when you press the power button twice without pressing the brake pedal, you go into a modified version of ON mode. It looks very similar to regular ON mode, in both versions there is no READY indicator. However in the modified ON mode the HV system is active, you can see an HV amp indication in Car Scanner, and it also shows 14V indicating that the 12V battery is being charged. Equally telling is that the red 12V battery indicator does not appear on the instrument panel.
Interestingly A/C and heat are not available in this mode even though the HV system is active, which is somewhat annoying if you are sitting in your car while charging. While charging all you can do for climate is to run preconditioning, which gives you basically no control of climate, it stops you from using the sound system, and if you are in your car for a longer period of time preconditioning cuts off after 30 minutes, which also ends charging so you have to start it all back up again.
If I try your experiment and have the car already running in READY mode, then I plug in the charger, it goes out of READY mode into the modified ON mode that I just described. One quirk, once it's in modified ON mode, even though it says on the screen to press the brake pedal and the power button to start the car, that doesn't work and it remains in modified ON mode. I have to turn off the car then start it again to go into READY mode.
In UPS and emergency lighting applications AGMs don't last more than 4 years in my experience.. at my previous workplace we literally had a dumpster full of AGM batteries as we had to constantly replace them starting at around the 2 year mark. This isn't a case where the UPSes or emergency lighting were constantly being discharged. They were being top up charged and would eventually fail after a few years with maybe two power failures a year that were less than 30 minutes usually.
I’d need more information before pointing the finger at battery chemistry alone.
Were the batteries made by Discover? Entegra Motorhomes use Discover L16 AGM’s as OEM equipment as house batteries (energy storage to be inverted when not connected to shore power), not starting batteries. Failure of these batteries, at or around the 2 year mark, occurs more frequently than one would expect. In nearly all cases, the batteries had been properly maintained while in use and in storage.
Conversely, there are countless applications where AGM’s have been in use for 10-14 years in RV’s and as energy storage for solar installations.
What was the criteria for replacing the batteries in the applications that you mentioned? 80% of original capacity?