2012 i-MiEV (not clone) Charges HV Battery But No Auxiliary 12V Charging

[martinwinlow]

Water is conductive and just evaporates??

Actually, *pure* water is not conductive at all... which is why early DC-based EV conversions (which often used fork-lift truck motors with exposed brushes) would run immersed in *fresh water* (eg fording a stream, etc) for a short while without serious issue - the same cannot be said for salt-water! Anyway, I could still expect some sort of evidence left behind from where a ~150A plasma arc occured... Hence my thoughts that it happened outside the OBC...

 

[martinwinlow]

An update on this - which may or may not prove useful for others...

Replacing the 125A fuse on the DC-DC converter PCB (and *thoroughly* - over 2-3 weeks) drying out the PCB has resulted in an as yet apparently fully functional DC-DC converter. The car is booked in with Mitsubishi to have 2 recalls completed (including replacing the defective vacuum pump) which will clear the last of the issues.

The cause of the 125A fuse blowing is still unknown but quite possibly happened well before my friend acquired the car and thus evidence of whatever caused it may have been cleaned up/removed prior to its purchase.

Thanks to everyone for their help with keeping another one of these fabulous wee cars on the road.

 

[Exhausted76]

Hi Kiev, Thanks, but as per Post#1 (and the thread title!), it does now run and AC charge (which was fixed apparently by replacing Fuse 13 in the cabin, as you say - interior lights also - we have not yet tried DC charging) - it's just the 12V battery charging that is missing and we still have the one remaining P0A09 DTC (and he's also got the brake vacuum pump working, too - albeit briefly as it has seized again. It has an outstanding replacement recall for the vacuum pump but as we can't drive it far (see below) we're going to try to source a working used pump for now and he'll get the recall done in due course, the dealer is not far away)...

View attachment 1428


The other thing that has come to light is that there is quite a high drain on the 12V battery such that it goes from fully charged (bear in mind this is a new 12V battery, now) to flat in about 30 minutes whilst 'Ready' and drains so fast when actually driving that the car will not go very far (not even 100m) before it shuts down.

I have suggested that we wait until my friend has a DC current meter so he can check the current flow from the 12V battery and compare it with 'normal'. I have also suggested he partially remove the DC-DC converter from the sub-frame so he can examine the inside from the bottom to see if there is anything obvious wrong with it. I'm also going to have another look at the OBC thread to see if there is anything else we can check for...

hi, we are right at the beginning of this with the only code showing as P0A09. I've read your thread, all we could see when taking the cover off was a scorch mark and smell of burning....any ideas on this?

 

[MickeyS70]

hi, we are right at the beginning of this with the only code showing as P0A09. I've read your thread, all we could see when taking the cover off was a scorch mark and smell of burning....any ideas on this?

Hello

Best to take a voltmeter and measure across the 12V battery terminals when Ready, it should show > 14.4V DC, if it doesn’t, then the DTC displayed is correct and below is a good starting point:

https://myimiev.com/threads/gen1-dcdc-converter-troubleshooting-and-repair.4737/