ESS problems need input.

[WranglerMan]

@Steph1 anyone of the smaller terminals on the main battery is fine, I personally would not remove the main nut off the terminals that attach to the battery, the terminals themselves are not what I would call heavy duty especially the one that is on the main crank battery and remember that electrical tight is not the same as mechanical tight, it’s really easy to over tighten battery terminals.

The positive off the main is of this type and as you can see it’s some type of compression terminal that works by pushing the two slide pieces against each other which in turn compress the terminal around the post.
These type of terminals are not very beefy and don’t take much to break or bend, the negative one has several smaller nuts on the top that would be suited for the ring terminal for the charger and so does the positive.

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[Steph1]

Excellent, thank you.

 

[Steph1]

Got my terminal cables today and just finished the install and realized I forgot to ask... Can I just leave it plugged-in ??? or should I unplug it after a few days ?

 

[WranglerMan]

Got my terminal cables today and just finished the install and realized I forgot to ask... Can I just leave it plugged-in ??? or should I unplug it after a few days ?

Leave it plugged in and connected as long as you want, it will go into maintain mode and come on as needed as the voltage trickles down.

 

[Steph1]

Excellent thanks?

 

[Steph1]

Update:

My Jeep's ESS still works like a charm. The best part is that as soon as the engine has reached its normal operating temperature, the ESS works immediately. No need to wait a little while for the secondary battery to fully charge, since it already is

Thanks again to all who helped.

 

[Chupacabra]

Hate to resurrect this thread, but my ESS has been acting weird too (2021 2.0, no eTorque). At first if I put a trickle charger on the system overnight, it would work again for a few weeks then quit. Some suggested my AUX battery was going, so I replaced that a few weeks ago. ESS again worked fine but now it is not working again.

I did the voltmeter test on the fuse terminals, and the fuse terminals 2 and 3 are both showing a solid alternator voltage when the engine is on (14.1v). Terminal 4 fluctuates all over, not sure what that one is for.

Not sure where to look next. The main battery seems to have decent voltage when off (12.5) and the Aux seems a little low (12.1). Can't imagine I got a bad replacement AUX battery, but not sure where else to look.

Also the dashboard display just says "Start/Stop Not Ready" if I check that. There's no indication of a charging issue or low charge or any kind of alert or warning.

Thanks!

 

[Steph1]

With the colder temperatures, it takes longer for the engine to warm up to normal operating temperature, which is a must for the S/S to work, also, if your heated seats and steering and climate controls are operating, it takes longer for the secondary battery to reach sufficient charge for S/S to operate.

When you use a charger like I do now, the secondary battery is fully charged. I don't plug it in ALL the time, maybe overnight every 4-5 days when I see that it starts taking longer for the S/S to operate again. But it's the best thing I've done, since I totally hated the idea of having that feature and it didn't work. Now it is totally flawless, but I have to maintain it by plugging it in every now and then.

 

[Kllrbee]

With the colder temperatures, it takes longer for the engine to warm up to normal operating temperature, which is a must for the S/S to work, also, if your heated seats and steering and climate controls are operating, it takes longer for the secondary battery to reach sufficient charge for S/S to operate.

When you use a charger like I do now, the secondary battery is fully charged. I don't plug it in ALL the time, maybe overnight every 4-5 days when I see that it starts taking longer for the S/S to operate again. But it's the best thing I've done, since I totally hated the idea of having that feature and it didn't work. Now it is totally flawless, but I have to maintain it by plugging it in every now and then.

Glad this was resurrected. I read thru this whole post and this is the route I will take. Although Im not going to "semi permanent" install mine as Ill use it also for motorcycle and classic car. Really helpful info in this thread. Good job fellas!

 

[Chupacabra]

It's been warm here last week, 70s and 80s. There are stoplights where ESS used to kick in reliably every time on my commute. Now it never turns on. It turned on when I parked today at work, but it's not acting like I used to that's for sure.

For S&G I may pull the big battery and go get it load tested at O'Reilly's on Friday just to rule that out, but it fires up the engine without any muss or fuss and it tests good on voltmeter. It just bugs me that ESS isn't working like it "used to" and that tells me something is wrong.

 

[Steph1]

Yes something is wrong, the voltage has gone down a bit and it doesn’t act as it did before because of the addition of too many small commutes…. Do what some of us did and kiss that problem goodbye?

 

[Kllrbee]

Just curious, how long should I expect before the charger goes into float mode?
Ive had it on for about 2 hours and while its been flashing on green for about 1.5 hours, it hasnt gone solid (float mode).
This doesnt particularly seem like a long time or anything. Im just wondering cuz I saw yours fully charged in like 7 minutes. And when I put it on my classic car to test, went to full in only about 4 minutes. Just wanted to make sure as I got the NOCO Gen5 today in the mail from Amazon and it looked opened and possibly used. Hoping this is normal operation and its not faulty.

 

[Chupacabra]

My battery tender didn’t show full for about 8 hours the couple of times I used it.

 

[Kllrbee]

My battery tender didn’t show full for about 8 hours the couple of times I used it.

Ok, sounds like we have the same problem which Im finding is very common. Im with you in that I dont care too much IF the ESS works, but I dont want premature draining of the batteries causing potential problems down the road. Especially with winter coming. Im going to get this fully charged and see what happens from there. My batteries are still under warranty (which feels weird to me) so Ill go get the proper load tests from the dealer sometime soon. Might as well get a free battery before warranty expires.

 

[Kllrbee]

Charged to full. Went for a drive and after warmup and about 30 miles, still reads "battery charging". Dont know whats up with that, but now Im starting to get a little annoyed.

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