I have asked my Blink EVSE to be removed

[RickS]

I've had at least one incident of a fail to charge event on a previous firmware revision and various other issues with lots of random resets and another instance where it was counting down to the wrong charging time. They had suggested I try using the cars charging timer, a terrible idea but ok. The problems remained I complained more and I have someone coming out on Friday to change the SD card. I hope this solves the problem, but I'm not counting on it.

At least I didn't pay $2,000 for this thing!

[kballs]

I've had 3 refusal to charge incidents now and only a power cycle of the unit would fix it (not even the daily 10am soft reboot fixes it). The support guy is blaming intermittent wifi. If that really is the cause, that means their soft reboots aren't a functioning workaround to the wifi issue and we all need daily power cycling. I actually believe the only answer is to babysit the POS at the start of every charge cycle (so you can power cycle it right there if it gets into that state) and forget about off-peak charging. The portable EVSE upgrade isn't a good solution since I'd have to unplug the Blink and they'd want to kick me out of the EV project (and charge me $700 for this QC port that I'll probably never use).

[Ingineer]

The portable EVSE upgrade isn't a good solution since I'd have to unplug the Blink and they'd want to kick me out of the EV project (and charge me $700 for this QC port that I'll probably never use).

FYI, many people are unplugging their units and using our upgrade. So far, I haven't heard of anyone report that ecotality has "kicked" them out when their buggy units don't report in.

Besides, you could make/buy a "Y" adapter and plug them both in, add an extra L6-20 outlet next to the 6-50, etc. One of our customers even made an adapter which consists of a standard 120v cord/plug connected to a 6-50 receptacle. He uses that to plug the Blink into a standard 120v outlet (it powers up fine on 120v apparently), and then uses the 240v 6-50 outlet with an L6-20 adapter to plug in his upgraded EVSE to 240v for daily charging.

-Phil

[baumgrenze]

Has anyone considered the possibility that the cable between the Blink and the Leaf might be the source of the problem? I find that most times when I plug in I have to 'jiggle' the J1772 plug until I see the lights on the dash start to flash and the Blink emit a 'clunk' that tells me that charging has started. Could some units lose connectivity as the cord sags?

I've been blessed with consistent charging. The unit 'passed' the wireless test when installed (with much effort) but never even did a firmware upgrade. A few days ago the installing tech was out for the building inspection and I mentioned an open trouble ticket. He installed a PLC/Valet combo and I can now see the Blink from my desktop. I've charged twice. The unit shows 2 days, 8 hours and change of connectivity but the Stats page is still all zeros. Has anyone else seen this behavior?

thanks

baumgrenze

[Levenkay]

So far, I haven't heard of anyone report that ecotality has "kicked" them out when their buggy units don't report in.

-Phil

I'm kind of curious about whether/when the DOE is going to ask Ecotality for all that logging information the EV project paid for, but which the Blinks (so far, in most cases) have failed to collect/report.

[davewill]

I'm kind of curious about whether/when the DOE is going to ask Ecotality for all that logging information the EV project paid for, but which the Blinks (so far, in most cases) have failed to collect/report.

I don't think that's true. Most of the Blinks are chugging along adequately, it's just that failures get much more attention here.

[bradleygibson]

I was days away from giving mine the boot as well.

They called the electrician in and he replaced an SD card in the unit and set up a hard wire for it to communicate. Upgraded the firmware and it has settled down. I had so many weird issues though, I still don't trust it... But it is working now.

If I had one, I'd probably have used an upgraded EVSE instead of toughing it out to this point.

[dyyuan]

my blink seems to be "dead" in the past 3 days or so, no amount of rebooting / unplugging / turning off circuit breaker seem to help.

when first plug in on the wall, the blink would show a white screen that says "ev project", then the screen goes dark with nothing on it.
no touch control, no calibrate screen, just nothing but a blank screen.
i left it like that overnight, and its still like that in the morning, i've turned the unit off over night as well, then upon reboot, samething happens.

tried to charge the car regardless, no luck...

called blink, and they say someone will come out and take a look.

any ideas?

i think i might need to go buy an evseupgrade plug.

thx

[DarkStar]

my blink seems to be "dead" in the past 3 days or so, no amount of rebooting / unplugging / turning off circuit breaker seem to help.

Sounds like it probably has a corrupt SD card. Maybe got hosed during a firmware upgrade... The person they send out will probably try just swapping the card first, then the whole unit if that doesn't work.

[Randy]

I'm kind of curious about whether/when the DOE is going to ask Ecotality for all that logging information the EV project paid for, but which the Blinks (so far, in most cases) have failed to collect/report.

There are publically available quarterly reports available at the link below. Scroll down on the page to see the list of EV Project reports...

http://avt.inel.gov/evproject.shtml