How is Blink behaving lately?

My Blink is an oversized useless Piece of ****. Glad some of you out there have working units.

My blink would fail to charge half of the time until I unplugged and restarted it. This lasted for 9 months until the new firmware. Then it worked flawlessly for a month. In the clear, nope. I made the mistake of unplugging it while on vacation for ten days as I thought the stupid screen being lit up 24/7 was a waste of energy. Now it completely refuses to boot back up. It freezes as soon as I plug it in and says waiting.

Thank you to Phil from evse upgrades for the upgraded panasonic I just use my upgraded EVSE to charge now for almost 2 months. I went to home depot and picked up the right plug to make a pigtail to connect my EVSE to the blinks 220 outlet and I am in good shape. The only good thing about my blink was that they installed a 220 outlet for free.

No, I haven't called blink. I plan to sometime this year.

The blink DC chargers have worked for me so far, knock on wood.

Blink Level 2 gets an F.

Blink Level 3 (DC fast charge) gets an A.

TonyWilliams said:

My home Blink with version 2.0 blinked me tonight

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Tony, I had a tech come out to replace my SD card and install Blink 2.1 - you can see the notes I left in that thread, but apparently Blink 2.0+ can be sensitive to the position of the current sensors on the inbound power lines. If they are too close to the terminal block, apparently they can pick up additional noise which can lead to an error like this under some situations.

EVDrive said:

Blink Level 2 gets an F.

Blink Level 3 (DC fast charge) gets an A.

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Well, there aren't very many Blink DC chargers in the whole world, and I doubt there is a single one that has worked without issues. Ask Cracker Barrel in Tennessee how they like their's.

TonyWilliams said:

My home Blink with version 2.0 blinked me tonight: <pic of Self Test Fault>

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I've been getting those every couple of months for a while. Luckily the beeping that accompanies it is audible from inside the house, so I haven't been burned...yet.

A repeat of yesterday. Red screen, locked up. Unplug and reboot.

Every stock was up today; ECTY fell 5.6% to 55 pennies.

Looks like you may need 2.1 sooner than later? (Mine hasn't updated yet; I'm still at 2.0 and stable.) Or it's Blink visit time again. ;-)

62 days of continuous operation with out a problem on v2.0.

You guys should get your units updated before Blink goes belly-up

My unit had gone back to freezing again. I could charge but it was not getting on the network and touch screen was non-responsive. Today a tech came out to try to figure out what was wrong with it.

First thing he tried was to replace the SD card (again) but that wasn't the problem (no surprise to me).

Then he tried to convince the operation center that it was not a network problem (unit is hardwired).

Luckily he was connected to someone apparently actually knew something about the device. The person had him reseat a connector and amazingly my unit started working. It will be interesting to see how long this fix will last. Based on what I could over hear it sounded like there was a defect of some kind associated w/ this connector. The reseat may have been sufficient but person on the phone indicated there are also replacement wiring harnesses.

arnold

I was very vocal on this board about how badly Ecotality and their assigned electricians were in getting the thing installed, and the unnecessary cost, but since it's been installed (last December for the final inspection, although it was working for a couple of months before that) it has worked flawlessly. I have a 2wire router/modem.

I'd give my home unit an A but the QC in Belmont, based on only one use, a C.

davewill said:

TonyWilliams said:

My home Blink with version 2.0 blinked me tonight: <pic of Self Test Fault>

Click to expand...

I've been getting those every couple of months for a while. Luckily the beeping that accompanies it is audible from inside the house, so I haven't been burned...yet.

Click to expand...

I had my first Self Test Fault this morning. Turned power off, back on, same message. Turned power off again, back on, started Setup procedure, had to cancel at Step 3 of 9, message "Cannot detect WiFi". After Cancel I plugged in again and now it is charging. Odd.

My record is still intact. It has never failed to charge. Since version 2.02 it has also been literally flawless in all other regards. They did have to swap out my SD card when I went to version 2, however - something they accomplished very efficiently and quickly.

Mine is getting worse. Its time to call and expect them to fix it.
It will work well for 2 or 3 days straight.
Then I'll find it hung up, and have to power it off and back on.
One day when temperatures were high, >100F, it continually wouldn't reboot right, and I had to leave it unplugged for an hour and then it finally worked.
And I finally had an event where it hung up in the middle of the night, and failed to charge. It was OK when I plugged it in and the LEAF showed the alternating lights for a delayed charge event. But with the hangup in the middle of the night, it failed to charge. Fortunately I still had sufficient range for the short trip I had that day and wasn't forced into driving ICE vehicle. But if I had been planning to go downtown I would have had to drive the ICE.
I also get the Fault Screen thing about once every two or three weeks.

My 2-wire router turned out to be bad. After telling ATT that I'd drop their service completely if they didn't replace it at no cost, they sent a Netgear 7550 that has worked without problems.
I thought DSL modems either worked or didn't, but the 2-wire managed a failure mode where it would work some of the time, but then become erratic. Kind of like it had a weak failing power supply.

Just went over 6,000 miles. No issues at all with EVSE or vehicle. Only thing I do't like is the upholstery gets dirty easily. I scotch-guard sprayed it and have my detailer do the whole car every week, but still after about 5 days it is looking dingy.

TimLee said:

Mine is getting worse. Its time to call and expect them to fix it.

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Without me even calling, Broadway Electric called to schedule time to replace SD card. Apparently SD card corruption has been a major source of problems with the Blink units, and Ecotality had detected the problems with the unit without me calling.
They replaced the SD card on Saturday, July 21st.
But Broadway Electric discovered a bigger problem, overheating of the power wire at the contactor.
They contacted Ecotality for warranty replacement of the unit, and came and replaced the Blink unit with a new one today, Monday, July 30th, 2012.
I appreciate the great work by Mark and Mike at Broadway Electric.

Home Blink: A
Customer Relations vis-a-vis the amended Residential Participation Agreement: F
DC Fast Charger: A- (at hosted site--Santa Rosa Nissan)
DC Fast Charger: F (at VWERL in Belmont)

My second Blink seems to be permanently on the blink. I've switched to my EVSEupgrade modified charger plugged into the solar powered meter.

My blink has been providing power fairly flawlessly using firmware version 1.8 and my Leaf set with the charging times and percent. (I think only one reboot needed in the last six months by unplugging it)

However, the last wireless transmission had stopped at the end of January. I had reported it,but had not pushed for a fix as it was not critical.

Recently I called to sign up for an Annual Membership (I did not like the website agreements ) and they let me give my credit card info and sign up over the phone. At that time I mentioned my issue again about my frozen transmission. The Blink Rep noted that they had recently been reviewing issues and there was a ticket to fix my unit.

Within a few days I had an appointment with a technician (who had been newly hired) to come out for the fix. He seemed to know what he was doing. He tightened several of the connections, made sure everything as seated well, disconnected the card reader unit (not needed), put in a new SD card, and set up the wireless again. I now have firmware version 2.12....

I did reboot it once the next day, something froze, but I just think the software needed to get settled. Has been up for last 4 days.

The technician did accidentally leave the display in the "On" mode with the "Never to Go Off " setting. I went into the "Settings"' hit the "Display" option and adjusted the light strength and the time to turn off after a few minutes.

Working okay so far. I can now see the display of my charging information on my Blink Unit display again and the charging summary information on the Internet website again.

I felt they were being a little more responsive.