Levenkay
Well-known member
For the last 15 months or so of my participation in the EV project, the Blink EVSE unit issued to me has regularly (like at least once a week) generated a nuisance trip of some safety feature, refusing to let my LEAF charge on its 04:50 end-timer because "A Power Fault Has Occurred". And on these occasions, if I awoke early enough for it to do any good, I'd go into the garage, stroke the Blink's touch-screen to initiate a reset, punch the car's timer override button, and then have at least a little recharging done while showering. After what happened this past Tuesday, I can now see what a stupid procedure that was, and am posting this in hopes of cautioning others avoid the damage my LEAF sustained.
This past Tuesday began like so many other "Blink fault" days, with me stumbling groggily through the reset/retry ritual. This time, though, the disaster I had been courting by leaving the Blink's J1772 plugged into the LEAF while the Blink reset itself struck. I tend to think that the timing of my actuating the LEAF's charge-timer override button probably had something to do with it also; coinciding with a very vulnerable spot in the Blink system's restart or something. Anyway, the end result was a very brief "snap" sound (which I thought came partly from the LEAF, but might have all been from the circuit breaker tripping), and everything went dark. I finally got some sense, disconnected the LEAF, and tried resetting the Blink's breaker. The Blink's screen stayed dark, however, and the powerline modem that had been installed as a workaround for Blink's inability to make a wireless net connection work indicated no activity on its data port. I got out the portable EVSE and plugged it into a 110V outlet, but the car wouldn't charge from that either. I drove to a nearby DCQC station, thinking that since a DC port is just a straight shot into the battery, it might still be functional even if the internal AC/DC converter wasn't, but the DCQC reported "Could not communicate with vehicle" or somesuch, and wouldn't charge either. Hmm..
Fortunately, enough charge remained in the battery to drive to the dealer (Wilsonville Nissan). The service techs there tried doing what they described as a "master reboot" (probably a disconnect/wait/reconnect of the 12V battery), but that didn't restore charger functionality. And, although the techs cleared out some of the error codes that had accumulated from all the more benign Blink faults, they concluded that the on-board charger module was toast. Having heard stories of long delivery times for replacement LEAF parts, I was glumly prepared for what I hoped would "only" be a couple weeks, and was hooked up with a rental car for the duration. (The rental wound up being a Fiat Sport 500; the most hilariously hideous contrast with a fluid-smooth and quiet LEAF you could imagine.) But after only two and a half days, the dealer's shop had a replacement OBC (on-board charger) delivered and installed. Everything including the rental was covered under warranty; I was charged nothing. And apparently Nissan took an interest in the incident, at least to the extent of (according to the repair report), "Remote linked to TL (from context, this is "Tech Line") to transfer logger data; replaced on-board charger per TL...". At the end of the repair ticket was the very prudent advice to not let the Blink unit anywhere near the LEAF at least until it has been repaired and recertified. Very good service, I think.
I'm probably going to have to wait 'till after the Memorial Day holiday weekend to look into whether repairing the Blink is much of a possibility. Unfortunately, according to the agreement I had with the EV Project folks, the Blink became my property (and my responsibility, I guess) on the first of this month, so I doubt Ecotality will provide warranty service for it.
To summarize, I guess my hard-sparks lession is: Don't powercycle or otherwise reset an EVSE while it's connected to your LEAF.
This past Tuesday began like so many other "Blink fault" days, with me stumbling groggily through the reset/retry ritual. This time, though, the disaster I had been courting by leaving the Blink's J1772 plugged into the LEAF while the Blink reset itself struck. I tend to think that the timing of my actuating the LEAF's charge-timer override button probably had something to do with it also; coinciding with a very vulnerable spot in the Blink system's restart or something. Anyway, the end result was a very brief "snap" sound (which I thought came partly from the LEAF, but might have all been from the circuit breaker tripping), and everything went dark. I finally got some sense, disconnected the LEAF, and tried resetting the Blink's breaker. The Blink's screen stayed dark, however, and the powerline modem that had been installed as a workaround for Blink's inability to make a wireless net connection work indicated no activity on its data port. I got out the portable EVSE and plugged it into a 110V outlet, but the car wouldn't charge from that either. I drove to a nearby DCQC station, thinking that since a DC port is just a straight shot into the battery, it might still be functional even if the internal AC/DC converter wasn't, but the DCQC reported "Could not communicate with vehicle" or somesuch, and wouldn't charge either. Hmm..
Fortunately, enough charge remained in the battery to drive to the dealer (Wilsonville Nissan). The service techs there tried doing what they described as a "master reboot" (probably a disconnect/wait/reconnect of the 12V battery), but that didn't restore charger functionality. And, although the techs cleared out some of the error codes that had accumulated from all the more benign Blink faults, they concluded that the on-board charger module was toast. Having heard stories of long delivery times for replacement LEAF parts, I was glumly prepared for what I hoped would "only" be a couple weeks, and was hooked up with a rental car for the duration. (The rental wound up being a Fiat Sport 500; the most hilariously hideous contrast with a fluid-smooth and quiet LEAF you could imagine.) But after only two and a half days, the dealer's shop had a replacement OBC (on-board charger) delivered and installed. Everything including the rental was covered under warranty; I was charged nothing. And apparently Nissan took an interest in the incident, at least to the extent of (according to the repair report), "Remote linked to TL (from context, this is "Tech Line") to transfer logger data; replaced on-board charger per TL...". At the end of the repair ticket was the very prudent advice to not let the Blink unit anywhere near the LEAF at least until it has been repaired and recertified. Very good service, I think.
I'm probably going to have to wait 'till after the Memorial Day holiday weekend to look into whether repairing the Blink is much of a possibility. Unfortunately, according to the agreement I had with the EV Project folks, the Blink became my property (and my responsibility, I guess) on the first of this month, so I doubt Ecotality will provide warranty service for it.
To summarize, I guess my hard-sparks lession is: Don't powercycle or otherwise reset an EVSE while it's connected to your LEAF.