Charging timer wierdness

[Levenkay]

The recent demise of my garage's Blink EVSE has thrown me back to using my (now upgraded) Panasonic EVSE on 120V for charging my LEAF, and I'm having some rather perplexing results with it; so perplexing that I must be missing something obvious. I should also mention that the incident in which the Blink failed catastrophically also ruined the LEAF's on-board charger, which had to be replaced. When I first got the LEAF back from the repair shop, I plugged it in via the portable EVSE, and was mildly surprised to notice that it began charging immediately. I figured that the charging timers must have gotten turned off during the repair, and intended to interrupt the charge manually after a few hours. Naturally, I forgot to stop the charge, so by the next morning, the car was indeed at 100%. And, sure enough, the timers were all OFF.

OK, that much is understandable, and I set the charge schedule to Timer1: no start time, end time 5:00 AM) for each day of the week, and a "stop at 80%" charging goal. With these settings in effect, I plugged the portable EVSE back into the car at around 15:30 this afternoon, and again the charging began immediately. The car was only about four or five bars below an 80%, and it seemed a little odd to me that the car would figure it had to start charging so early. It's been over a year since I've charged on 120V, so I shrugged it off. Just now, though (about 22:40), I went out into the garage, and saw that the car's three blue charge-status LEDs were all steadily lit in the "I just finished charging" display configuration. I put the car in "accessory on" mode and saw that the car had respected *part* of the timer setting: it had at least stopped charging at 80%. But it finished charging about seven hours too early. Whatever could be up with that???

 

[MikeD]

Levinkay: Are you sure that it is fair to write "the incident in which the Blink failed catastrophically", which strongly suggests that it was at fault, if you don't know exactly what caused the problem in the first place (I assume you are referring to the incident in your "Blink L2 EVSE and LEAF charging module destroy each other" post)?

Also at the very least you knew something was wrong for many months, yet you (apparently) did not even bother to have your wiring checked by a (competent) electrician -- you assumed only the Blink was defective. Now, you may of course have been correct -- but IMO you didn't do enough on your own to eliminate other possibilities by having your wiring checked -- your responsibility, not Ecotality's. If you had done so and reported back to Ecotality as they (I think) asked, then I would say you rightfully should have expected Ecotality to have inspected, repaired, or replaced your Blink to try to eliminate the intermittent charging problem you were having.

As far as I can tell because there are so many Blinks installed (although I have seen no polling), a very high percentage of Blink owners (including myself) are entirely satisfied with its charging reliability and would recommend it to others.

I write this not to beat you up, but because in just a small sample of houses I have seen too many instances of mis-wiring and serious NEC code violations -- some caused by licensed electricians but many more (probably) by inexperienced, untrained homeowners themselves -- so I expect such problems to be widespread and common. There are a LOT of issues involved in proper wiring and adding wiring to older houses built when standards were less strict. I still think you ought to have your wiring checked out professionally, Levinkay. In any case, please keep posting what happens when you get your EVSE replaced.

 

[planet4ever]

And, sure enough, the timers were all OFF. OK, that much is understandable, and I set the charge schedule to Timer1: no start time, end time 5:00 AM) for each day of the week, and a "stop at 80%" charging goal. With these settings in effect, I plugged the portable EVSE back into the car at around 15:30 this afternoon, and again the charging began immediately. The car was only about four or five bars below an 80%, and it seemed a little odd to me that the car would figure it had to start charging so early. It's been over a year since I've charged on 120V, so I shrugged it off. Just now, though (about 22:40), I went out into the garage, and saw that the car's three blue charge-status LEDs were all steadily lit in the "I just finished charging" display configuration. I put the car in "accessory on" mode and saw that the car had respected *part* of the timer setting: it had at least stopped charging at 80%. But it finished charging about seven hours too early. Whatever could be up with that???

I agree, that sounds quite odd. The charging rate of 3+ bars in 7 hours at 120v sounds reasonable. I wonder, since the timers were reset, is there any chance the clock was also reset? The timer uses the console clock, not the dash clock. I'd check that it has the correct time zone. Unless you have changed the setting to make that clock visible in the console display you probably wouldn't have noticed.

However, I also remember that there was a thread where some people were complaining that the timers didn't seem to be working correctly on 120v charging.

Ray

Ah, here it is: End Time only with L1 EVSE starts immediately

 

[Levenkay]

Levinkay: Are you sure that it is fair to write "the incident in which the Blink failed catastrophically", which strongly suggests that it was at fault, if you don't know exactly what caused the problem in the first place (I assume you are referring to the incident in your "Blink L2 EVSE and LEAF charging module destroy each other" post)?

Yes, I think it's fair. I reworded it a couple times to try and avoid drawing a conclusion about what caused the event, yet leave the facts I thought pertinent to the timer weirdness: a) why I'm using 120V charging, and b) that the car's OBC was replaced, possibly impacting the stored timer settings (I'm not clear on where the timer is implemented exactly).

Also at the very least you knew something was wrong for many months, yet you (apparently) did not even bother to have your wiring checked by a (competent) electrician -- you assumed only the Blink was defective. Now, you may of course have been correct -- but IMO you didn't do enough on your own to eliminate other possibilities by having your wiring checked -- your responsibility, not Ecotality's. If you had done so and reported back to Ecotality as they (I think) asked, then I would say you rightfully should have expected Ecotality to have inspected, repaired, or replaced your Blink to try to eliminate the intermittent charging problem you were having.

No, I didn't bother to have the Blink's install checked by *another* competent electrician, thinking that as it had been installed by a certified Blink rep (who tested it with Blink's portable EVSE tester box), and had been serviced by two other Blink-dispatched technicians on different occasions (although admittedly they were focused on curing more specific problems, like inability to detect the connection status of its J1772 plug), that overt stuff like "is it properly connected?" would be covered.

I write this not to beat you up, but because in just a small sample of houses I have seen too many instances of mis-wiring and serious NEC code violations -- some caused by licensed electricians but many more (probably) by inexperienced, untrained homeowners themselves -- so I expect such problems to be widespread and common. There are a LOT of issues involved in proper wiring and adding wiring to older houses built when standards were less strict. I still think you ought to have your wiring checked out professionally, Levinkay. In any case, please keep posting what happens when you get your EVSE replaced.

You make a good point. I'll ask the electrician I find to disconnect the Blink and install a receptacle for a different EVSE to check for wiring problems, and post the findings.

 

[cgaydos]

OK, that much is understandable, and I set the charge schedule to Timer1: no start time, end time 5:00 AM) for each day of the week, and a "stop at 80%" charging goal. With these settings in effect, I plugged the portable EVSE back into the car at around 15:30 this afternoon, and again the charging began immediately. The car was only about four or five bars below an 80%, and it seemed a little odd to me that the car would figure it had to start charging so early. It's been over a year since I've charged on 120V, so I shrugged it off. Just now, though (about 22:40), I went out into the garage, and saw that the car's three blue charge-status LEDs were all steadily lit in the "I just finished charging" display configuration. I put the car in "accessory on" mode and saw that the car had respected *part* of the timer setting: it had at least stopped charging at 80%. But it finished charging about seven hours too early. Whatever could be up with that???

When I was experimenting with end-time only timer I found that it always started much earlier than I would have thought necessary, especially on L1. What you describe is consistent with what I witnessed.

Never did find out why but eventually we decided to set the timers so that it always starts charging immediately to 80%.