DAMN YOU BLINK!....Are you killing our home charging units?

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LECTRFY

Member
Joined
Oct 13, 2011
Messages
17
Location
Puget Sound, WA
So I haven't had any problems with my original (old) home Blink charger for at least the last 6 months. Yesterday I change my credit card information on the Blink website. I immediately notice I've been charged $75 on the new credit card without doing anything but changing the number. I don't analyze the situation well and immediately call the Blink customer telephone number and ask them why they did that. Well, after giving the analyst all of my Blink charger information and talking it out with them it probably makes sense that they are testing the card with a "pending" $75 charge that will be taken off in the next couple of days (checked tonight and still pending...)

Well tonight I go out to plug in the Leaf and the Blink is frozen on the setup touch calibration screen. It won't do anything. Deader than a doornail. I unplug it for 30 minutes and reset the breaker. Nuttin'! :x

It got me to stewing! :evil: This can't be a coincidence. Has anyone else had a situation similar to this where they wonder if Blink is intentionally sending signals to their older models to destroy them? Could be because the costs of repairing them are so high and/or it may be because they think they might get a few suckers to purchase their new model. I'm hoping that it is just a failure in a software update, but I doubt it. In any instance, a product that costs that much should last longer than 2.5 years.

BLINK! If you are reading this, I WILL NEVER PURCHASE ANOTHER Blink PRODUCT AS LONG AS I LIVE!!! I will be destroying my currently useless Blink home charger, cancelling my account, and shred every last evidence that I ever had anything to do with your product. I will also intentionally make it my mission to find any charging station other than Blink when I am out and about on the town.

Good riddance!
 
More likely a coincidence. Blinks go out often enough that a conspiracy is hardly logical. You can use the steps above in drees post, or try to get a new SD card to refresh the image.
 
davewill said:
More likely a coincidence. Blinks go out often enough that a conspiracy is hardly logical.

Are you implying they are too inept to mount a conspiracy? :lol:
 
My Blink has been working perfectly for 2 years.
Hard to believe, I know.
First thing I did when Ecotality went belly up was kill my EVSE's ability to communicate.

No Talkee to the mother-ship!!!

What good could come of it?
 
It's likely that whatever the service desk did, Blink's servers tried to push an update to your home unit. Since that involves writing a fair amount of code to the SD card, and with the bad cards out there, it could have corrupted the unit. While I don't understand how a Blink public charging account would have anything to do with the unit in your garage, you do have several remedies available.

  • If Blink still owns your unit, you can have them spend their own money to come out and fix your unit.
    If the unit is yours, you can get a replacement SD card somehow (also discussed elsewhere).
    If the unit is yours, you can convert it to a useful dumb charge station as drees just explained above.
    If you don't ever want to see the unit again, you can sell it. They're fetching around $500 on ebay.

LECTRFY said:
I will be destroying my currently useless Blink home charger, cancelling my account, and shred every last evidence that I ever had anything to do with your product.
I fear you may need to crush your LEAF. Ecotality had a lot to do with the fact I was able to own a LEAF in the first place!

I'm happy to let them log my data. Since the unit has no memory, I can go online and get the usage data when I forget to collect it in the morning after charging. If they do away with that, they will have removed the last reason for me to leave it alone, vs. trying to tinker with its firmware.
 
Mine has been working flawlessly for over 3 years and still communicates with the Mothership...

Shortly before the company went belly up, I did have them come out and do some preventative maintenance...

KillaWhat said:
My Blink has been working perfectly for 2 years.
 
Mine is still cooking after 3 years as well. Checking Blink's website, my unit is still chatting with home-base and at this point I really have no reason to disconnect it. My cable is holding up extremely well and I've never experienced any heating on the J1772 connector.

Since my unit is kept outside under my carport, I will be doing some maintenance myself on the unit (opening the cover and cleaning things out, checking PSU voltages, tightening screws, checking connectors, etc). Maybe I'll do a bit of photographing or video to show what to do...
 
Mine just went bad.
After boot the screen turns all white, like its burning up inside, then turns brownish and finally dark. The EVSE functionality is still there though, I just cant get any data from it.
 
Sorry to hear about the recent problems with the Blink home charging stations :( Any updates on your issues?

Aside from being a bit chatty and just needing to shut it down a couple of times, our's has been doing it's job really well. That said, I've only plugged in 3.3kW LEAFs.

I might have the opportunity to try charging an EV w/a 6.6kW onboard charger tomorrow. I'm a little worried that my luck could end with that. On one hand, I think I might still be on a continued participation in the EV Project for the Bay Area so it could be a good opportunity for testing. On the other hand, I'm worried that the handle might heat up/the unit will start being unreliable. Or the EV Project might remotely change something when/after I test out a 6.6kW.

Should we give the 6.6kW a test? How long would it take after plugging in to know if our current Blink handle is safe for a 6.6kW or higher? Anyone else on the continued participation in the EV Project for the Bay Area? - I'm wondering when that program concludes/concluded (for sure beyond 12/31/13).

TIA
 
The only way to be sure is to take the handle apart and inspect it, or to replace the handle. A big part of the problem is that when there's a defect, it gets worse over time as the connection cooks. Since I have the same setup, and may one day have to consider this, here's what I did so far.

A friend brought over his BMW Active-E and we charged it for 15 minutes, then I unplugged it and felt all the pins. It was not warm, so I plugged it in for another 15 minutes. After that it was a little warm, but it seemed normal. He had to leave at that point, otherwise I would have done a longer session. I'll mention that I did not leave it plugged in while we went out to dinner, since I did not want to leave it unattended. I also must note that my calculations say it only drew 5.5 kW during this time.

I also looked back at the thread where this all started, and found where Ingineer was testing and taking infrared measurements, and in most cases he charged for an hour and then measured. The bad ones got "too hot" but not hot enough to do damage. From all the foregoing, I would say do short tests and then longer tests, and after an hour you should have enough data. But stay cautious. It would be really helpful to know if the outside of the handle would warm if there's sufficient trouble. That would make it easy to check periodically.

I don't expect the EV Project would alter my Blink settings. And I think we can change it back anyway. Also, I don't know if the EV Project is even still operating.

But the best solution would be the modification that uses a temperature sensor.
 
I have spoken to one of the very nice Rema employees at an EV Trade Show, and one of the difficulties that was pointed out to me is that the J1772 standard allows for a heat rise of 50 degrees C above ambient (or 122 degrees F) at the handle connection point and still be within spec.

So if it is 90 degrees F in your garage when you're charging, you can do the math. You could have a connection that is extremely hot (over 200 degrees F) and it could still technically be within spec...

Be careful out there...
 
gbarry42 said:
Also, I don't know if the EV Project is even still operating.
The EV Project is done as ECOtality only exists now to wrap up divesting themselves of their remaining assets and file a lot of paperwork (The EV Project wasn't sold to anyone).

With this said, Blink Network (the manufacturer of your EVSE) is still in business and operating. If you want to modify the maximum amperage of your Blink EVSE, here is the latest procedure:
On the Blink, click on Settings, then Device Info. Press on the 30A under Maximum Current (or whatever it shows there) and hold your finger there for at least 10 seconds. This will take you to a screen asking for the code, the current code is 906598.
On the maintenance screen, you can modify the maximum amperage to what you would like.
 
Thanks also Randy & DarkStar.

We had an ActiveE (7.7 kW on-board charger) here yesterday. It got charged at one destination. Then after a quick contemplation, we gave it a go & topped it off using our home Blink in our cool garage. The ActiveE estimated 45mins, but it took a tad over 1hr.

I felt the charging station handle every 10-15mins. It stayed cool the entire time. Unfortunately, MNL forum had the error message all/most of yesterday. Otherwise, I would have referenced gbarry42's message & would have also monitored the pins for heat. Probably additional/regular higher kW charging will cause damage.

Just in case, we had charged our LEAF for today ahead of that. ;) We'll see tonight if the Blink is still healthy. Hopefully :)

Thanks all again!
 
All ActiveE's still on the road are derated to about 5.5-5.9kW to protect the KLE (on board charger) since they are known to fail and there are few spares remaining.
 
gbarry42 said:
The only way to be sure is to take the handle apart and inspect it, or to replace the handle. A big part of the problem is that when there's a defect, it gets worse over time as the connection cooks. ...
But the best solution would be the modification that uses a temperature sensor.
Excellent helpful post :D
Any details on which replacements use a temperature sensor and how it is done?
 
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