Mods for the Blink EVSE ! (was Fix)

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whoami said:
We will just leave it at there will be firmware available soon that actually woks as well as display the correct info and puts the micro to sleep. Wow a novel concept!

While I am on the HW, the build is done so poorly with a significant amount of bypass caps and other current draining items. It really needs a complete redesign. For anyone who is considering purchasing a Blink. Just don't go there. For those of us who get the boat anchors for free, keep it for the 2 years then we'll take care of it.
Welcome to the forum.

Looks like Blink is a keeper - I'm looking forward to nice FW updates from the community.
 
Spies said:
Wow! Thanks for the report and pics Ingineer as well as whoami's first post.

I was curious if either of you noticed what WiFi chip or module the unit is using and if it is soldered or possibly socketed to the main board. I was also curious if they shut down the WiFi and the cellular radio when using Ethernet. Someone mentioned that a zigbee radio might be in there too.
Thank you to all.

The wifi chip is really a module made by Unigen. I believe its connected via SDIO and it is this part: http://www.unigen.com/product_detail.php?pid=859

Moral of the story is that the Blink has no RF shelding and no EMI protection, we're either going to need an external antenna or a whole new wifi module. They were nice enough to connect the WAN modem via a USB-A connector so we can pop that out and use a traditional USB wifi adapter. I run over ethernet for testing and development so I'm not concerned with wifi network connectivity at this point.

The main linux board is a slightly modified Boundary Devices Hydrogen board with a PXA270 on it with other "gue". The lovely folks who built this thing decided they would go with the reference kernel and filesystem from Boundary Devices so it made life a lot easier. I have the cross compiler for the subsystem and have compiled a few applications.

Oh one other piece of information I thought everyone would enjoy. There is a 1/8" audio jack on the main board. I've already played an MP3 out the jack to some speakers. The audio quality is prety darn good. Looks like we have an EVSE + MP3 player!

Stay tuned.
 
whoami said:
The main linux board is a slightly modified Boundary Devices Hydrogen board with a PXA270 on it with other "gue". The lovely folks who built this thing decided they would go with the reference kernel and filesystem from Boundary Devices so it made life a lot easier. I have the cross compiler for the subsystem and have compiled a few applications.
Sorry I didn't provide a link in the earlier post:
http://boundarydevices.com/hydrogen.php
 
whoami said:
The audio quality is prety darn good. Looks like we have an EVSE + MP3 player!
Cool - esp. if we can stream music over intranet !! Music while you work in the garage :lol:
 
whoami said:
There is a 1/8" audio jack on the main board. I've already played an MP3 out the jack to some speakers. The audio quality is prety darn good. Looks like we have an EVSE + MP3 player!
Doom with audio on the home Blink is even closer to reality! :D

Thanks again for the investigation and the info. I plan to exclusively use Ethernet as well and my thoughts about the Wifi and Cell modules was to just disconnect them if they are drawing current as long as the software does not freak out if they are missing. Figured it would save a couple of watts and eliminate some radiation if they are still powered while using Ethernet.

In the end I seriously hope that Blink adds some sleep features to the unit sooner rather than later. In the mean time I have just been shutting off power to the unit when I am not charging. Hopefully doing this does not add undue wear and tear to the unit based on its design and perhaps it would be better just to leave the unit powered. Still that display being powered on what seems like full brightness 24/7 just drives me nuts let alone all the other components in this box. I suspect a number of the components being on 24/7 would limit their usable life span especially the screen but I could be wrong about this.
 
Reading this thread and the posts from ingineer and whoami have changed my opinion of the Blink from a 'problematic maybe' to something that has some REALLY cool possibilities. I can't wait for the EVP to expire so I can snap off the seal and play with it!!! Who'd a thunk you could get music out of an EVSE?!!??! If we find a microphone on it, we can use it for an extension-phone (Skype without the video?) hahahah

:mrgreen:
 
Spies said:
In the end I seriously hope that Blink adds some sleep features to the unit sooner rather than later. In the mean time I have just been shutting off power to the unit when I am not charging. Hopefully doing this does not add undue wear and tear to the unit based on its design and perhaps it would be better just to leave the unit powered.
Agree it needs a sleep mode or screen saver, if only to avoid LCD burn-in. Would bet full power cycling would shorten Blink life, not extend it. Worse than that would be exposing it to high temperatures for extended periods even though the datasheet quotes a temp rating to 122 F.
 
Thought I'd add my perspective on this:

The Blink clearly has problems and we know that all EV Project members may be prohibited from cracking the case until the end of their agreement. While previously, I was looking to discard the Blink for a different unit, I'm definitely now looking forward to keeping it and Jan 1st, 2013 :)

I can use Ethernet to get me over the hump until then on the network connectivity side but if the charging unit isn't reliably working for me, I'm definitely going to be complaining loudly. With the mess that this thing is, it's too bad they don't open things up a bit for some community contributions to source. It'd be the fastest road to getting the software side of things fixed at least. Sadly, my Blink has been sitting on my wall dark since 3/30/11. My inspection got signed off on 4/4/11 but I'm still waiting for SDG&E to install the 2nd meter (yes, I've called multiple times)

A couple of side questions:
a) did you find any inappropriately used Open Source? that'd be one way to get them to give up the source.
b) any common antenna connectors that could be easily extended? the fact that they're using powerline adapters when they have a customer with wi-fi problems says tons about their hardware/software expertise
 
Jimmydreams said:
I can't wait for the EVP to expire so I can snap off the seal and play with it!!!
Shh...I'll let you in on something. The mechincal design is flawed that allows you to slip that black ring over the "seal" lock.....oops!
 
sdbonez said:
A couple of side questions:
a) did you find any inappropriately used Open Source? that'd be one way to get them to give up the source.
b) any common antenna connectors that could be easily extended? the fact that they're using powerline adapters when they have a customer with wi-fi problems says tons about their hardware/software expertise

Never mind on b) - just saw the photo in the other thread :)
 
sdbonez said:
a) did you find any inappropriately used Open Source? that'd be one way to get them to give up the source.
Given that it's Linux based, they are already violating the GPL if they are not making that source code available to those who have received the hardware. Now - that doesn't necessarily entitle you to do whatever you want with the code that they've written...

sdbonez said:
b) any common antenna connectors that could be easily extended? the fact that they're using powerline adapters when they have a customer with wi-fi problems says tons about their hardware/software expertise
Not sure, but I'd bet that one of the many Linux-based-router forums would provide some insight (dd-wrt anyone?).
 
drees said:
sdbonez said:
a) did you find any inappropriately used Open Source? that'd be one way to get them to give up the source.
Given that it's Linux based, they are already violating the GPL if they are not making that source code available to those who have received the hardware. Now - that doesn't necessarily entitle you to do whatever you want with the code that they've written...
I've asked for source and no avail. Can everyone here ask for it? They have a requirement to give it out!!!
 
syntaxerror said:
drees said:
sdbonez said:
a) did you find any inappropriately used Open Source? that'd be one way to get them to give up the source.
Given that it's Linux based, they are already violating the GPL if they are not making that source code available to those who have received the hardware. Now - that doesn't necessarily entitle you to do whatever you want with the code that they've written...
I've asked for source and no avail. Can everyone here ask for it? They have a requirement to give it out!!!

Just because it's on Linux doesn't necessarily mean they're violating GPL...and doesn't mean that they just have to give it out. Generally, any modified/derivative works, once released to the Public or in commercial use (the Blink certainly qualifies), need to be released but there still isn't solid precedence last time I checked on the whole static vs. dynamic linking issue. There's a dispute here on whether the the later requires release under GPL. There's a small note about it on wikipedia here under Linking and Derived Works - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License.

For anything unmodified, obviously, there's no further release required since it's already released elsewhere

There are several entities who go after corporations who are not complying with open source licenses.... the whole Linksys fiasco was one of the more notable ones (which resulted in DD-WRT). This blog has a good overview for anyone interested. http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2011/03/the-open-source-trials-hanging-in-the-legal-balance-of-copyright-and-copyleft/ - one such entity is http://gpl-violations.org/
 
sdbonez said:
Just because it's on Linux doesn't necessarily mean they're violating GPL...and doesn't mean that they just have to give it out.
At a minimum they need to provide source for all GPL and LGPL binaries.

sdbonez said:
Generally, any modified/derivative works, once released to the Public or in commercial use (the Blink certainly qualifies), need to be released but there still isn't solid precedence last time I checked on the whole static vs. dynamic linking issue.
Binaries that are dynamically linked to GPL libraries do have to have their source released. But most libraries are generally licensed under the LGPL which doesn't have that restriction.

sdbonez said:
For anything unmodified, obviously, there's no further release required since it's already released elsewhere
Yes, they do: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#UnchangedJustBinary
 
drees said:
sdbonez said:
Just because it's on Linux doesn't necessarily mean they're violating GPL...and doesn't mean that they just have to give it out.
At a minimum they need to provide source for all GPL and LGPL binaries.

sdbonez said:
Generally, any modified/derivative works, once released to the Public or in commercial use (the Blink certainly qualifies), need to be released but there still isn't solid precedence last time I checked on the whole static vs. dynamic linking issue.
Binaries that are dynamically linked to GPL libraries do have to have their source released. But most libraries are generally licensed under the LGPL which doesn't have that restriction.

sdbonez said:
For anything unmodified, obviously, there's no further release required since it's already released elsewhere
Yes, they do: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#UnchangedJustBinary

agreed, agreed, and I stand corrected :)
 
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