Blink charger problems

[lonndoggie]

Blink rep is coming tomorrow morning, to see what's up with the self-test-failing EVSE.

More electrical failures: I unplugged the L1 EVSE from the LEAF to take the kids to their day camp (and didn't unplug the EVSE, since I was coming right back and plugging in).

When I did, it didn't start charging. It was dead! OH NO! Did I kill another device?

Yes, but not the EVSE--somehow, that nuked a GFCI that was on the same circuit. D'oh!

Replaced it tonight, and it's charging again now.

(And I'm waiting for my second replacement phone, too...so that screen shot is still on hold)

 

[davewill]

Lonndoggie, my man, once is an accident, twice a coincidence, three a conspiracy, but FOUR devices? Personally, I'd be looking at the power itself. I strongly suspect a common cause.

 

[lonndoggie]

Lonndoggie, my man, once is an accident, twice a coincidence, three a conspiracy, but FOUR devices? Personally, I'd be looking at the power itself. I strongly suspect a common cause.

Well, no, all quite separate, I think:

The cell phone is a phenomenon all to itself; it has the problems when its running off battery, and I got a new battery yesteday, to put in the new cell phone, charged not at our house, and it had the problem as well. I'm starting to think maybe the SIM card or the SD card (or both) are having issues.

The PV monitoring system is a doozie. In that case, there is a bluetooth module that sends data to a monitoring box. Somehow, this has gone bad. We've replaced the monitoring box, the bluetooth card in the inverter, and they sent me one of their BT repeaters. I've proven the issue isn't BT connectivity--they have an app that you can use to flash ROM updates, which I can do at will. That has to send a large file to the BT card, pass the checksum, install and report status. All that works. The monitoring box, and that utility program both see and connect to the BT card, but the card fails to ack requests for data somehow. I'm telling the provider that the reporting module has died; they say no, it's our "complex" BT environment (which the Blink is part of--apparently Zigbee runs in the same spectrum). However, the Blink has been unplugged for a couple of days, but the problem persists. I also used my phone as a BT device scanner--the only active devices are the monitoring box and the inverter. So, they'll be sending out their wired monitoring box, to get BT out of the picture. Stay tuned...

The GFCI...who knows. I replaced it last night with a more modern version (has a status LED! Woot!), and it's fine; charged all night again on L1, unplugged and all good.

Was also having problems with the Colossus HD capture card in my HTPC, but that was with a service that was failing to start due to using a not-ready-for-prime-time user ID. Fixed it.

Me, I'm blaming solar flares. Or phase of the moon. Or maybe just some kind of karmic payback for (a) having won the phone from VZW's promotion for its launch (ya gotta pay after all) and (b) getting ready to go on a big vacation paid for by the wife's parents for their 50'th anniversary.

Anyway, I have lots of hobbies now!

As I type this, the Ecotality guy is installing the new Blink. Replacing the SIM card didn't fix it.

LDog

EDIT: The new Blink did the trick; it's charging now. Might even try firing up the wifi connection again!

 

[DaveEV]

lonndoggie - sounds like you may want to send your portable EVSE in for an upgrade so you can get L2 charging if your Blink blinks out again...

So far my Blink has been reliable except for one "502" error that I had to do a hard-reset to fix a couple weeks back.

 

[lonndoggie]

lonndoggie - sounds like you may want to send your portable EVSE in for an upgrade so you can get L2 charging if your Blink blinks out again...

Maybe. Then again, the L1 did a fine job in the Blink's stead, and even if the new GFCI bites the dust, there are those outlets overhead that also worked.

And...I have a brand new Blink now, so let's hope this one is more robust.

Funny, I'd never really considered it very seriously, because the main use case I saw for it was taking it somewhere and scrounging for a 220v socket, which seemed somewhat unlikely. Didn't think about the necessity of using it in place of the Blink--but now I see how that can happen!

 

[patrick0101]

Has anyone successfully used the scheduled charge feature for a charge event that was multiple days away. My car was at ~40% SOC and I was going out of town for a few days. I would need it fully charged when I got back, so I set the timer on the Blink to charge it up just before I returned. I got back today and found that it had charged the car the very next day. The timer did not wait 2 days like it was supposed to.

I'm not sure what happened. It might have reset and then started charging. Not a big deal really, but the car did sit around fully charged for a couple of days that it did not need to. Anyone else seen this?

 

[grommet]

FYI: My Blink UI is totally dead... doesn't even boot to touchscreen calibration. I do see the quick "EV Project" logo... then nothing. Thankfully, it still charges as a dummy device. I guess I'll be calling ECOtality up. It might be more than just the SD card...

 

[LEAFfan]

Our Blink just went on the blink yesterday. The screen just went blank while charging so it doesn't record any charges, but it still works so I'm not going to reset it. I figure that it is their problem and I've told them about it. They told me they are working on an update for the problem.

 

[SharonaLA]

Got the 502 error yesterday too.

 

[patrick0101]

Tonight I scheduled a charge and hit save changes. Normally it goes to the countdown screen after this step. Not this time. Instead it when the the "blink" splash screen. It looked like it reset and lost my scheduled session. I unplugged the car, rinse repeat and it all worked as expected the 2nd time.

 

[grommet]

The ECOtality folks came out today to repair my Blink unit. They replaced the unit. (Due to the electrician being late due to traffic and my limited availability, there wasn't time to do "better" diagnostics.) Let's hope this one doesn't commit user interface suicide as well. Like I said before, at least it kept on charging while it was dead to the world... so it had minimal impact.

 

[LEAFfan]

I received a call today from Blink, and someone is coming tomorrow to replace a chip that's supposed to eliminate the '502' error and the 'blank' screen. At least it continues to charge, but just doesn't save any data.

 

[Volusiano]

I must say that ever since the Blink subcontractor came out to replace a new SD card on my Blink that all the random hang-up issues I had experienced before seem to be gone now. I haven't had to reboot my Blink unit once since (1.5 weeks ago), while before that, I'd had to reboot almost every day. The PLI seems to be working fine, too, with the network connection.

 

[mxp]

I received a call today from Blink, and someone is coming tomorrow to replace a chip that's supposed to eliminate the '502' error and the 'blank' screen. At least it continues to charge, but just doesn't save any data.

Is this "chip" the SD card that they came out to replace?

I too do get the 502 error once in a while... I just reboot it and it's back to normal. My schedule is typically saved.

 

[davewill]

Is this "chip" the SD card that they came out to replace? ...

"Chip" seems to be "BlinkSpeak" for the microSD. That's what they said when they came out to replace mine. Besides, it's the only "chip" in the system they could field replace, anyway. BTW, when they replace the SD card, you lose the monthly stats that the Blink displays, and I lost several charging events that never did get uploaded to the Blink dashboard. I also lost my entered rates, but going onto the website and editing and saving each rate got them to download to the Blink again.

 

[TaylorSFGuy]

I'm on my second unit. Got the 502 error on day 2 for the second unit. Reset by unplugging. Unit 2 had the old firmware which was updated right away. I'm wondering if it has the old SD card as well. How would I tell?

 

[Volusiano]

I'm wondering if it has the old SD card as well. How would I tell?

They're all the same SD card so it's not like there's an old and a new card. But they had a bad batch of SD cards which cause problems and need to be replaced. How can you tell if you have a bad card? You'll run into all kinds of problem with it and need to reboot the Blink very often to get it working again, until the next failure. If you don't have a problem, then chances are you have a good card.

 

[LEAFfan]

I received a call today from Blink, and someone is coming tomorrow to replace a chip that's supposed to eliminate the '502' error and the 'blank' screen. At least it continues to charge, but just doesn't save any data.

Is this "chip" the SD card that they came out to replace?
I too do get the 502 error once in a while... I just reboot it and it's back to normal. My schedule is typically saved.

The micro SD card seemed to solve the Blink going blank problem, but it does nothing for the '502' error. They said they are working on an update to fix the error. I don't reboot anymore because you have to start all over, including the network hookup. It always charges, just doesn't always save the data. After a couple of days, the 'error' disappears, then comes back a day or two later.

 

[davewill]

...I don't reboot anymore because you have to start all over, including the network hookup...

Actually, if you just leave the unit alone after the reboot, it will eventually timeout and go the main screen, keeping the old settings.

 

[LEAFfan]

...I don't reboot anymore because you have to start all over, including the network hookup...

Actually, if you just leave the unit alone after the reboot, it will eventually timeout and go the main screen, keeping the old settings.

By reboot, I meant you have to unplug it (won't reboot by touching screen). When you unplug it, the calibration screen comes on and you have to do that plus all the other inputting of your info.