Signet brand fast chargers.... Almost all inop?

They are easily spotted by the short squat shape and industrial design of them. About three foot by three foot square and about five foot high, with louvers on the sides and a box on the side with the cord. Many of them have dual cables with CHAdeMO on the right and SAE fast charge on the left.

In my one experience, a Nissan dealer in LaGrange , GA has a Signet branded fast charger, it is inop and apparently, according to Plugshare reports, has been inop for a long time, possibly several months.

I started looking on Plugshare for DC fast charger sites and looking at the pics. I found a fair number of chargers that are clearly Signet brand (a Korean manufacturer of them) and number of them are inop.

Jack Ingram Motors, Montgomery, AL, two months ago, "L3 is down. Has been for weeks", and 24 days ago "Level 3 still inop."

Chronic Nissan, Griffin, GA, Two months ago "Level 3 supercharge station is not working." no newer reports on the Level 3 charger.

Georgia Regents University, Augusta, GA (formerly Georgia Medical College), this is a Greenlots unit with both CHAdeMO and SAE, "Jennifer @Greenlots a day ago. We are very sorry for this inconvenience and will escalate to the manufacturer. Thanks, Greenlots"

In all fairness, I'm sure there are other brands that have malfunctioned, and I found a number of the Signet units that were reported as working.. It just seems like I kept stumbling into these units on plugshare that were described as inop. Signet is a Korean manufacturer and the odd part is that Plugshare shows only three CHEdeMO units in all of Korea, one in Seoul and two on the island of Jeju south of the peninsula. You would think they would want the lions share of the market in their home country.

The one in this pic was installed by an idiot, I cannot think of any other description of someone who would put the front of the unit facing the down hill slope where you have to stand in the grass and dirt with your back to the slope to operate the display. (the display is on the far side, left, in this pic)

Charles

I had never seen one of these until I moved to OH a few weeks ago. The other day only one of the three I visited was working. The one has weekly connection issues it seems with greenlots, among other issues. To be fair the ABB ones in CO were terrible for reliability. Maybe 5% uptime. It was pretty ridiculous. It seems like such a simple thing that they have found a way to completely F up.

Same thing I find at Alan Jay Nissan in Sebring Florida. Their Signet level 3 charger has been down for almost a full year. Nobody in the dealership knows anything about its current or future status. It's hidden under a BBQ grill cover.

MikeinDenver said:

To be fair the ABB ones in CO were terrible for reliability. Maybe 5% uptime. It was pretty ridiculous.

Click to expand...

That's why there's the joke that ABB stands for Another Broken Box.

I figured that ABB, being a giant company should have some pretty reliable equipment. There were complaints in a a Utah thread about their ABB DC FCs being down a lot, as well, until the unit was totally replaced.

Which makes me wonder what DCQC (>40 KW) is really reliable? Are there any? The Nissan-branded ones seem to have problems as well. Blinks aren't great. Aerovironment's seem to work pretty good. What about all those EVGo units?

Reddy said:

Which makes me wonder what DCQC (>40 KW) is really reliable? Are there any? The Nissan-branded ones seem to have problems as well. Blinks aren't great. Aerovironment's seem to work pretty good. What about all those EVGo units?

Click to expand...

NRG / eVgo (it was actually sold, so not really NRG any more) does not make chargers. They use chargers that they acquire from:

1) ABB - (Switzerland) - 120 amps maximum. Overall, solid units. Use a well designed and easy to use Sumitomo plug <http://www.chademo.com/wp/chademo-connectors/>

2) Nissan / Sumitomo - (Japan) - 115 amps maximum. These have been discontinued, and eVgo is replacing them with ABB units. They tend to overheat in high ambient temperatures, and short out with rain. Plus, they had really clunky first generation Yazaki plugs on them. Most Nissan chargers that are still deployed have been upgraded by eVgo with next generation Yazaki plugs.

3) BTC Power - (Philippines / final assembly California, USA) - 100 amps maximum. Increasingly better equipment and constant redesign make these units a solid contender. Early ones had first generation Yazaki plugs, but all the newer ones use the Sumitomo plug.

*********

Blink - (Phoenix, Arizona, USA) - Blink is an absolute disgrace, and has been since their first units were deployed. I would only use one if it was my last chance to get a charge before calling a tow truck.

*********

AeroVironment - (California, USA) - the don't build EV chargers any more (discontinued). The ones in Washington and Oregon on the west coast electric highway are quite reliable. They use the first generation Yazaki plug. These chargers really aren't any place else besides the Pacific Northwest USA.

*********

Efacec - (Portugal) - used by Greenlots network sites, as well as others like OpConnect. Solid units overall.

*********