Mods for the Blink EVSE ! (was Fix)

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^^^ Link for image file:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=13957&hilit=card&start=10#p331354

A later topic link is here:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=16572&hilit=blink+software#p409479

I have not done it yet, but several reported it worked.
Is supposed to fit a 2 GB card, but one reported they could not get it to fit and used 4 GB card.

Some recommendations on software to use to install image are later in the topic at:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=13957&hilit=card&start=20#p400996

I never saw a finalized complete firmware rewrite.
I recall a separate topic that gave a lot of information, but it was a starting point.
Unfortunatrly could not find the link yet.
 
baumgrenze said:
2) Back in 2011 'whoami' described the first steps of creating superior firmware to that supplied by Ecotality. He called his version 'Wink' and expressed his hope that Ecotality would accept it as open-source software and push it out to everyone. Was this 'Wink' project completed?
Unfortunately he disappeared soon after that, without (AFAIK) having posted anything of the project but pictures.
 
Has anyone tried running the Blink WE-30CIRE EVSE on 120VAC ? We are rebuilding at home and it will be a while before a new 240vac line is put in. The manual says nothing about 120vac, but the label on the unit shows 208-240vac/120vac.

I understand I could make this a "dumb EVSE" but has anyone successfully operated the logic board and EVSE function of the whole unit off 120vac?

Thanks!

Here is a link to an image of the EVSE label: http://imgur.com/oVAmiCx

oVAmiCx.jpg
 
Hmm drive permissions seem to be set for any to read. So how do I upload an image? The img function here only allows me to ads a url.
 
Go to http://imgur.com/ . Upload it there.

(Ignore the stuff about signing up, unless you really want to. You can just hit "upload images" and go.)
 
Tx, nice site to have around, so changed link to http://imgur.com/oVAmiCx & used the form: http://i.imgur.com/oVAmiCx.jpg to embed!
 
Unlikely the Blink will work at 120V. Mine has the same label. The contactor coil is 208/240V. I do not believe there is a way to make that contactor close at 120V.
 
I had this problem initially with a Blink WE-30 CIRE from eBay. We had this type of problem before when the power leads ("hot" and "neutral") were reversed in 120V installations on another EVSE. So, I reversed the power connections to the Blink and voila, no more RSD (Red Screen of Death) with "ground fault error" display and buzzing. Not sure whether this is a site wiring problem or not.

This was done as a test at our church where 240V is readily accessible and we hope to get this installed soon. I also did the same test at home on 120vac; again the Blink (WE30-CIRE) goes to RSD unless the "hot" lead on 120vac was connected to the longer blade on the 6-50 plug. BUT, when run on 120vac at 12a current draw the contactor rattles and does not make good contact. At 8a the unit works on 120vac. As mentioned elsewhere in this forum, the contactor is NOT designed to work with 120vac.

Though the Blink Linux initialization now completes, it freezes every time on the "Welcome to Blink" logo + "Please Wait..." at the bottom of the screen. We don't NEED the EVSE to do much more than just charge an attached EV, so I also lobotomized the Blink as described in a prior post in this forum and here on YouTube and voila again!

Now we have a big, dumb EVSE, for a 240vac circuit. We are putting aside the debugging of the Linux controller for a later day.

gonefishin said:
Thanks for all the people who have done research on this problem. My self-test faults finally could not be reset by a power cycle. I tried checking the crimps, moving the CT, and finally had to lobotomize it.

I tried checking all the crimps. I found a few stray wires on the right side of the junction block and theorized they could be bleeding a tiny bit of current to the grounding plate behind it so I redid that. I don't understand how you can solder those because there's not enough room to get a soldered wire into the block without cutting some of the wires. Both are bad ideas because solder doesn't conduct as well as copper and you more wires is better. I researched and found that the industry standard for high wattage applications (like your house main supply or a wind turbine) is to simply crimp the wires into a block.

I moved the CT all the way to the right and zip tied it.

It seemed to work fine, but a few hours later coming back to an idle charger it immediately threw the self-test fault. I then lobotomized it by removing the blue cable from the top & bottom and it seems to work fine now as a dumb charger.

I put all this into a Youtube Video so you can see exactly what is being talked about: https://youtu.be/e8yELGmywaY
 
I got my first ground fault screen two days ago. It was just after plugging in, and it started beeping (a nice way to describe the screech it makes) continuously, with the touch screen unresponsive. After pulling the power and plugging it back in, it booted up and worked normally. I'm glad it has a plug on it! We shall see if this was a one-time occurrence; this is the first time since it was replaced in the first days of 2012. No one will care, but by posting I'll have a record of what happened and when it first started.
 
My Blink unit has started giving the self-test fault after 5 years in service, and it is getting more frequent. A reboot used to last a week, and now it is becoming a daily routine, so I am going to lobotomize it today. Thanks to the forum for the detailed instructions to turn it into a dumb charger!

TT
 
ttweed said:
My Blink unit has started giving the self-test fault after 5 years in service, and it is getting more frequent. A reboot used to last a week, and now it is becoming a daily routine, so I am going to lobotomize it today. Thanks to the forum for the detailed instructions to turn it into a dumb charger!

TT

That's not likely to fix the issue, just hide it in that you'll not be able to see the screen anymore. I would instead focus on the information with regards to the GFCI CTs. Basicall you'll want to move/secure them and replace the termination on them. Instructions are covered here.
 
I wanted to post a follow-up to my July 18 2015 post about how to lobotomize the EVSE and my Youtube Video. The bad news is that the problems came back after a year. About half the time the car wouldn't charge and I couldn't figure out why since there was no computer to tell me what was going on. So I hooked the computer back up and threw out everything I had read about the problem. The good news is that it's been working reliably for me with the computer back in place for a month. I'm not 100% sure what I did to fix it, but here's my theory.

My initial assumption based on posts in this forum was that it was a GFCI grounding problem. After reading more about how other EVSEs work internally, I now believe that is only likely to be the problem if your charger fails on power up. In my case, the EVSE did a Self-Test fault only when connected to the car. I came up with two new theories for what was going wrong in my case and I think one was right, but I'm not sure which.

#1 - Pilot Wire not connecting. The pilot wire of the plug does all the negotiating about how much current to supply. That wire is passed through a relay that is stuck to the side of the contactor. I took that relay off and was surprised that it's not spring loaded. It relies upon the contactor to open & close the relay by grabbing onto the contactor's "arm" physically. I'm not sure if there was supposed to be a spring but I exercised it thoroughly and tried to make sure it was sliding properly. I should have tried disconnecting that wire entirely and see if it reproduces the problem but since it's working now I don't want to try it. If it fails again I may try replacing it.

#2 - Contactor RF surge bleeding into Current Transformer. The advice on the forum was to move the CT away from the splice block, but that actually brought it much closer to the Contactor. The Contactor has a coil powered at AC voltage and is designed to create a large electromagnetic force to close the Contactor relay, but of course, that also generates a large RF field. So placing the CTs anywhere near that contactor would seem to be a bad idea. I would feel more comfortable fingering this as the cause if I could reproduce the problem when close to the Contactor, but I only succeeded once out of a couple dozen tries. So I'm not 100% sure if that's it either.

A couple other random things I did which probably make no difference was to remove the RFID plate entirely, remove the external Ethernet pigtail, moved the bundle of blue power wires leading from the switching power supply to the computer so are also as far away from the CT as possible. I'm going to run with the above two fixes and if you don't hear from me then it's working. Good luck to you.
 
This has been a fun thread to scan. My Blink has started the Self Test fault cycle also. It was installed in June 2011 and I've seen the Self Test fault maybe for times. Three this month. I'm doing my process to figure out which one to replace it with, but in the process, I was told something by Blink customer service that was interesting. Over the phone, the CS rep said that while the old units weren't really supported anymore, they could send out a $59.99 repair kit to fix the problem. I asked if he knew what the kit did, he said no. I asked if he had a link or something that would allow me to check it out he said wait, I'll talk to my supervisor. He came back to say his supervisor had an email that described the kit and that she would send it to the CS rep who would then send it to me. Haven't received anything after a few hours, but if it shows up, I'll share it here.

Now the totally self serving part. I'm down to three chargers which would fit my needs

25' cord
NEMA 6-50 plug (ground up orientation)

The Blink installation, used the NEMA 6-50 receptical and a dedicated circuit. So I'd like to get the plug version of any EVSE that I buy so I don't have to do any wiring to replace the Blink unit. I've narrowed down to three choices:

ChargePoint Home 25 Electric Vehicle Charger Bundle $ 749

ClipperCreek, Inc. HCS-40P $ 589
Warranty 3 year parts and factory labor

Nissan Leaf Residential EV Charger (AeroVironment) $ 749

I'm still waiting to see the warranty for two of them, but I expect that the industry standard is three years factory parts & labor. The Nissan/Aero has an advantage in that it's what Nissan apparently recommends. Clipper Creek is inexpensive, but their plug is oriented ground down and their CS rep said that the pig tail is really short and he didn't recommend trying to twist it into a u shape. He did say, however, that I could just mount the Clipper Creek unit upside down (if I had the room) which I hadn't thought of. Charge Point is interesting to me because it can connect to the internet and works with things like the "Nest" thermometer

I"d appreciate a few observations that might give me more informative information.
 
This should really be in a different thread, but...

rdhauser said:
I've narrowed down to three choices:

ChargePoint Home 25 Electric Vehicle Charger Bundle $ 749

ClipperCreek, Inc. HCS-40P $ 589
Warranty 3 year parts and factory labor

Nissan Leaf Residential EV Charger (AeroVironment) $ 749

... The Nissan/Aero has an advantage in that it's what Nissan apparently recommends.
I don't think that's a real advantage. It's just that Nissan made a deal with them to supply a Nissan-branded version. But I don't think the design has been updated in five years, and there's nothing special about it AFAICT. For the same price, the ChargePoint is much more fun.

ClipperCreek seems to be almost the benchmark for reliability, although I agree the plug situation is annoying. I'd consider getting a "hardwired" version and attaching the pigtail of your choice yourself -- it shouldn't be that difficult.
 
I agree, Wmcbrine, the request for recommendations probably should have been on a different thread. Perhaps this will pull it back on track:

The blink CS folks sent along an email today about what is included in the kit they sell for fixing the "self test fault".

The Residential repair kit includes;

1 cable, power, mcb to EVSE, EVSE Lvl 2
1 seal, security padlock
2 cable tie, black 8” locking
2 cable tie mount, 4 way, adhesive backed
2 ferrule, 24 AWG, uninsul
2 end cap heatshrink, 5.7 mm, blk
1 SD card, micro

This list of ingredients makes me think that they could have (perhaps did) just read through this thread. No instructions though. I'd love a PDF.

After reading this thread and particularly the summary by RickS and the video by Gonefishn' (is that right?) I think I might be capable of doing the open box fix myself. I told customer service that I'd appreciate something to let me see what I'd be getting into and they said in their email that next week (Aug 22 - 26) a repair kit tech would get in touch to answer questions for me. I'm tempted to give it a try instead of buying another EVSE.
 
rdhauser said:
I agree, Wmcbrine, the request for recommendations probably should have been on a different thread. Perhaps this will pull it back on track:

The blink CS folks sent along an email today about what is included in the kit they sell for fixing the "self test fault".

The Residential repair kit includes;

1 cable, power, mcb to EVSE, EVSE Lvl 2
1 seal, security padlock
2 cable tie, black 8” locking
2 cable tie mount, 4 way, adhesive backed
2 ferrule, 24 AWG, uninsul
2 end cap heatshrink, 5.7 mm, blk
1 SD card, micro

This list of ingredients makes me think that they could have (perhaps did) just read through this thread. No instructions though. I'd love a PDF.

After reading this thread and particularly the summary by RickS and the video by Gonefishn' (is that right?) I think I might be capable of doing the open box fix myself. I told customer service that I'd appreciate something to let me see what I'd be getting into and they said in their email that next week (Aug 22 - 26) a repair kit tech would get in touch to answer questions for me. I'm tempted to give it a try instead of buying another EVSE.

This sounds like the kit that techs were getting sent out with back when these were still under warranty as these aren't new problems. $60 seems like a lot but I'm sure that cable is custom and they must have been having some failures on the original designs. SD cards wear out, etc. so probably just proactively replacing those or something. Then the rest of the parts are to fix GFCI issue with a new crimp and securing things better.
 
Thanks, Queen Bee.

Today I got the promised the PDF and you're right, it looks like the repair kit for technicians. It has instructions and pictures (photo, not drawings). It lists symptoms and repair procedures for four specific failures: Display Flicker, Boot Failure/rapid reset, Self Test Failed, and Screen freezing. The kit, it seems, has the required elements (but not the tools) for the repairs. I've ordered the kit and asked for their recommendations for local technicians.
 
rdhauser said:
Thanks, Queen Bee.

Today I got the promised the PDF and you're right, it looks like the repair kit for technicians. It has instructions and pictures (photo, not drawings). It lists symptoms and repair procedures for four specific failures: Display Flicker, Boot Failure/rapid reset, Self Test Failed, and Screen freezing. The kit, it seems, has the required elements (but not the tools) for the repairs. I've ordered the kit and asked for their recommendations for local technicians.
Any chance you could post the PDF.
 
I'm reluctant to post the whole PDF on line since it contains this generic sort of copyright like language:

"No part of the contents of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means without the express written permission of Blink Network"
 
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