ECOtality Level 2 charger : Blink

[derekjsmith]

After only 2 days with my Blink unit, there are more issues than I expected. If it was merely a case of learning the idiosyncrasies of the unit, that'd be one thing, but it's not.

We have only had our Blink since Wednesday a couple of days and it has yet to complete a timed charge overnight. I have the leaf set to charge to 100% and finish by 6am and then turn on climate control to be ready by 8:30am. The Blink is set to always charge no timers.

The Clipper Creek we had for almost two months never had an issue with the above usage it just did its thing which I guess for the Clipper was not that big of a deal since it was just a 240 voltage source with some basic control logic and a relay not much more.

So our electrical contractor and Blink are going to replace our unit first thing Monday morning. What we have found was the Blink has been rebooting every so often and if it does while the Leaf is charging the charge cycle is not restarted to finish. The current thought is the Blink I have has an issue sometimes connecting to our network and will cause a system reboot to correct it. They are also going to install a PLC the reason they want all of us to have a 120v plug near the Blink is so they can connect over the hardwired PLC to the internet via the customers router.

 

[thankyouOB]

After only 2 days with my Blink unit, there are more issues than I expected. If it was merely a case of learning the idiosyncrasies of the unit, that'd be one thing, but it's not.

We have only had our Blink since Wednesday a couple of days and it has yet to complete a timed charge overnight. I have the leaf set to charge to 100% and finish by 6am and then turn on climate control to be ready by 8:30am. The Blink is set to always charge no timers.

The Clipper Creek we had for almost two months never had an issue with the above usage it just did its thing which I guess for the Clipper was not that big of a deal since it was just a 240 voltage source with some basic control logic and a relay not much more.

So our electrical contractor and Blink are going to replace our unit first thing Monday morning. What we have found was the Blink has been rebooting every so often and if it does while the Leaf is charging the charge cycle is not restarted to finish. The current thought is the Blink I have has an issue sometimes connecting to our network and will cause a system reboot to correct it. They are also going to install a PLC the reason they want all of us to have a 120v plug near the Blink is so they can connect over the hardwired PLC to the internet via the customers router.

PLC?

 

[derekjsmith]

PLC?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_line_communication

Is an adapter that plugs into the outlet near the Blink and another near your router. The Blink and your router are then plugged into the PLC's via a ethernet cable to provide a wired ethernet over your houses high voltage wiring. I guess this is to deal with the Blinks issues of wifi at least in my case.

My WiFi is a wide area multi channel 2.4Ghz N network with three primary routers running on low channels 1,5,9 using the same SSID for handoff to give me to correct coverage throughout my house and outside areas. The one place I don't have any wired ethernet is the garage so the need for the PLC.

 

[evnow]

What we have found was the Blink has been rebooting every so often and if it does while the Leaf is charging the charge cycle is not restarted to finish. The current thought is the Blink I have has an issue sometimes connecting to our network and will cause a system reboot to correct it.

With my Blink, it loses connection to network as soon as I plug it in. After I take it out it reconnects to the network.

I also had this problem of rebooting on its own - but power recycling followed by not touching it (i.e. don't recalibrate but let it default on its own) seems to fix the problem.

 

[TomT]

I tried PLC in my house some time ago and it was a dismal failure. With my dozens of Insteon units, TED, and other powerline devices, it apparently is just too noisy and environment for it to work well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_line_communication

Is an adapter that plugs into the outlet near the Blink and another near your router. The Blink and your router are then plugged into the PLC's via a ethernet cable to provide a wired ethernet over your houses high voltage wiring. I guess this is to deal with the Blinks issues of wifi at least in my case.

 

[ENIAC]

What we have found was the Blink has been rebooting every so often and if it does while the Leaf is charging the charge cycle is not restarted to finish. The current thought is the Blink I have has an issue sometimes connecting to our network and will cause a system reboot to correct it.

With my Blink, it loses connection to network as soon as I plug it in. After I take it out it reconnects to the network.

I also had this problem of rebooting on its own - but power recycling followed by not touching it (i.e. don't recalibrate but let it default on its own) seems to fix the problem.

My gut tells me the Blink didn't go through the traditional product develop cycle. I suspect Roush had a working prototype EVSE. ECOtality decided it was good enough to take it to market for the EV Project and had Frog Designs skin it. Roush is the manufacture and really ECOtality is only the prime contractor for the whole deal. The issues we have with the Blink are indicative of a prototype, not an engineered for manufacture product. Just my opinion.

 

[evnow]

The issues we have with the Blink are indicative of a prototype, not an engineered for manufacture product. Just my opinion.

Obviously there are firmware issues. I'd call it Beta ...

 

[Jimmydreams]

The issues we have with the Blink are indicative of a prototype, not an engineered for manufacture product. Just my opinion.

Obviously there are firmware issues. I'd call it Beta ...

Last night I arrived at 12:30am. Leaf charger timer: off. Blink charge timer: set for 11pm-7am daily. I plugged in and the car started charging immediately. I waited around long enough to know that it wasn't the "5 second charge" while the car and EVSE talk to each other. After a few minutes, I left the garage satisfied a full (or at least until 7am) charge was in process.

The Blink unit charged for about 30 minutes and then shut off. I may or may not have enough time to put a full charge in before work this afternoon....

Prototype, Beta, whatever...I'm turning off ALL the timers and if the Blink cannot sustain a charge from manual start-to-full, then I'm either going to request a new unit or ask for my old CC unit back until they figure it out.

 

[LEAFer]

Just a thought. Other than the apparent genuine troubles revealed by these user experiences ... is it possible switch from Standard to Daylight-Savings time last night had any (additional) effect ?

 

[evnow]

Just a thought. Other than the apparent genuine troubles revealed by these user experiences ... is it possible switch from Standard to Daylight-Savings time last night had any (additional) effect ?

Good question. I'm fairly sure they haven't designed for this.

 

[derekjsmith]

Just a thought. Other than the apparent genuine troubles revealed by these user experiences ... is it possible switch from Standard to Daylight-Savings time last night had any (additional) effect ?

Good question. I'm fairly sure they haven't designed for this.

Should not be a problem. The underlying OS for the Blink is a Linux derivative that is designed for imbedded systems so it should work just fine over the 2am time change.

What does seem to be the issue is the device drivers for the imbedded OS mostly the Wifi.

 

[Jimmydreams]

Just a thought. Other than the apparent genuine troubles revealed by these user experiences ... is it possible switch from Standard to Daylight-Savings time last night had any (additional) effect ?

That was my first thought. It DID seem to stop at 1am, which is 2am Phoenix time. My installer said that the Blinks tend to revert to Phoenix time, so maybe that was it. Tonight will be telling....

One other thing I noticed was that I didn't get any "charging stopped" texts, which I normally do. (I also din't get a "charging complete", but that's to be expected since charging was never completed.)

For now, when I need the car for work the next morning, I'll have to make sure I check it periodically throughout the night when I get up to get water, take a leak, that kind of thing. Annoying, but if we can work these bugs out early, then I'll worry about sleep later. :?

 

[evnow]

For now, when I need the car for work the next morning, I'll have to make sure I check it periodically throughout the night when I get up to get water, take a leak, that kind of thing. Annoying, but if we can work these bugs out early, then I'll worry about sleep later. :?

If it happens one more day - you should report and get it exchanged.

ps : My setup is to charge at 12:30 AM everyday using Leaf timer - either 80% (weekday) or 100% (weekend).

 

[LEAFer]

One other thing I noticed was that I didn't get any "charging stopped" texts, which I normally do. (I also din't get a "charging complete", but that's to be expected since charging was never completed.)

That seems to be back to my (occasional - last month) problem where I did not get "charging stopped" notifications when the L1 plug came undone or I turned the breaker off (1x accidentally, 1x on purpose, at different locations) and 1x on L2 when I used the stop button on the EVSE. The first location may have been in a marginal AT&T coverage area, but the others were not. I haven't had the problem since, but it basically occured when the EVSE side was "turned off" (by whatever means), rather than removing the J-plug first.

 

[Hightech]

Hi All,

I thought I would share my experience with the new Blink charger as well. It seems that I'm having the same sort of issues with my new Blink Charger as Jimmydreams. My Clipper Creek charger (which worked flawlessly from day one) was replaced last Wednesday and I have not been able to get the Blink unit to reliably charge for more than an hour or so on any given attempt. I'm on my 5th day of trying now.

I've tried charging several ways:
1) With the Leaf timers on and the Blink set to charge immediately - failed to fully charge
2) With the Leaf timers off and use the Blink scheduled charge timer - failed fully charge
3) Manually initiate a charge without any timers set on the Leaf or the Blink. - failed to fully charge

Each time, the car either doesn't charge at all, or charges for no more than 60 min before shutting off. Usually It only charges for a few minutes then stops for an unknown reason. There are no errors displayed on the Blink and no errors in the logs that I can see. So far I've had two calls to their tech support with no resolution. They now believe that I probably have a faulty unit, but I hope it's just a firmware issue. If it's a HW issue already, it makes me concerned about long term reliability, even if I get a new unit.

It also seems that the unit didn't properly handle the daylight saving change last night because my main screen says the next charge is scheduled for 1am even though my timers are now set for 12am. This just started happening this morning

It's a shame that better verification testing wasn't done with the Leaf before handing them out to customers. I think more effort should have been put into making sure the unit was tested the same way that most people were using the Clipper Creeks which it was replacing (i.e. Leaf timers set, plug it in and forget about it).

On the other hand, my Wifi was very easy to setup and has worked great from the first time I set it up using WPA2. The only minor issue was getting the MAC address from the unit because I have MAC filtering setup on my network. Because I couldn't find the MAC address in any of the Blink menus or on the outside of the unit, I had to temporarily turn off MAC filtering, then go into my router and look for the new MAC address in the DHCP client list, and finally add it to my filter list. After that, no issues.

 

[WWBD]

I posted this earlier in the week but maybe no one saw it. My Blink screen has turned a solid green most of the time. Anyone else experiencing the same?

 

[Jimmydreams]

It's a shame that better verification testing wasn't done with the Leaf before handing them out to customers. I think more effort should have been put into making sure the unit was tested the same way that most people were using the Clipper Creeks which it was replacing (i.e. Leaf timers set, plug it in and forget about it).

I agree. I know EVP has a mandate to start getting their monitoring numbers into their databases, but unreliable EVSE's are about the LAST thing I want (or expected) when I signed up for the program. Any numbers in their databases are suspect because they will reflect people adjusting to EVSE problems.

Tonight I will get home before the scheduled Blink charge timer and I'll be awake when it's supposed to start. I'm crossing my fingers that it will work ok.

One thing about the time change....my car was somehow set with Daylight Savings Time OFF, so I wonder if maybe the Blink is somehow aware of the time that the car thinks it is?? It's a stretch, but maybe that's why my Blink shut off last night at 1am....it thought it was 2am but the car said 1am. I know....doubtful.

 

[SeattleBlueLeaf]

new firmware load. I noticed today that mine says: L2R.1.2A.

I had to reset the screen calibration.

Please post your current Firmware load when you report an issue here. Seeing threads with a bunch of issues on a certain load is helpful.

Also, I haven't had any problems since I started using the ethernet jack instead of Wi-Fi.

 

[Randy]

Mike,
Do you remember what it was before? I've had my Blink for a couple of weeks and I thought it came with L2R.1.2A....

Thanks, Randy

 

[Randy]

Here's a weird one....My Blink has the auto daylight-savings time settings turned on. On the Blink screen, the time is correct. If I use my browser to access the Blink, the time is 1 hour ahead...

Anyone else?