SDG&E "Special" TOU schedule, and Blink time management

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gbarry42

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 10, 2011
Messages
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SDG&E apparently marches to their own internal drummer, and has gone off Daylight Savings Time as of today (Sunday). Or perhaps their infrastructure is based on Windows 98 :D Accordingly, they included a note in their bill, and sent out special notices informing us that during the Week Of Disagreement, the Super Off Peak rates wouldn't take effect until an hour later.

I remembered that the Blink had an automatic time setting feature, and thought that it could be turned off. And, so it does. So, here's how I dealt with that.

  • 0. Decide if you care. If you don't have Time Of Use, you don't care. If you don't start charging at midnight, you don't care. If you don't use the Blink timer, you don't care. If your rates differ by 2 cents like ours, you may decide it's not worth thinking about it just to save 20 cents.
    1. Wake up the Blink, go to Settings, and find the Date & Time options.
    2. Set the automatic time keeping to OFF
    3. Change the clock, by making it be 1 hour earlier.
    4. After the Congressionally mandated time change next Sunday, return to these settings, and put the clock back on Automatic.

SDG&E sent an amusing calendar showing the different schedules...except they color-coded everything the same color! I'll scan this if I have time for it.
 
Seems there are several issues popping up.

(1) SDG&E rates. This is apparently built into the meter. And ttweed took that photo of the calendar for us already. Go to this thread to see it and read more about SDG&E. http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=6529#p145625

(2) The Blink, and how to compensate. I already described this.

(3) The LEAF! Apparently it does not go on or off DST by itself. So, next week, go into the settings and switch off the DST bit.

Edit(s): This thread seems to back this up: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=2990&start=0#p68605 We'll verify this next week.
 
We've been talking about this subject in this thread...I work for the utility....

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=6529" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yes, the calendar somehow got printed incorrectly, not sure how that happened.

The bottom line is that there are a few days in Spring and Fall when the meter is out of sync with Federal DST, (see above thrad for explanation). That should be fixed with new Smart Meters and programming coming, hopefully, in 2012.
 
Seems I'm the only one who bothered with the Blink's clock. So, now, to undo the above Blink settings, go back out there, pull up the Date & Time setting, and tell it to set its clock automatically. Hit Next, and you're done. We're all on Standard time, now.

I did this last night (a day early, but I wanted to charge manually). As soon as I changed the setting, the Blink kicked on. That's because it was already after midnight. Hmm, I wonder if someone set a Blink to start between 1 AM and 2 AM, would it try to charge twice? Probably. No real difference, though.

As added entertainment, when I had plugged the car in earlier in the evening, the Blink started to charge it. Except, its display said, "Not Charging...check vehicle...". I had to pull the Blink plug to get it out of that one. Just another day with the Blink. :roll:
 
If I used the Blink's clock or timer, I'd have bigger problems than SDG&E's four-phase timezone nonsense.

The blink resets/reboots/crashes more than once a day, and the dumb charger is about the only part of it that works.
 
Blink seems to be an EVSE with a reptilian hindbrain that somehow remembers to switch on at midnight. Beyond that, the meter, the memory, the web server, the why-phi, anything goes :) Recently, it failed to charge one night, but this was the first time, since I got it. Otherwise, it does the important part faithfully.
 
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