Sigh... screen fading on boot is *best case*

Since about a week into my ownership of my Blink EVSE, it has been a deteriorating experience. I've regularly needed to unplug it and plug it back in to get the screen functioning correctly. Recently, I've given up on even getting the screen to work, and am just glad when I can charge my car.

In that best case, the screen fades into high contrast weirdness, which I've recorded here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWUoYYiPDLQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've been on the phone with support through this whole process. I've been assured that this isn't the norm and that my location is the only reason they haven't had someone out to correct this yet. I live in Georgia, and if I recall correctly, I might be the first Georgia customer.

Anyways, just thought I'd get my account of things down somewhere, in case it ends up helping someone else. Cheers!

Did you buy it or you got it for free as EVProject participant?

I bought it, and had it installed on April 6th. I had read about Blink not having a good reputation with their chargers, but I couldn't find another charger that had usage-reporting built in... if anyone knows of other options that include built-in metering (ie with a web interface, or on-screen reports), I'd be interested to know!

Just a FYI... I've had my Blink L2 (as part of the EV Project) for 11 months now. Since the 2.x software upgrade, it hasn't rebooted/crashed in over 100 days. Rock solid now. Before that, it sucked... rebooted constantly/randomly (but never really lost a nightly charge).

So, it really sounds like you have defective unit.. or maybe the SD boot card is corrupt or failing

I have read my version number to the support person (here it is: http://i.imgur.com/AD7qP.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false, and he did say that I was in line to get an update that would hopefully correct things, but that was before things started seriously going wrong, back when only some minor things were happening when I plugged/unplugged the car.

You've had the update for over 100 days? Mine was shipped within the last 2 or 3 months, I would hope that I got the same firmware as you installed by default...

This should be in a Blink thread. There are far, far to many already.

Thank you.

You're welcome, if one was stickied for this purpose, then it'd be there.

Feel free to delete if it's incorrect, and point me at guidelines or something, I figured the "blink evse level 2" thread wasn't for problems.

Thanks

jakswa said:

You're welcome, if one was stickied for this purpose, then it'd be there.

Feel free to delete if it's incorrect, and point me at guidelines or something, I figured the "blink evse level 2" thread wasn't for problems.

Click to expand...

Try the "Blink problems" thread maybe? http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=3905

From the pic you posted you have the ver. 1.8 software, not the latest 2.0 ver. You might also check out the "Blink 2.0" thread: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=7020 Here's what you should see for "Firmware" on the Devise Info screen when you have the ver. 2.0:


From the description of your screen problems, I would guess that you might have a bad SD card, possibly. Keep calling Blink support and get a tech out to look at it. The good news is that they usually continue to charge the car OK even when the software isn't working well.

TT

jakswa said:

I bought it, and had it installed on April 6th. I had read about Blink not having a good reputation with their chargers, but I couldn't find another charger that had usage-reporting built in... if anyone knows of other options that include built-in metering (ie with a web interface, or on-screen reports), I'd be interested to know!

Click to expand...

I'd rather use something simple like OpenEVSE + Killawatt if you need metrics, I find Blink kind of limited for what it does and somewhat bulky... I liked touchscreen and internet stuff for the first month, but it does not keep metrics automatically (beyond current and previous months), and having it not charge my car when it should few times just upsets me greatly... The only thing that was great is that it was free for me...
I'd rather have a charger that does nothing but charge the car rather than some complex stuff that serves me coffee on the way and sometimes fails to charge my car

But I should say that after last software upgrade I haven't had a charging problem and haven't rebooted it (yet?)
but I had an instance of it stuck in "processing..." screen, but it self recovered after I came back from the trip.
So I feel that it is getting better, but still, don't be blinded by metrics and other shiny things when you choose your charger, make sure that it reliably charges the car, there's nothing worse than finding your Leaf almost empty when you have to leave for work...

The metrics part is a requirement for my HOA to be able to see my monthly usage, and charge me accordingly. It turned out (at least from the quotes that I received), that getting the cheapest charging station I could find ($750) with an attached submeter would come out to about the same cost. I am unfamiliar with the openEVSE + killawatt you mentioned, I'll have to look into those.