Blink senses unplug

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ericinor

Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2011
Messages
17
I've been using the trickle and public stations for the last couple months while waiting for my free EV Project unit to be installed. Now that I have had my Blink EVSE for 3 days, it's driving me nuts. On average it senses that it has been unplugged every 7 minutes, then it immediately senses that it is plugged in again. This creates an annoying THUNK THUNK sound that can be heard through the house, and probably isn't great for the Leaf's charger. The really annoying effect, is that this shuts off the Leaf's pre-heating when power is interrupted. I called Ecotality up within a few hours of the install, and after doing the requisite power-cycle, they put in a service ticket. The Blink reports that's had a 189 charging sessions in those three days! I haven't heard anything back from them, and I'd probably go back to my trickle, but it's currently being upgraded.

It is currently running L2R.1.8A; any idea if requesting 2.0b firmware would do any good or is this more likely an install problem?
 
are you relying on wi-fi by chance? If so, get it hard wired or use a 110 adapter. I sounds like there is something fundamentally wrong with the Blink's wi-fi. Personally I would limit the amount the car is plugged in if you can until it gets fixed. Mine doesn't do anything like that, worked like a charm from day one.
 
I am relying on wifi. However, I don't think that's the issue, because I can access the Blink through the network even while it is doing the the reset.

I talked to a different Ecotality tech this morning, and he clearly had a much better understanding of the device. He said a few interesting things:

1) I have an older hardware version, manufactured 10 months ago (Rev XXX3, March 2011); and he could tell that it had not been installed before but that it may have been used as a test version by the engineers.

2) Anyone currently having issues with their Blink that may be software related, must wait until the 2.0 firmware is finalized in February before they will spend any service time on it. They will not push the 2.0b firmware to units on request; only if the engineers want to test it on that particular unit.

3) Frequent starting and stopping of the Leaf's charger won't cause any damage. I'm fairly sure he's not qualified to say that, and Ecotality certainly can't be held liable if he's wrong

4) My Blink didn't phone-home to Ecotality for 2 out of 4 days, even though it was connected to the LAN. I tested the LAN connection each day by connecting through it's intranet interface. Since it is phoning-home some and the network test is successful, it doesn't appear to be a firewall issue. I am currently running a port-scan to see if I can determine what port to open up in the firewall just in cast that is the problem.

5) The unit is evidently rebooting, the unit shows that it's only been "up" for the past 9 hours.

5) Usually these symptoms indicate a problem with the cable or J-plug connection, but in my case the hardware all appears pristine.

6) Barring #5, he suspects that the problem lies in the upstream electrical connection, possibly a leaky ground or fluctuating voltage. This is my vote, although I would hope that the electrician tested this all at installation.
 
ericinor said:
... 5) Usually these symptoms indicate a problem with the cable or J-plug connection, but in my case the hardware all appears pristine.

6) Barring #5, he suspects that the problem lies in the upstream electrical connection, possibly a leaky ground or fluctuating voltage. This is my vote, although I would hope that the electrician tested this all at installation.
The Blink displays a specific fault message when it ground faults. I'm 90% certain your Blink is faulty (yeah, I know...a real stretch). I certainly wouldn't allow my car to stop and restart charging every few minutes...I'd use the L1 until you get it fixed.
 
davewill said:
ericinor said:
I certainly wouldn't allow my car to stop and restart charging every few minutes...I'd use the L1 until you get it fixed.
Makes sense to me. I received my EVSE Upgrade yesterday and installed a NEMA 6-20 outlet, now all my charging issues have vanished. Sure makes me glad I didn't actually pay for Blinky and it's $1200 installation!

I called up Blink and told them that I would not be using Blinky until they got around to repairing it, because I was not interested in destroying my charger (which, by the way has over 400 charging sessions after 8 days). I told them that in a single week their EVSE had put a year's worth of charge cycles on my vehicle. I also asked them if it was alright for me to just leave it off until they got around to fixing it, which is in violation of the user agreement (I think); and they said that was fine.
 
An Ecotality tech came by and dug through the Blink unit today. I demonstrated it failing with a hardwired ethernet cable (and not some powerline adapater or anything, the real deal). He tried to blame it on the Leaf, but really couldn't come up with a reason that it wouldn't occur on commercial Blink units, Clipper Creeks, SemaConnects, and the EVSE Upgrade as well. His conclusion matched everyone elses, faulty hardware is causing it and firmware isn't going to fix it. He said that 100XXX serial numbers are problematic, but that the 300XXX units are better. He's requesting a replacement, but we'll see. It's amazing to me how Ecotality is just pissing money away on these units. I assume it was cheap to engineer and build (or, I hope so anyway) but their support cost have got to be unbelievable.

Oh, and I was quite amused when he showed me how to open up the Blink without clipping the seal... I had already poked around in there a bit, but I sure wasn't going to fess up!
 
ericinor said:
Oh, and I was quite amused when he showed me how to open up the Blink without clipping the seal... I had already poked around in there a bit, but I sure wasn't going to fess up!
Mind letting us in on the secret? :twisted:
 
The
DoxyLover said:
ericinor said:
Oh, and I was quite amused when he showed me how to open up the Blink without clipping the seal... I had already poked around in there a bit, but I sure wasn't going to fess up!
Mind letting us in on the secret? :twisted:
First remove the two bolts at the bottom of the unit, then the Blink seal will slide right through the slot as the cover is removed if the seal is rotated so it is vertically oriented. One of the few "errors" they made that actually makes our lives easier.
 
Now Ecotality is going to try the old SD swap trick. These folks have seriously got to fire all their engineers and hire one Ingineer.
 
Surprisingly enough, the SD swap appears to have fixed it. Charged successfully for 2 hours straight without a problem, that's 8 times longer than any previous charging session. The true test will be tonight, but this is a huge step in the right direction. FYI, both microsd cards were SanDisk.
 
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