On-Going Problems with Blink 240 Volt Chargers

[TN Volt]

I don't want to be that person that only posts the negative experiences and is silent on the positive experiences, so I will start this post by saying my 2012 Volt that I have owned for 7 months and over 8k miles has been amazing and virtually problem free, although I am looking forward to GM having a good fix for the low speed strut noise.

However, I have been extremely frustrated with my Blink 240 charger system. Our area qualified for the Ecotality "free" charger. I ended up paying around $200 plus taxes for the install. Final bill came from SPX, so I'm a bit confused how all the parties work together (Ecotality, SPX and Blink etc.). I wonder if all the different parties involved make it more difficult to get service handled. Regardless, from day 1, the Blink charger screen was hard to type on. It acted like part of the screen was "dead" so getting it to connect to my network took more than 30 minutes. Installer told us that was normal. After that, it worked really well for about 4 weeks and then one day the screen messed up. You could read part of the screen but other parts had vertical lines running through it and it would not charge the car. Called Blink and they said to cycle the power on it. That worked for several days and then it did the same thing. Called Blink. They said to cycle power and they would get somone to come look at it. Cycled power, worked one day and then messed up again. After that, cycling the power would get it to reboot and come up for a few minutes to a couple of hours and then it would mess up again. Charger was unusuable for a couple of weeks. Called Blink almost daily and they finally contacted someone to come out. They thought it would be a simple fix with some kind of new card (sounded like an SD card or something). Each time, the screen would be lit up with lines running through it. Electrician showed up and worked on it for several hours to no avail, so installs a new Blink charger and leaves. When I get home from work, all looks good, at first. I plug in the car, the charger makes its normal "thunk" sound and it starts charging for roughly 30 seconds (car honks, green light on) and suddenly car gives its indication it has stopped charging and I look at the charger and it has gone completely blank. After about 30 more seconds you can tell it is trying to reboot. It reboots roughly 3 times and finally says "ready to charge". I plug it back in and this time its starts charging and stays charging. Next morning, went out to garage and the Blink unit is dark and light that should be blinking on the Volt is dark. Disconnected from Volt and cycled power on charger. It rebooted and came back up, but by the time I got home it was dark again. Cycling power did nothing. Screen was completely black which was different from original charger. Gently tapping on charger would cause the screen to light up and start rebooting, but it would go dark again before it could get through the cycle. Called Blink again and they said they were creating an "urgent ticket" on it and would get it looked at, but I have heard nothing from them in a week. At this point, I'm extremely dissapointed with the product and now with their service. Is there a quality control problem with these units? I understand that 2 units is no where close to a valid sample size to predict reliability, but it still makes me question their quality. Is anyone else having issues with the Blink chargers? Although grant money paid for most of the charger and install, Blink still was paid in full for their product and as a fellow taxpayer, we have the right to expect quality products and service no different from someone that paid full price themselves.

[solar_dave]

We have 5 Blinks at work, seems one is always in some bad state. Last one was the screen was so misalign with the toch pad it was almost impossible to enter your zip code, required to get it to charge. Once it just was offline, unable to phone home. But lately they seem OK. So far there are only 3 EV at work so I don't mind so much, but that is bound to change. Hopefully it will be after Jan first when they are going to start charging for the service.

[DonC]

Blinks have known to be problematic. You are not alone in your experience. Not at all. Luckily for me I've not had even one problem. So in answer to your question, yes there is a problem with the Blinks. Maybe in the network more than the physical units, but it's all the same at the end of the day.

[Stilgar99]

Just a data point...my SPX is working fine (knock on wood.....)

Stilgar

[drbruns]

A few days after installing my Blink, I went back to put in the Time of Use Rates and the touch screen was frozen. I had to trip the breaker to reboot the charger and once I went through the hassle of recalibrating the touch screen, it worked fine.

[RCB268]

My SPX/ChargePoint unit isn't immune to issues, either. When I plugged in on Monday, the unit gave an error message: "Suspended: over charge." Calling their 800 number, the tech confirmed that the unit had failed, "...the 2nd unit in the country to do that..." and they are sending out an "updated" model free of charge. I'll report back if there are further issues.

[SPX EVSupport]

However, I have been extremely frustrated with my Blink 240 charger system. Our area qualified for the Ecotality "free" charger. I ended up paying around $200 plus taxes for the install. Final bill came from SPX, so I'm a bit confused how all the parties work together (Ecotality, SPX and Blink etc.). I wonder if all the different parties involved make it more difficult to get service handled.

TN Volt, Sorry to hear you are having difficulty with your Blink. Unfortunately SPX does not directly handle customer support for the Blink. However if you reach out to our Tech Support they will either aid you in resolving the issue or help you reach the correct contact within ECOtality. Please feel free to contact us at 1-877-805-3873. ~Melinda, SPX EV Team

[shrink]

Sorry you're having difficulty. I've had a Blink EVSE for my LEAF since 9/2011. Back then it was very, very buggy and a lot of LEAF owners were having many issues. I was personally having issues for about 2 months after installation and got so frustrated I threatened to have the thing removed. I was having an intermittent charging issues. I would plug in and sometimes it would charge, but other times nothing would happen. I couldn't afford to have spotty charging on my LEAF and still get to work.

Anyway, I did find that the Blink staff were very thorough with troubleshooting. Customer support via telephone is available 24/7 and that's really nice. They do have to go through their trouble ticket system to schedule an in-person visit and that can take a little more time. Personally, I was irritated with my particular case because the Blink engineers tried blaming everything from the WiFi connection, to an ethernet cable, to a bad ground, to the car itself; and it took two separate electrician's visits to solve my case. In my opinion they were wasting my time and the electrician's time, but that's just engineers being thorough. My issue ended up being a faulty charging cable. Once that was swapped out, the unit has since been trouble-free for 6-7 months. I'm actually having a second Blink installed for my Volt soon.

Yours, however, sounded like software issue that I thought the latest firmware updates would fix, but that's obviously not working for you. 1-week is a long time. I imagine they are trying to schedule an onsite visit with the contracted electricians. Nonetheless, I do feel your frustration. Like I said, I was so fed up, I asked what I needed to do to get the unit removed and out of the EV Project.

However, they did make things right in the end and while your patience will be certainly be tried, I know they will make it right for you. These are new units and yes they have been buggy. That's part of being in the EV Project. We are beta testers so they can learn and improve the product and infrastructure. Again I know its incredibly irritating, but you received a $1000+ unit (including labor) nearly for free. After a few weeks you should have a working unit for the life of your Volt and future EV's.

Again, I know this is a lot easier for me to write in retrospect, and I must add my situation was also much easier. I was able to use a modified Nissan EVSE (http://evseupgrade.com/) as a back-up to keep L2 charging while the Blink was on the blink.

In your case, I'm sure they will make it right. If it's any consolation, you are not alone (http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewforum.php?f=43) and my initially buggy unit has been trouble free and worry free for a long time.

[TN Volt]

Shrink, I appreciate your encouragement. With the first unit, I really thought it was a software and screen alignment issue. But after several hours, the electrician gave up and installed the second one. However, the second one never worked right from the first time I plugged in the car. It acts like its got a short in it. You can tap on it and it will start to reboot and then go dead. To be honest, the electrician did not leave me with much confidence after he didn't even clean up fully before leaving. There were several short spliced wires on the ground below the charger when I got home.

We called Blink yesterday and they assured us they were working on getting an electrician to come out again and look at it. They have been very courteous on the phone. Sure enough, we received a call within a couple of hours that an electrician would be here Friday morning. I am very hopeful this gets it fixed. While the 120V charger that comes with the car has worked flawlessly, I miss having the great statitics tracked by the Blink charger and the car being usable on pure electricity more than 1 time a day. The 120V is just too slow now and I hate using gas - lol. I am very thankful for the Ecotality program which made this product very affordable. Also, since they handled scheduling the wiring and installation, I haven't had to worry with the finger pointing as to whether its a defective product or installation problem.

[Gregrt]

Well Tennessee might have got a bad bunch of Blinks. Memphis here and got my charger installed on Thursday. Friday rolled around and it seemed to lock up, so I did the unplug from 240v plug, wait and plug back in. It would not go past the calibration screen. It still charged so the next Thursday, July 5th a repairman from Nahsville 3 hours away comes to fix it. The cover was on too tight and was pressing on the touch screen, after removing a screw and a few test he was back on the road to Nashville. So last Thursday everything is grand. Last night, July 10 i hear a big pop from the garage. I walk out the car starts honking, the blink is dead. I unpluged it and reset the breaker, it is dead now. So now no fast charging, till the guy from Nashville comes back to Memphis.