[beanjapan]

I do believe that after a long period if inactivity (3 or more days) the volt goes into a deep sleep to preserve the 12 V battery and not waste 12 V power conditioning the full battery.

Did you turn your car on? Was it at full charge?

Did you try to remote start it (burn some energy) and then plug it back in?

 

[kns]

I don't know anything about Blink EVSE but, as an EE, here is what I would do to isolate the problem:

1) disconnect the Volt from the EVSE and the EVSE from the power source; wait several minutes to allow anything that has overheated to cool.

2) apply power to the EVSE; observe indicators; if not normal, the EVSE is the problem rather than the Volt

3) if EVSE indicators are normal, do not connect to the Volt but attempt to start the Volt; if the Volt starts then there should be sufficient charge in the 12V battery to communicate with the EVSE; if the Volt does not start then there is a good chance that the 12V battery is depleted. charge that battery before continuing; later figure out what was left on to discharge the 12V battery (blue tooth problem?)

4) if the Volt started then let it run for a few minutes and then shut it down

5) connect the Blink EVSE to the Volt; if indicators are normal, then it is likely that some sort of power source variation (surge, low voltage) put the Blink into a failure state from which it could not recover and you are now good to go.

6) if the Blink EVSE or the Volt indicate it is not charging then disconnect the Blink and connect the OEM 110v EVSE (or another alternative) (plug it in before connecting it to the Volt) to see if it will charge the Volt; if it does then you have isolated the problem to the Blink EVSE.

Hope that helps. Good luck. Let us know what you find.

KNS

 

[TSquare]

Came home after a two week absence only to find my blinking green light in the Volt not flashing. Immediately I looked at my charger and it was in this strange cycle of the star up screen coming on then the screen that says hold on while we set things up.

Unplugged the Blink unit and thought it woul reset itself and no result. Called Ecotality, they couldn't offer assistance other than schedule me to receive a call from the local technician which I was told could take 24 business hours to get ack to me.

Does anyone else think that three days is a bit long for a response time? Any ideas of how broken the unit is or repair ideas? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

I had an internal error on my Blink. I called the Blink customer support number, 888-998-2546. They instructed my to unplug the Blink for 3 minutes then plug back in. That corrected the error but they still sent out a local technician. I think he came out the next day and replaced some connections inside the unit. He told me that they used some poor connections and were replacing them as this error shows up.

 

[VeridianJoule]

Thanks for the replies so far. The Volt is not the issue since the car charges with the supplied 120V supplied charger just fine. The Blink unit is the issue and I have unplugged it and left it over night with out power and restarted the unit and it just keeps on repeating the same cycle, Welcome screen then wait while we set things up, then blank then welcome screen then wait while we set things up, over and over. It is the Blink unit for certain.

 

[mikeg3]

I do believe that after a long period if inactivity (3 or more days) the volt goes into a deep sleep to preserve the 12 V battery and not waste 12 V power conditioning the full battery.

Did you turn your car on? Was it at full charge?

Did you try to remote start it (burn some energy) and then plug it back in?

I hope the sleep isn't that deep. Here in Texas, I need the TMS to control the temperature of the fully charged main battery on a plugged in Volt. WOT assured me that this was true, but there were some skeptics.

Do you know for sure?

 

[DonC]

Three days seems long but 24 business hours doesn't. Sort of depends on how you view it.

I've had my Blink unit for two years and I've only seen a couple of very minor issues where the unit reset, and that may have been due to line voltage. Other people have not been so lucky. My take on Blink is that that the units are solid but the networking software is very buggy.

Good you have a backup charging solution. You could try to flip the breaker and see if that helps. Wouldn't think it would though.

 

[Joule Thief]

Try loosening the shroud on the Blink. I had a similar issue where it kept freezing and would reboot then freeze again. It's a known issue to Blink. The touchscreen may also become unresponsive during the setup screen. The problem is the weatherstripping around the perimeter of the screen gets pressed too hard against the screen when you tighten the shroud all the way. If its installed indoors the weatherstrip really isn't necessary.

I removed my shroud completely to troubleshoot and confirm this was the issue while waiting a couple days for the Blink tech to show up. After confirming that was the issue, I reinstalled it but left it a bit loose and the problem never came back. When the Blink tech finally arrived he said the was a common problem and he loosened it even more. Then he performed a few other service bullitens, upgraded the FW and was on his way.

Hope this helps, good luck.

 

[saintyohann]

The Blink has it's software on a micro SD card and if the software got corrupted it goes into the startup loop you mentioned. My guess is the tech will check the voltages and then replace the card.

 

[drbruns]

Try loosening the shroud on the Blink. I had a similar issue where it kept freezing and would reboot then freeze again. It's a known issue to Blink. The touchscreen may also become unresponsive during the setup screen. The problem is the weatherstripping around the perimeter of the screen gets pressed too hard against the screen when you tighten the shroud all the way. If its installed indoors the weatherstrip really isn't necessary.

I removed my shroud completely to troubleshoot and confirm this was the issue while waiting a couple days for the Blink tech to show up. After confirming that was the issue, I reinstalled it but left it a bit loose and the problem never came back. When the Blink tech finally arrived he said the was a common problem and he loosened it even more. Then he performed a few other service bullitens, upgraded the FW and was on his way.

Hope this helps, good luck.

I had the same issue as Joule Thief and the solution he describes worked for me as well. Unit has worked flawlessy since.

 

[daryllafferty]

I had the same thing happen to me. Tried everything else, but the final solution was to wait for the technician. I think he came the next day in my case.

He replaced a couple of boards. He said he had seen this problem frequently on the Blink units, and that once he replaced those boards they had not had further problems. That is my case too, after 6 months or more.