Don't Blink

[Shinysideup]

After spending a half-hour looking for a ChargePoint location at the Santa Barbara county complex, I gave up and checked in to the nearby Ramada at 11:30 at night on my Grand Tour to get a Bill Mayer saddle in Ventura. (More about the trip later in another post).

I was 1000% delighted to find out from the very competent and pleasant clerk on the night desk that the motel had 3 chargers. I went through the rather cumbersome process of scanning a code with my phone, keying in my name, email, and credit card as a Blink guest, getting a temporary guest code back to enter into the chargers, and plugged in. Empulse dash showed 24 amps charging... sweet, even if they do charge by the hour until the user unplugs the charger.

I woke up at 5 a.m. and decided to get dressed, trudge outside to disconnect, in order to save myself a few dollars. The dash showed that I had less SOC (49%) than when I arrived and a charge rate of a MINUS 3 amps. That kind of shoots this leg of my trip all to heck!

Fortunately, my room was on the ground floor with a sliding glass door that opens out to a patio. I was able to run my bike over the curb and park on the patio. Then I ran my extension cord across the room and out the door to plug in my Level 1 Clipper Creek, delaying my trip by only 3 1/2 hours. Hope my neighbors don't complain about the sound of the charger cooling fan; it's pretty loud with the glass door cracked.

I just contacted Blink via their website to alert them to a possibly defective charger and ask for a refund. Interestingly, their refund policy says I have to PROVE that I didn't receive a charge. How in the world could anyone offer evidence of electrons they don't have? 

Anyone else have this experience with Blink? This is the first time I've had this happen with any charging session.

[protomech]

As Ecotality is going through bankruptcy now .. I think it's unlikely that you will get a refund : \

-3 amps is pretty weird though .. the charger DEFINITELY should not drain the battery pack. That's a ~300 watt drain .. I assume headlight and tail light are on, but that's still very high. Is a 3 amp drain rate typical when the bike is turned on and unplugged?

You might also drop a note on the charging station at plugshare.com.

[skuzzle]

I'm not sure this is a Blink issue.  This morning I plugged in my already charged Empulse into the Clipper Creek charger to warm the batteries.  The charger finishes and stops charging.  The batteries get cold again and the 300 watt heater turns on (plus the lights).  Over a half an hour I started with a 100% charge and ended with a 98% charge.  I'm not sure if the charger would restart at some point, or if the bike would continue to drain.  It certainly doesn't go into maintain mode.

[protomech]

I would suppose the charger would kick back once it reached a certain state of charge - perhaps 95%. Better yet would be to draw AC power to use the battery heaters.

How cold did it get overnight for you two?

[skuzzle]

How cold did it get overnight for you two?

It was the low 40's for me.  Not sure what the temperature in the uninsulated garage was.  I suppose the charge does kick back on at some point.  I've never have had less than 98% when I unplug it, although it usually gets unplugged within an hour or two from 100% SOC.

[Shinysideup]

My pre-dawn temp was probably around 50 degrees. But there's no evidence that the SOC every made it to 100% and  back down again. And if it did, why wouldn't the charger kick in to recharge?

[protomech]

Yeah, I don't think it ever charged. You could probably figure it out by pulling the logs from the bike.

Pulling 3 amps for 5.5 hours would reduce the SOC by approximately 18%.