Anyone using schedule to charge their Rav with a Blink?

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HD172

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 14, 2012
Messages
69
When using the Rav4's scheduler and a Blink charger I've had a couple of nights not charge. I was wondering if anyone else might have some insight on this. I also had the schedule on the blink and the Rav4 set to charge immediately which also did not charge. I've never had either of these issues with my leaf.
 
I tried a "scheduled" charge on my RAV4 EV early this morning and it worked flawlessly using a newly installed Leviton EVB32 series (EVSE L2, 32A, 7.7kW) charging station in my garage, which I highly recommend.
 
I wanted to get the 40amp leviton but they won't even come out and give you a quote unless your HOA signs three different forms in advanced. My HOA said they don't get involved with the inside of homeowners' garages so cant get it. Oh and they won't just sell you the unit either. I'm waiting for a clippercreek cs-100 so I can take advantage of the 10kw charger and have the ability to charge a Tesla if my wife ever lets me get one. For now I have the Blink and the toyota supplied connector which I upgraded. Right now I use the upgraded unit on my leaf and the blink for the Rav4. The blink does charge when immediately is selected. I want to take advantage of lower rates which is why I want to use the schedule. I'll keep experimenting to see what causes it to charge and not charge.
 
Leviton's EVB32 (Evr-Green 320 series) home chargers are not subject to Toyota's new RAV4 EV prospective buyer confirmation process. I bought my Leviton EVSE L2 32A charger from Home Depot Online, "no questions asked". I got it shipped to my front porch "free" in less than a week. It is a "plug-in" model, (provided you also order the "pre-wire installation and mounting kit", also available from Home Depot, $80), so there is no restrictions on installation, because you can plug it in to an existing NEMA 6-50R outlet in your garage, or have that type of outlet installed by any independent, licensed Electrician, or if you are knowledgable enough with electric wiring systems, you can do-it-yourself, very CAREFULLY of course. I did not even have to get a permit to install mine. It was a piece of cake and only took a few hours. AND, I use the same unit to charge my Chevy Volt as well! :mrgreen:
 
You don't have to jump through hoops with Leviton.

Buy a Cliiper Creek CS-50 or higher (up to CS-100) for both Rav4 and a future Tesla Model S "twin charger". Model Scan use the full 80 amps of the J1772 standard, hence a CS-100 is needed.

http://www.clippercreek.com/uploads/ClipperCreek%20CS%20Series%20Public%20EVSE.pdf
 
I ordered the cs-100 but I won't get it for a little while because their supply was bought by one person last week. Clippercreek still offers an EAA discount too. Last nights blink charge went well. I'm going to try something a little different tomorrow night.
 
HD172 said:
I ordered the cs-100 but I won't get it for a little while because their supply was bought by one person last week. Clippercreek still offers an EAA discount too. Last nights blink charge went well. I'm going to try something a little different tomorrow night.

I've been using the 30 amp Blink, but a friend gave me a Clipper Creek CS-40 that I will have modified to handle 60 amps (the Square D relays limit the power to 65 amps). I'll change the cord for $250 to a 75 amp version, and for extremely cheap, I'll be charging the Rav4 at full speed at home.

http://www.tucsonev.com/index.html
 
Tony when using your blink are you scheduling on the rav or the evse? My scheduling with the Rav has been going good. I'm going to retry scheduling from the blink tonight.
 
Ok scheduling from the blink definitely does not work. Not that that big of a deal. Setting the departure time from the rav4 is easy enough
 
HD172 said:
When using the Rav4's scheduler and a Blink charger I've had a couple of nights not charge. I was wondering if anyone else might have some insight on this. I also had the schedule on the blink and the Rav4 set to charge immediately which also did not charge. I've never had either of these issues with my leaf.

I am having troubles with scheduled charges. They work most of the time, but every so often they don't. My dealer has no idea. The Toyota rep has told them that others are having the problem too. Here's what I have:

- My schedule has a 7am departure every day.
- My charger is a Leviton 40A

I have tried to find a pattern to the failures, but nothing sticks. At first it seemed to happen the next day after I did an extended charge, but then it ended up happening other times too. It also seemed to happen after I did a manual charge, but that also wasn't it.

I plug in the car at night and the onboard computer says the time when it thinks it will start charging, in order to be ready by 7am. But approximately one third of the time it just never charges. I have NO errors on the charger.

When the charge fails to happen, I receive no emails from Entune about either the charge start or the charge finish, but I do notice in the morning that my range has increased slightly (by about 10 miles). If I then tell it to manually charge (either on the dashboard or the entune app) it happily charges, so it doesn't seem to be a charger problem or a bad connection.

Any ideas or suggestions?
 
I have had the same problem with my Leviton charger. Two different times it did not charge on my schedule set up. I do not see any pattern or reason for it not charging. It has been awhile since it has happened.
 
I have seen this happen a couple of times as well while using my Levition EVB320 series (32A) charging station. Once it skipped a scheduled charge completely, and one other time it seemed to abort all on its own while a previously scheduled charge was subsequently in-progress. Most of my charges do reach successful completion, but have generally not aligned with what was "projected" by the car itself per the center console's previously reported charging. In some cases the charge was completed (verified by EnTunes email notifications) about 30 minutes early - sometime more - before the actual scheduled time for completion.

The latter is not so much an issue to me, so long as the earlier time for charge completion does not inadvertently back up to BEFORE the (earliest) scheduled START time I have set up on the center console. Should that occur, then "scheduled" charging operations would become self-defeating and may coincide with higher utility company "TOU" electric rates, (which in my area are before midnight on weeknights).

I have three possible theories for these misguided behaviors:

1. There may be too much mechanical "stress" on the charge port connector, especially when the charger cord is stretched to reach the port by the full length of the cord (25' in my case) to reach the car. In that situation, a lot of dead weight rests on the connector and may cause some sort of "poor connection" (and potential overheating) when high current flow begins. I have read in the Leviton user manual something to the effect, that too much stress will cause a charging operation to terminate. This might explain a schedule start that never occurs. However, I am not seeing a FAULT detection LED upon plug-in, which of course, should be expected if the charge cord is under too much stress initially upon plug in.

2. As for the schedule charge duration misalignments, the RAV4 EV only recognizes an EVSE LEVEL 2 charger that outputs at 40A (or possibly 30A), but not 32A, regardless of which Leviton charging station is being used.

3. The charge port connector plug on the end of the charging cord is not fully "latched" in place via the trigger, release switch. The latch swtich probably has an electrical interlock associated with it and if not fully or properly latched, a charging "command" will not be activated, as scheduled, which would be unknown by the user in a delayed start (or scheduled) charging operation because s/he is not present at the time the charge was suppose to activate.

Btw, I have 2012 Chevy Volt I often schedule "delayed start" charges as well using the same Leviton charger. That EV always charges as expected, and has NOT exhibited any such aborant behaviors.

Bottom line, are these charging issues the car's fault or the charger's fault, or some combination of both? Unfortunately, it does not seem quite possible to determine which strictly by owners' observations in the field. However, it might be that the J1772 standard is not that mature and there are some things it may need to address to be more "idiot proof".
 
One thing I have noticed is that when mine fails to charge, it actually does charge a little. But here is what is weird... I have entune set up to email me about everything that it can, so it sends me charge start and charge stop (completion or interruption) notifications. When the car fails to charge, I get NO notification, either for a start or a stop. But I find that my range has increased by about 12-13 miles. Very weird.

Here's a theory (and nothing more than a theory): I have spotty cell coverage at my house. Sometimes when the car is parked at home and I use the Entune app to check status, it is unable to connect. Usually I just retry and it is fine. Now what if the car started charging properly in the middle of the night and then failed to contact Entune. What if it retried several times for about 20 minutes and then gave up, and in giving up, also stopped charging. That would account for 12 (or so) miles I gained and why I never received a start or stop email.

I guess to test this theory I will have to wait outside at a programmed start time and see if I can hear the car start charging and then stop.

I really wish the car had better diagnostics tools.
 
Another Blink connection overheat issue:

"Blink stations are not perfect. I have a mental list of the ones at my work that are compatible with my Fit EV (which uses a 6.6/30amp charger). Aside from software issues, which have mostly been fixed for updates, the Blinks aren't that reliable. One of the units often goes into a "failed self check" mode then pops out of it hours later. Many others will charge my Fit for about 20 minutes then stop. The Fit stops the charge, because the connector is overheating."

This EVSE connection overheat feature should be on the Rav4 (it currently does not have a heat shut down feature), and actually it should be on ALL EV's.

CHAdeMO has this built into their standard.
 
I have the levition 40 amp charger and I have had it not do a scheduled charge twice. One of the times I would agree with Dsinned's 3rd thought, when I plugged in the charger I did not get the same sound click and plugging in felt different. The second time I think it might be the same thing. Both user error. The levition connector doesn't lock in as smoothly as other chargers, best way to describe it is its sliding in sideways.
 
I had previously decided that the connector was NOT my problem. But I am going to reconsider that and try some more tests. I also have the Leviton 40A charger.

Here's why I had discounted the connector: First, I did try pushing the connector on very solidly every night and that didn't prevent missed charges. Second, when I miss a charge, I am still able to manually start a charge from the Entune app without ever touching the car. Third, the car does detect the charger.

Now I guess it could be possible that the connector has a good connection for the power leads, but a poor connection for control signals. Maybe there is a way that that would allow manual charging but not programmed charging, though I think that is unlikely.

Again, I think the key is that we need better diagnostics. I have an OBD 2 interface that I use with my other cars, but so far I have not gotten it to work with my Rav4 EV. I only tried briefly and my problem may have been a bluetooth issue. I will work on that again this weekend. My hope is that the OBD interface has better information. Has anyone else connected an OBD tool? If so what software did you use? I have a inexpensive $25 bluetooth OBD2 device and I use Torque on my Android tablet to read it.
 
The Toyota EV "experts" were at my dealership yesterday so I left my car there and they took a look. My only issue was the missed scheduled charges. They looked things over and didn't find anything wrong, including the connector. They said they will contact Tesla and get the detailed logs (apparently the best log information is what is sent over the air to Tesla). However, they did have a theory. Not a strong theory, but one I can try and hopefully others here having this issue can try it too. They suggested that it might have something to do with either opening the doors while plugged in or turning on the car while plugged in. I know I have certainly gone out to the car after plugging in, and sometimes I even turn the car on to check charge times. But I never correlated that to missed charges. So now I plan to always shut the car BEFORE I plug in and not go back until morning. And if I do need to go back to the car, I will make note of that. Because this is an intermittent problem, I will need many tests. (It will only have to fail once to disprove this theory, but it will have to succeed many times before I'd feel confident that the theory is sound.)

Thoughts? Anyone else willing to test this out? If so, please make careful notes on when you do and don't open the doors after plugging in and if you do open the doors, did you turn the car on.

Last night I shut the car BEFORE plugging in and it did properly charge on schedule. I know that means nothing on its own, but it's my first data point.
 
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