The EVSE manufacturer Andersen have gone into administration, what software support is there for customers who have Andersen EV chargers?
How long will their chargers work for?
The EVSE manufacturer Andersen have gone into administration, what software support is there for customers who have Andersen EV chargers?
How long will their chargers work for?
Looks like David Simpson has gone solo
New company called Simpson and Partners.
Having been involved with computers for most of my "career" I am very concerned about the introduction of electronics and software into the fixed installation wiring. I would include Car chargers in this.
Having had: computers bricked during updates, suppliers change business models abandoning old equipment, the failure of electronic components etc. Along with the continuing obsolescence of MCBs, RCDs etc. The electronics are just another failure point with software making it even worse. I don't think anyone has yet managed to develop provably correct software so there will always be problems.
I dont remember ever testing an old mechanical RCD that failed, often they have had better response times than some modern RCDs. It would be interesting to see how the failure rate of mechanical RCDs compares with those using electronic bits.
I am still using a forty+ year old Wylex consumer unit in my house and I can still buy the MCBs for it. I am used to trying to obtain obsolete MCBs/Mina Switch/RCDs etc for different manufacturers and still have a small stock of various now obsolete items for new installations I have done in the last 15 years. I have little confidence the modern equipment will still be performing or have spares available after 40 years.
The idea of some "electricians" going around updating software in AFDDs or chargers does not fill me with confidence.
I can imagine the call at 10:00 PM "My car charger won't work, I have a 200 mile drive in the morning what are you going to do about it!"
I am glad that I have retired :)
Meanwhile in Worcester today I paid in cash at the parking machine.
Very sensible, though I must say I try to work with cash for things like that as a matter of course. Knowing how badly some commercial hardware and software is put together makes me very wary - I suspect there are far more errors with digital transactions than folk realise, because very few people check their bank statements in the same way they would check their change, and a few low value errors here or there will probably not be seen.
Mike
I had a chat with one of the ladies on the manufacturers stands at Elex in Coventry about their new AFDD, I passed comment that I had looked at some of the battery Energy Storage owners groups on Facebook and I saw quite a few posts along the lines of “I flashed the Battery Management System with a firmware update, now the batteries won’t take a charge, what can I do?” and I do wonder what could happen if people start trying to “update” the firmware in a consumer unit full of AFDD.
The lady laughed when I said I do hope that that the firmware their AFDDs is basically sealed for life and can’t be fiddled with.
the difference there though is that's DIY, if the firmware is managed by another party and installed as such, the liability falls with them.
far more likely if the software as a service types get their way, that the consumer unit of the future will be free but you sort of rent the software, and have to pay a subscription to keep using it or it switches off at year end until you do so. A small group of long haired individuals will write aftermarket utilities that allow you to run some sort of openCU program license free, that allows a few models that it has been tested on to work really well, but in most cases just causes the lights to pulse at a disturbing frequency.
More seriously, and amusingly, I bumped into a rather downhearted looking chap at the roadside today with a laptop and on closer investigation a really long lead trailing right through a hedge into the carpark behind . On saying hi, apparently he was re-configuring a charge point, I know not which model, but at the moment the charger cannot get a decent mobile phone signal. Apparently it needs an always-on 4G mobile data service to operate at all, without that cannot load its firmware update, and is therefore at the moment is so much dead metal. And this is apparently a newish one from an outfit still in business that can afford to pay for folk to sit at the roadside with laptops and data cards.
I wonder how folk will charge their cars if the mobile phone network is offline or attacked ?
Oh, brave new world.
Give me Fusewire, give me Sunshine,
as Morcombe and Wise used to sing - or maybe not..
Mike.
Buy a BMW and pay a subscription to use the heated seats.
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