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[DPsSRnSD]

Do we put in our orders now for the 2.5 boards? Are they in stock?

[MrDude_1]

Yes, that's easy to do. We don't *like* to do it because we've had too many customers put a Tesla --> J adapter on and then plug into a J station with all 3 chargers, forgetting to turn them down, and then, as Brandon puts it, "blow up the station".

So while it is easy to do we generally don't offer it because we don't want to destroy the J station infrastructure.

How does that happen? is it the inrush current from the caps that does it? Or is it not respecting the pilot signal?

[Erasmo]

For that price I would just fly over with a few suitcases full of them and make a short vacation of it.

I'll make fajitas!

I was more thinking in the direction of Europe The risk of being refused at the border is a bit too high for me to bet a plane ticket on, at least until about 2020...

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

Yes, that's easy to do. We don't *like* to do it because we've had too many customers put a Tesla --> J adapter on and then plug into a J station with all 3 chargers, forgetting to turn them down, and then, as Brandon puts it, "blow up the station".

So while it is easy to do we generally don't offer it because we don't want to destroy the J station infrastructure.

How does that happen? is it the inrush current from the caps that does it? Or is it not respecting the pilot signal?

He just means drawing too much current - nothing to do with inrush, just overloading.

SCv2 and 2.5 don't even hook up the pilot signal. I think this is a regrettable reactionary approach to having encountered issues with J stations failing; I would much prefer to have the signal available and read in to the unit so that the owner/operator of the vehicle can see it and make a decision about whether to follow the pilot signal or ignore it.

One other indication that used to exist and doesn't now is station voltage - there's no way to tell on SCv2 or 2.5 what the station voltage is, and the entire control regime is based on current rather than voltage (which is vaguely commendable), but there's no way for the owner/customer to see this for themselves to understand why the chargers might be delivering lower power than requested.

Without indications, the owner has no insight into the behavior of the device, and no way to know what kind of action to take. That's a criticism especially applicable for Zero that DigiNow seems to have subtly inherited.

They should publicly document and justify their product decisions to their customer base for themselves, rather than pile hasty tactical decisions on top of each other until it takes a "saga" of story-telling to explain why the product is so quirky.

[MVetter]

Quirky but delicious. Also sometimes less information is more. For example in the past there have been times when we did thorough explanations of what each part and component did. This lead some customers thinking they fully understood everything and would then attempt to make their own modifications based on what they saw as room for improvement. Almost without fail this lead to them bricking the chargers. This is no good for anyone.

The new approach is to say, "It works. How? Magic. Don't touch the magic please." which tends to satisfy most people. When we become perfect we'll figure out the best way to approach this. For now just accept that they're magic.

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

I don't think that's a viable position for a vendor to state publicly. I'm suggesting for your sake that you try not to describe your public relations strategy in public, especially in a case like this.

That said, I'm distinguishing two kinds of paths to go down in this regard, and Zero and DigiNow have chosen a particular path that yields the current ecosystem, where the interaction starts with some unhealthy elements, and then there's a feedback loop that tends to say that the lesson is not to interact, inform, or make claims.

The reason I avoid documenting DigiNow's chargers is that I have an NDA with them and performed work under contract for V1, which makes me extra careful with information gained via that channel. I also learned very quickly that information that seemed trustworthy was quickly forgotten or uprooted, because no one wrote anything down to ensure consistency except for me, which meant that the information was constantly shifting and hard to verify.

This is not a personal criticism, so much as a process criticism. I started a process with SuperCharger V1 that led to the wiki. DigiNow diverged from that and still remains in the murky realm of technicians talking shop off the record in inscrutable ways, which I manage to mine extremely gradually for verifiable information I can turn into something legitimate.

I find DigiNow's efforts overall to be commendable as this is a difficult space for any vendor to thrive in. But there are many ways in which DigiNow's efforts have been hobbled by its own perspective, and I want to be clear that it, like Zero, may find itself in a difficult position when a wider audience with different expectations starts paying attention to this space.

But I'll say this particularly: on the road, I do not find DigiNow's offerings to be particularly reassuring over the course of its life. V2.5's protocol is a tentative step in the direction of maturity, but it's only documented in a Google Document that I wrote after painstaking back and forth trying to get what was said verbally confirmed in several different ways because it was hard to interpret.

And even armed with this document and some ad hoc tooling, there's plenty I can't reliably diagnose myself. As a sometimes test engineer for DigiNow's products, I've been under-informed the entire time, and I should be trusted far more than has been shown.

[MVetter]

Brian please smile sometime or I will be forced to send Terry over to you with a puppy

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

Brian please smile sometime or I will be forced to send Terry over to you with a puppy

Gestures of good will wore out on me in this context, for reasons we don't have to get into but I know you understand (unrelated to DigiNow).

A little actual help would be nice. I'm overextended in the general direction of your surroundings and am trying to ensure something substantial emerges. Remember that I've only been compensated in kind so far, and I've been generous with my time, attention, and discretionary spending.

[Emtkopan]

I know I'm not the only person who has ordered one of the v2.5 Diginow's. Is anyone else doing the install themselves or are they having a shop do the install? Just curious. There isn't a write up on how to install the new belly pan with chargers yourself so I plan on documenting mine with some pictures. When I'm done I'll post it up here.

[MVetter]

You've also got the last of the modded Zero pans before our custom pans which is a tighter fit and took a lot of extra labor and using expensive masks so we didn't breathe aluminum dust.

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

I know I'm not the only person who has ordered one of the v2.5 Diginow's. Is anyone else doing the install themselves or are they having a shop do the install? Just curious. There isn't a write up on how to install the new belly pan with chargers yourself so I plan on documenting mine with some pictures. When I'm done I'll post it up here.

You can do the install yourself. Please do this.

I am not documenting DigiNow's work publicly the same way I'm not documenting Hollywood Electrics' fairing publicly. In the latter case, I wrote the documentation for hire and it belongs to them like V1 SuperCharger belongs to the clients in that case as well.

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

You've also got the last of the modded Zero pans before our custom pans which is a tighter fit and took a lot of extra labor and using expensive masks so we didn't breathe aluminum dust.

I paid you for your efforts. That's a professional relationship. I also prepaid you for further work that is still pending work that I only find out about gradually.

I put trust in the effort that way. I ask you to frame the invoice to include the man-hours and I pay for those. I like paying people for services rendered and am not a cheapskate.

What I want is a better approach with the public that doesn't lean on the unofficial wiki or my reputation. If my word means anything, it's because you haven't made any claims and are leaning on others to do it for you. That's unpaid labor and investment on my part.

[Emtkopan]

Morgan, mine had the plastic pan that you had to replace with metal one.

Brian, I wish the install was as straightforward as you would think but it’s not. Too many questions to list here right now.

[Emtkopan]

Whatever issues you guys have is between you. I’m thankful for all the work and sacrifices you guys have made. As an end user I just want a product to work as advertised and bring improvement to my joy of riding my Zero. Apple had their internal differences back in the day too.

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

Morgan, mine had the plastic pan that you had to replace with metal one.

Brian, I wish the install was as straightforward as you would think but it’s not. Too many questions to list here right now.

You're right. I'm just trying to encourage you to do it and air your perceptions in an independent way.

This is how we learn, by airing our issues in a collaborative environment, not by shutting down.