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anotherburrito

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So I tried to take the rubber mat off the center console to unplug the wireless charger as I saw in a few other threads. Surprisingly on mine, the double-sided tape was super strong and the cover to the wireless charger came right off with the rubber pad! So, here's a look at the TREMENDOUS number of coils in the thing... Bonus shot of the underside of the cover that mentions it's NFC. I'm too dumb to understand what to do with this knowledge, but I thought y'all might like to see it. I unplugged the coils so I could mount my MagSafe charger to the rubber cover without those coils heating it up.

Rivian R1T R1S Here's a look at the wireless charger coils on the center console. coils
Rivian R1T R1S Here's a look at the wireless charger coils on the center console. underside
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Holy moly.... got coil?

There's your vampire drain right there ;)
 

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Khaneric

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Guess they got mad we were all unplugging our chargers :D

Rivian: "USE ALL THE STICKY TAPE!"
 

Tim-in-CA

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If there are soooooo many coils, why are people reporting positioning issues and charge disconnects when the phone slides around on the pad. I suppose that a coil must be aligned with the coil on the phone to charge properly.
 

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anotherburrito

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Now I'm curious, so I found this article about coil arrays: https://www.moshi.com/en/blog/more-coils-doesnt-mean-more-power/

Layering of coils increases distance - In order to fit the maximum number of coils under a charging surface, these coils are often layered, partially overlapping each other. Those coils installed on the lower layer(s) of the array will therefore be further away from the receiver device's coil, reducing the efficiency of power transfer and resulting in slower charging or excessive power consumption (or both).

Obstruction of overlapping coils - Another side-effect of layering is that the coils in lower layers can be partially obstructed by those above, which combined with the aforementioned distance increase for bottom-layer coils can further decrease the efficiency of power transfer.
 
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anotherburrito

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If there are soooooo many coils, why are people reporting positioning issues and charge disconnects when the phone slides around on the pad. I suppose that a coil must be aligned with the coil on the phone to charge properly.
I think it's because you have to be aligned with ONE coil to charge. If your phone moves, it's losing that coil and basically has to start over with another one.

Bottom line, it feels like Rivian could have saved some money and made the wireless charger more effective by paying more attention to the rubber surface to keep things secure rather than cramming tons of coils into the area.
 

crashmtb

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If there are soooooo many coils, why are people reporting positioning issues and charge disconnects when the phone slides around on the pad. I suppose that a coil must be aligned with the coil on the phone to charge properly.
The mat is too thick. In the other thread about this the fcc docs on the charger are posted. The specs indicate 5mm max from charger coil to device coil. The mat+a case and you’re easily past that. Also, even without a case, the camera bump on apple phones in particular makes wireless charging not work well
 

Tim-in-CA

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The mat is too thick. In the other thread about this the fcc docs on the charger are posted. The specs indicate 5mm max from charger coil to device coil. The mat+a case and you’re easily past that. Also, even without a case, the camera bump on apple phones in particular makes wireless charging not work well
Uggg ... guess, I'll need to cobble together a MagSafe cabled adapter like others are doing. Once again, this is another miss on Rivian's part. Looks like the engineer who designed the charging mat didn't actually have a newer generation phone to test with!
 
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anotherburrito

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I also tried to hold my phone against the MagSafe charger with the rubber mat in between. No sticky, no charge. So hiding the MagSafe under the rubber mat by ripping out the coils or something isn't happening either.

Rivian R1T R1S Here's a look at the wireless charger coils on the center console. IMG_6106 Small
 

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NY_Rob

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Would be very helpful to have a sw option to turn the QI charging system off.
 

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Holy moly.... got coil?

There's your vampire drain right there ;)
Yep, I read up on this a while ago. The QI controller chip repetitively powers up each coil, one at a time, to see if a phone is in range and initiate the charging negotiation protocol. IMO, wireless charging is currently a crap technology. I'll be disconnecting it when I get my R1S.
 

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I've yet to have it work with my phone unless I remove it from my already minimal case (which works with all the wireless chargers I already own). And even without the case on my phone it would go in and out and not stay connected. I'm sticking with the cable for now.
 

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I have the iPhone 12 mini. I have to put it in such an odd position to get it to charge, then I push the pedal and it slides a bit and loses the charge.
 

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I also tried to hold my phone against the MagSafe charger with the rubber mat in between. No sticky, no charge. So hiding the MagSafe under the rubber mat by ripping out the coils or something isn't happening either.

IMG_6106 Small.jpeg
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