Official Rivian Portable Charger Guide

[Autolycus]

I think this got lost in the excitement over the R1T manual, but the manual/guide for the Portable Charger was also posted.

Portable Charger Guide

Sponsored

 

[Mjhirsch78]

I think this got lost in the excitement over the R1T manual, but the manual/guide for the Portable Charger was also posted.

Portable Charger Guide

Awesome. Thanks!

 

[Dark-Fx]

I'm pretty curious about this part of the specs of the portable charger:

I'm wondering if another adapter is made to go from a 30A TT-30 outlet (which is a 120V circuit) to the "32 A" adapter if you'd actually be able to select 24A on the Rivian and charge at that rate on 120V. I know from watching the reviews that you can manually set a limit in the Rivian. Just curious if that would also apply/work in this situation. Lots of older campgrounds don't have 240V 50 amp sockets available. 24A@120V is pretty darn slow but would still be twice the speed of a 15A circuit.

 

[DucRider]

I'm pretty curious about this part of the specs of the portable charger:

I'm wondering if another adapter is made to go from a 30A TT-30 outlet (which is a 120V circuit) to the "32 A" adapter if you'd actually be able to select 24A on the Rivian and charge at that rate on 120V. I know from watching the reviews that you can manually set a limit in the Rivian. Just curious if that would also apply/work in this situation. Lots of older campgrounds don't have 240V 50 amp sockets available. 24A@120V is pretty darn slow but would still be twice the speed of a 15A circuit.

The actual charger (in the vehicle) has specs of 12A @ 120V

 

[Dark-Fx]

The actual charger (in the vehicle) has specs of 12A @ 120V

I know earlier Teslas could charge at 24A on 120V in this situation but they also aren't restricted to the J1772 specification (which actually has a 16A limit, not 12A). I'm curious if this is one of those things that might get updated/changed later on.

 

[DucRider]

I know earlier Teslas could charge at 24A on 120V in this situation but they also aren't restricted to the J1772 specification (which actually has a 16A limit, not 12A). I'm curious if this is one of those things that might get updated/changed later on.

From the EPA application

 

[ajdelange]

I'm pretty curious about this part of the specs of the portable charger:

I'm wondering if another adapter is made to go from a 30A TT-30 outlet (which is a 120V circuit) to the "32 A" adapter if you'd actually be able to select 24A on the Rivian and charge at that rate on 120V. I know from watching the reviews that you can manually set a limit in the Rivian. Just curious if that would also apply/work in this situation. Lots of older campgrounds don't have 240V 50 amp sockets available. 24A@120V is pretty darn slow but would still be twice the speed of a 15A circuit.

Remember that the "portable charger" is not a charger. The charger is in the truck. It is, nonetheless, clear that the charger in the car can accept from 90 - 264 V and convert that up to the ~ 400 V needed to charge the battery and do it up to 48A. If you connect the portable "charger" with its 14-50R to a Variac set for 240 V presumably you can crank that Variac up to 264 V at which point the EVSE will disconnect it if the charger in the truck doesn't do it first. And you should be able to turn it down to 120 V too but I'm guessing that as things are today the charger in the car would interpret this reduction in voltage caused by bad connection and dramatically reduce the current drawn or even shut off completely.

Perhaps the simplest answer is that if Tesla can charge a 385 V battery from a TT-30 a Rivian can to if Rivian decides to allow it. Were they to do so they would have to build an adapter to program their EVSE to send proper current limit information to the truck.

Remember that WRT J1772 the goal is to be able to charge from any charger that adheres to J1772 - not to necessarily restrict themselves to the J1772 envelope.

 

[swazi]

Are there any word on if Rivian will sell additional adapters in the future?
I am in need of a rather obscure 20A/240v adapter and also a 30A for campgrounds that don't have 50A service.

 

[timesinks]

Are there any word on if Rivian will sell additional adapters in the future?
I am in need of a rather obscure 20A/240v adapter and also a 30A for campgrounds that don't have 50A service.

No word, but I suspect it is capable.

 

[Ladiver]

You could probably use a 50A to 30A adapter for campgrounds.

 

[OEVA]

You could probably use a 50A to 30A adapter for campgrounds.

I've never seen an adapter that allows an EVSE expecting 40 (or 50) A @ 240 V to function on an outlet supplying 30 A @ 120 V .
You would have better luck adapting the 5-15 to TT30 since they are both designed for 120 V (but you would still get the same 12 A as when using the 5-15).

 

[timesinks]

You could probably use a 50A to 30A adapter for campgrounds.

No... The 30A receptacles at campsites are 120VAC; they only have one hot leg.

 

[Ladiver]

Please forgive my ignorance...I am not an electrician and don't like working on electricity. That sh*t tingles, and not in a good way!

Considering an RV, which has a 50A connector, how does that step down to 30A or 15A when 50A isn't available? I would have thought if the chargers in RV's are smart enough to detect one or two hot legs and adjust appropriately, then the EV chargers would be able to do the same.

This is especially confusing if you can use either 240 or 120.

Rivian Portable Charger
Comes standard with every Rivian. It plugs into both a
240V outlet
240V Outlet
A 240V outlet is a higher voltage outlet typically used for larger appliances such as cooking ranges, electric dryers and water heaters. They are also commonly found at RV parks. To charge your Rivian vehicle with a 240V outlet, you can use the Portable Charger which is compatible with a NEMA 14-50 outlet.
— delivering up to 16 miles of charge each hour for the R1T and R1S — as well as a standard
120V outlet
120V Outlet
120V outlets are standard electrical outlets that are typically found throughout your home. These outlets can be used in a pinch for charging with the Portable Charger, providing a few miles of range per hour.
, your typical household plug.

 

[timesinks]

Please forgive my ignorance...I am not an electrician and don't like working on electricity. That sh*t tingles, and not in a good way!

Considering an RV, which has a 50A connector, how does that step down to 30A or 15A when 50A isn't available? I would have thought if the chargers in RV's are smart enough to detect one or two hot legs and adjust appropriately, then the EV chargers would be able to do the same.

RV's have little-to-no smarts. No, seriously...

RVs over a certain size (generally when they have a 2nd AC unit or a washer-dryer combo, etc.) will have a 240V/50A inlet. But most RVs, even those running a 50A inlet, don't actually have the capability to run 240V loads.

If you dislike working on electricity, you may never have taken the cover off your main panel. But the two legs run down alternating stabs in a vertical direction from the main breaker contacts at the top. In an RV panel, generally a 2-pole breaker feeds a bus to the left and right. You cannot install a 2-pole breaker -- the left side has no stab for the right line and the right side has no stab for the left line.

So, this leads to some of the fun and janky things you can do to "adapt" an RV hookup.

50A inlet with leg 1, leg 2, and neutral? Well, just make a dog bone for a 30A plug that connects the same hot pin to both legs and passes the neutral through. Is this advisable? Well, it depends on who you ask. But what normally has 50A on one leg and 50A on the other is now supplying both legs with a single 30A leg.

Usually, you'd turn off the 2nd AC and some of the unneeded circuits just in case. But there's a lot of reliance on the breaker in the pedestal.

Have a 30A inlet? That's a little more sane. Plenty of dogbones to plug into a 50A receptacle and only tap one of the two hot legs.

But you can take it a step further and take a 20A or even 15A plug, tap the hot twice, and feed both halves of your 50A panel. Usually you'd only step down this far if you're just charging your battery. Which brings me to...

Most RV electrical systems are purely pass-through. Your shore inlet goes straight into the AC panel. Your battery charger taps from that. DC loads power off the batteries, but AC only works when plugged in -- it's basically directly connected. It's only in recent years with bigger, more capable battery banks (especially LiFePO4) that inverter chargers are inline between the inlet and the distribution panel, auto-switching between shore power and battery source. But even these are still quite dumb. Detect shore voltage? Close the contacts. Don't detect? Open the contacts and invert.

The EVSEs that can be plugged into more than one receptacle type (e.g., the Tesla one, the Rivian one, and some other third party ones) use special adapters that have circuitry that tells the EVSE which adapter is plugged in so it can communicate the appropriate charging limits with the vehicle. RV dog bones have no such electronics -- Line 1 on the line side is electrically common with Line 1 and Line 2 on the load side.

This is especially confusing if you can use either 240 or 120.

Rivian Portable Charger
Comes standard with every Rivian. It plugs into both a
240V outlet
240V Outlet
A 240V outlet is a higher voltage outlet typically used for larger appliances such as cooking ranges, electric dryers and water heaters. They are also commonly found at RV parks. To charge your Rivian vehicle with a 240V outlet, you can use the Portable Charger which is compatible with a NEMA 14-50 outlet.
— delivering up to 16 miles of charge each hour for the R1T and R1S — as well as a standard
120V outlet
120V Outlet
120V outlets are standard electrical outlets that are typically found throughout your home. These outlets can be used in a pinch for charging with the Portable Charger, providing a few miles of range per hour.
, your typical household plug.

The Rivian EVSE has two dongles, a 120VAC/12A (for a 15A circuit) and a 240VAC/32A (for a 40A or 50A circuit). The EVSE can tell which dongle you're using and communicate the appropriate current limit to the charger in the vehicle (12A or 32A). Like most battery chargers (though not RV inverter-chargers due mostly to their link with the distribution panel), the vehicle's charger is happy to accept 120VAC or 240VAC.

With those two dongles, 240VAC/32A (2 hots) being plugged into a 30A RV receptacle (1 hot) is not going to work. The charger will expect 2 hot but one leg will be open. Even if it tried to roll with the 120VAC, it's going to tell the vehicle it can use 32A when only 24A should be available under the continuous use rule.

The 120VAC/12A dongle will work fine on a 30A RV receptacle with a suitable RV-type dogbone -- but it will be a level 1 charging experience at 12A. And most (though definitely not all) RV pedestals with 30A service will also have a 120VAC/15A or 20A receptacle anyway, making the dogbone unnecessary. If Rivian were to make a 120V/24A dongle for 30A RV receptacles in the future, it would double the speed when using that kind of plug. If they offered a dyer outlet dongle (240V/24A for a 30A receptacle), it would double again.

 

[pc500]

The actual charger (in the vehicle) has specs of 12A @ 120V

I can confirm it will take an acceptance rate of 16 amps at 120 volt.

It took 15 or so during my test with a 120v 16a evse.

Sponsored