Charging behavior on 39.1+ Breaker tripping?

[Revelation]

It is a Rivian Wall charger. I put in a service request so we will see what they say. I haven’t looked at the wiring, but it is kind of odd that it works fine at lower amperage. E.g. 44. When I looked previously all appeared well.

What size wire and breaker are you using? 6AWG, 8AWG Romex or THHN? 40A, 50A, 60A Breaker? Etc... Have you checked the torque of each screw for each line? What are your DIP switches, inside of the Rivian EVSE, set to? All three 'ON' or something else?

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[TxBeachRivian]

What size wire and breaker are you using? 6AWG, 8AWG Romex or THHN? 40A, 50A, 60A Breaker? Etc... Have you checked the torque of each screw for each line? What are your DIP switches, inside of the Rivian EVSE, set to? All three 'ON' or something else?

It is a long run, so they used 4 AWG. 60amp breaker. Haven’t checked the screws. Dips are all on and set to 48 so it shows 48 in the app. I think I can check the connections, but since it works fine at lower apps, I am kind of closing in on the breaker being “bad”.

 

[FNWY2004]

It is a long run, so they used 4 AWG. 60amp breaker. Haven’t checked the screws. Dips are all on and set to 48 so it shows 48 in the app. I think I can check the connections, but since it works fine at lower apps, I am kind of closing in on the breaker being “bad”.

Just because it works fine at lower amps doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad breaker. You can still have a loose connection, but at lower load it doesn’t provide enough heat to get inside the breakers trip curve range.

Loose connections can make it seem like the breaker has an issue. You are just thermally tripping the bimetallic internal contacts as designed, but the breaker itself can still be good. If all connections are tight, pull the breaker (if you feel qualified) and inspect the connections where it plugs into the panel. Look for signs of heat, discoloration, weak tulips on breaker. If the bus bars on the panel look fine, toss in a new $15 breaker and see if that solves it.

Remember the breaker doesn’t know what’s going on downstream. It’s only designed to trip based off thermal input. A couple of ways that thermal input gets there. Overloading at the load end or failing, loose components, shorting wires all making it seem like there’s a load issue.

Hope this helps.

 

[Mathme]

If you can charge at a lower setting, then it's likely not an issue with the Rivian Charger. as others have said, try the screws holding the wires to the breaker and the charger. Then I'd likely try the breaker.

 

[TxBeachRivian]

Just because it works fine at lower amps doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad breaker. You can still have a loose connection, but at lower load it doesn’t provide enough heat to get inside the breakers trip curve range.

Loose connections can make it seem like the breaker has an issue. You are just thermally tripping the bimetallic internal contacts as designed, but the breaker itself can still be good. If all connections are tight, pull the breaker (if you feel qualified) and inspect the connections where it plugs into the panel. Look for signs of heat, discoloration, weak tulips on breaker. If the bus bars on the panel look fine, toss in a new $15 breaker and see if that solves it.

Remember the breaker doesn’t know what’s going on downstream. It’s only designed to trip based off thermal input. A couple of ways that thermal input gets there. Overloading at the load end or failing, loose components, shorting wires all making it seem like there’s a load issue.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the tips. I did get the electrical that did the install to come out and the amperage all looked good. When I ran the charger at 48 amps the breaker did seem to hum and after taking it out it was pretty hot.

new breaker installed and hopefully all is well again.

 

[TxBeachRivian]

If you can charge at a lower setting, then it's likely not an issue with the Rivian Charger. as others have said, try the screws holding the wires to the breaker and the charger. Then I'd likely try the breaker.

Yep. Got a new breaker installed. Old breaker was humming and got hot after a few minutes, so that one appeared to have some issues. Could even hear the spring some when you shook it. And also feel it kind of vibrate after switching it.

 

[svet-am]

Yep. Got a new breaker installed. Old breaker was humming and got hot after a few minutes, so that one appeared to have some issues. Could even hear the spring some when you shook it. And also feel it kind of vibrate after switching it.

So, was it the breaker? have you done a test charge after replacing it?

 

[TxBeachRivian]

So, was it the breaker? have you done a test charge after replacing it?

Yeah. Was the breaker. Charged tonight with the new breaker. No issues. The other worked occasionally so I will need to see if it works better consistently

 

[Arky]

I haven't had charge issues but on 39.3 it feels like vampire drain went up. I'm on vacation watching my truck drop 3-5% a day and previously it was more like 2%.

Edit: Just since last night (16 hours) I've seen it drop another 4%. Hope it's not completely dry by the time I get back, it's ridiculous and unsustainable. It can't be doing more work than a phone but it's drained the equivalent of 300 phone batteries in that time

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