Help troubleshooting a charging issue [R1S, Level 2 Grizzl-E at home]

[sevengroove]

I've had my R1S and L2 Smart Grizzl-E home charger setup for just under two months now and the combination had been working flawlessly until the past few days. Upon plugging in the vehicle charges normally, but at some point (I'm guessing overnight) the charge port light on the Rivian switches to red. The Rivian app then shows 'charging error'. The Grizzl-E ChargeLab app shows the charger as 'available'. I can fix the issue by just unplugging the charge cord and plugging it back in.

I'm not sure why this could be happening. A couple of random theories are:

• It's been getting much colder overnight here in the Seattle area (sub-freezing), and the charger/vehicle are both outdoors - could be causing some sort of issue, although both charger and vehicle are rated for outdoor use.
• These issues are happening after installing the latest software update (the Halloween one) so maybe there are bugs in how to handle trickle charging after the set limit (70%) has been reached.

This is also concerning because I'm about to travel abroad in just 2 weeks' time and plan to leave the R1S plugged in at an airport parking lot for 18 days, so if this issue happens there I could be coming back to a disastrous situation. I called Rivian service and they said they would touch base with their charging team and get back to me, although the guy was quick to try and shift blame to the conveniently non-Rivian charger. Any other thoughts on why this could be happening, and other troubleshooting tips I should try?

Edit: adding some detail about the charger. It is a 40A unit plugged in to a 14-50 NEMA outlet.

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[PappaBolt]

Can’t say I’ve encountered failed charging after it connects. Is there any detail in your charging report or from the 3P charger? It should show the total charge time.

I have experienced multiple initial handshake failures resulting the the red circle of death . Currently being evaluated by the SC.

 

[sevengroove]

The Grizzl-E charging app (Charge Lab) only shows the time the charging session started and the total kWh delivered. I am not seeing a way to look up charging reports on the Rivian app - it shows me my current session, which is so far active (7h+ elapsed) but iirc this information disappears from view once it gets to the error state. I will verify again, assuming the red circle happens again sometime in the next few hours.

Tomorrow I will do a session with the included portable charger - whether the issue reccurs on that will be indicative.

 

[SeaGeo]

Call Grizzl-e. I had a similar issue with my first charger from them, and then they sent me a replacement. The first one would randomly stop on me and require flipping the circuit to reset the EVSE. I eventually realized the replacement had an issue that would prevent a vehicle from restarting charging without plugging back in. They identified that it was a known issue with the firmware of that version of the charger and sent me my third. Which works great now.

Downsides of a "dumb" charger. Bugs require the post office.

 

[kanundrum]

Sister had exact same issue with her Grizzle E Charger and her Ioniq 5, its a known issue, she was sent a new one and had to send the old one back.

 

[sevengroove]

Oh wow, didn’t realize this was a widespread issue! Thank you both for chiming in. Being the “smart” version doesn’t help its case either, it seems. I will call them and get a replacement sent out. Thanks again.

 

[MaskedRacerX]

We've had a Grizzl-E Smart (40a / J-connector) since April '21, it's been very solid, love the build quality (beefy chassis, 24' thick cables, etc.)

I had a period where ours wouldn't start and/or would immediately stop, it was something with the communication upstream, i.e., the "smart" features.

I wound up running it in "dumb" mode, basically unplugged, opened it, moved the WiFi reset dipswitch into reset mode and just left it there and closed it back up.

Worked perfectly without any need to communicate to a remote service (we started with their own, and later moved to Charge Lab), which I believe is the issue. There's some kind of remote init/auth that occurs when it's in smart mode, and when that fails, the charger goes "offline" so to speak.

 

[sevengroove]

Thanks @MaskedRacerX. I just concluded an email back-and-forth with their support and was told something similar - they looked at my charger details and determined that the Wi-Fi connection strength was not very strong. They wanted to claim this as the reason for the charger errors but upon further pressing mentioned that this is only an issue for scheduled charges.

They still don't have an explanation for what exactly caused my errors but they pushed a firmware update to the unit and since then it's been error-free. If it does happen again though I might have to roll with the "dumb" mode too. I saw the wi-fi connectivity as a nice-to-have but not at the cost of increased charge errors.

I asked for detailed charging logs on the nights that the errors occurred. Will post them here when I get them if anyone is curious.

 

[Matthuw]

Sister had exact same issue with her Grizzle E Charger and her Ioniq 5, its a known issue, she was sent a new one and had to send the old one back.

This is very interesting. I have my wife’s Ioniq 5 back at the Hyundai dealership to troubleshoot a charging issue at home also. We are using a Grizzle 14-50 plug in charger. Worked fine from April until November, then stopped charging. The kicker, the Tesla still charges on it without issue. Grizzle is in the process of sending me a new unit while Hyundai looks at the car.

 

[MaskedRacerX]

They still don't have an explanation for what exactly caused my errors but they pushed a firmware update to the unit and since then it's been error-free. If it does happen again though I might have to roll with the "dumb" mode too. I saw the wi-fi connectivity as a nice-to-have but not at the cost of increased charge errors.

Yeah, that's exactly my perspective. When I got this, the price for the smart features was only like $30-40 more than the "dumb" version (this was before the price hike so $479 delivered), and at the time, it seemed like - pun kind of intended - a no brainer

But after seeing what is does/doesn't without being connected, it's not much of a loss.

I guess one perk is seeing total power consumption when charging so you can get a sense of cost, but I know our Kw rate, the cost-per-mile, Kw/mile of our two vehicles, it's much cheaper vs. gas, so the details I don't really care about.

As for scheduling, with cars like our Tesla (assuming the Rivian too), there's plenty of scheduling capability built right into the vehicle, and we're not on a TOU type electrical plan, so we just charge whenever anyway.

 

[sevengroove]

Yeah, that's exactly my perspective. When I got this, the price for the smart features was only like $30-40 more than the "dumb" version (this was before the price hike so $479 delivered), and at the time, it seemed like - pun kind of intended - a no brainer

But after seeing what is does/doesn't without being connected, it's not much of a loss.

I guess one perk is seeing total power consumption when charging so you can get a sense of cost, but I know our Kw rate, the cost-per-mile, Kw/mile of our two vehicles, it's much cheaper vs. gas, so the details I don't really care about.

As for scheduling, with cars like our Tesla (assuming the Rivian too), there's plenty of scheduling capability built right into the vehicle, and we're not on a TOU type electrical plan, so we just charge whenever anyway.

Yup, same here - no TOU rates or anything of the sort, or solar on the roof, so the remote control is not as useful.

As it turns out, the problem has recurred again even with the new firmware. I've let Grizzl-E know, but will probably only hear back after the weekend. Sigh.

 

[DirtyJester]

I noticed on my grizzl-e charger that if I hot plug it in I get errors and have to unplug the charger itself and then re plug it in. But if I soft plug (press the release button until the plug is seated) then it works great.
This the way both the electrician who installed it and the people at grizzle have both said to hook up any charger. They’ve stated that not pushing that button when plugging any charger in (hot plugging) can damage the battery. Whether that’s true or not I don’t know. But that’s what I do anyway.

 

[sevengroove]

I noticed on my grizzl-e charger that if I hot plug it in I get errors and have to unplug the charger itself and then re plug it in. But if I soft plug (press the release button until the plug is seated) then it works great.
This the way both the electrician who installed it and the people at grizzle have both said to hook up any charger. They’ve stated that not pushing that button when plugging any charger in (hot plugging) can damage the battery. Whether that’s true or not I don’t know. But that’s what I do anyway.

Interesting - the funny thing is that I don't get any errors at all upon initial plug-in (I've been doing the "hot" plug). The charging session can stay active for days, as it should if the vehicle is just unused at home and topping up every now and then. But very randomly it loses connection and I only notice if I physically look at the Rivian and see the red light around the charge port.

 

[rraj2k81]

Call Grizzl-e. I had a similar issue with my first charger from them, and then they sent me a replacement. The first one would randomly stop on me and require flipping the circuit to reset the EVSE. I eventually realized the replacement had an issue that would prevent a vehicle from restarting charging without plugging back in. They identified that it was a known issue with the firmware of that version of the charger and sent me my third. Which works great now.

Downsides of a "dumb" charger. Bugs require the post office.

Hey @SeaGeo,

If you still using the Grizzl-E, do you still have the random disconnect with these chargers or have they resolved ?

These chargers are on sale here and considering picking one up for the 40A charging.

 

[SeaGeo]

Hey @SeaGeo,

If you still using the Grizzl-E, do you still have the random disconnect with these chargers or have they resolved ?

These chargers are on sale here and considering picking one up for the 40A charging.

I don't have a problem. It was a firmware issue.

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