Official Rivian Portable Charger Guide

[Ladiver]

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.



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.

Wow, thanks for that explanation. I had a basic understanding of RV electrical and you just increased it ten fold. I did not think an EV truck forum would have been the place I get RV educated.
Since no good deed goes unpunished, you are now my “go to” when the electrical gremlins are ruining my camping trip! ?

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[EarlyAdptr]

Does anyone know / have experience with how the Portable Charger works with 50A GFIC circuits? I'm worried if I go that route, the circuit breaker will be tripping frequently.

Also, I've heard that the Tesla charger that plugs into the NEMA 14-50 receptacle has a sensor on it to make sure the plug / receptable isn't getting too hot. Anyone know if the Rivian PC has the same technology?

 

[Polecat]

Does anyone know / have experience with how the Portable Charger works with 50A GFIC circuits? I'm worried if I go that route, the circuit breaker will be tripping frequently.

I have that setup with my Polestar, and it hasn't ever tripped the GFCI breaker. I think it's just a possibility so it tends to be called out in manuals as a potential "not our problem" item.

 

[Eeyore]

Caution, this post is off topic

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!

Only 120 tingles. 240 or higher started to hurt. 277 is quite painful. 30+ years as an electrician and unfortunately I speak from experience. At this point in life, I don't work on anything hot.

 

[R1Sky Business]

Has anyone tested #mls on 120v plug?

 

[HightiseATX]

I see in the portable charge guide as well as the user manual we are told the portable charger ONLY works on Rivians. So is this mean it is dumb and always delivers 32amp on 240, I doubt that. Or Rivian just don't want any liability? I have bought a portable charger that would run 40amps and gave it to my son for is Rav4 Prime. Told him when I got my R1T, I would give him the Rivian portable charger and take back my other portable charger. Hmm, what to do.

 

[SANZC02]

I see in the portable charge guide as well as the user manual we are told the portable charger ONLY works on Rivians. So is this mean it is dumb and always delivers 32amp on 240, I doubt that. Or Rivian just don't want any liability? I have bought a portable charger that would run 40amps and gave it to my son for is Rav4 Prime. Told him when I got my R1T, I would give him the Rivian portable charger and take back my other portable charger. Hmm, what to do.

I saw that as well, does not make sense to me. Seems like any vehicle that accepts J1772 connector should work. I’m curious though, I am going to send a message to Rivian to see how they respond.

 

[HightiseATX]

Hey SanzC02, did you ever get an answer on non Rivian use of the portable charger?

 

[kurtlikevonnegut]

For the Forum Electricians (formally trained or otherwise): My coworker who just bought a Tesla M3P and I are trying to convince my place of work to install a charger here, but that could take a while. In the meantime, I stumbled across a vacant 30a 250v outlet that appears to be a NEMA 6-30R plug type (I think it's for welding). Assuming that I can get a 14-50R to 6-30R adapter, could I plug my mobile charger in and expect a decent (6-7kw) charge rate without frying the onboard charger, adapter, or outlet?

 

[Autolycus]

For the Forum Electricians (formally trained or otherwise): My coworker who just bought a Tesla M3P and I are trying to convince my place of work to install a charger here, but that could take a while. In the meantime, I stumbled across a vacant 30a 250v outlet that appears to be a NEMA 6-30R plug type (I think it's for welding). Assuming that I can get a 14-50R to 6-30R adapter, could I plug my mobile charger in and expect a decent (6-7kw) charge rate without frying the onboard charger, adapter, or outlet?

Do NOT rely on anything I say without hearing from others first, but I'll add this bit of information so others don't have to look it up: here are the portable charger's electrical specs:

It also has this warning to only use 120V, 208V or 240V AC power:

That said, the 250V outlet should be within the specs. Moreover, my understanding is that the outlet is likely actually a "240V nominal" outlet but spec'd for up to 250V. (I don't believe any utilities actually provide 250V nominal service. 240V service can range in practice from 220-250V).

Just make sure to limit the charge rate to 24A on the vehicle display (I think that's possible?), since you should only pull 80% of the outlet's capacity for extended usage.

 

[kurtlikevonnegut]

Do NOT rely on anything I say without hearing from others first, but I'll add this bit of information so others don't have to look it up: here are the portable charger's electrical specs:

It also has this warning to only use 120V, 208V or 240V AC power:

That said, the 250V outlet should be within the specs. Moreover, my understanding is that the outlet is likely actually a "240V nominal" outlet but spec'd for up to 250V.

Just make sure to limit the charge rate to 24A on the vehicle display (I think that's possible?), since you should only pull 80% of the outlet's capacity for extended usage.

So assuming I run it at 24a and 240V that would give me 5.7kw charge rate. Certainly enough to top me off for daily driving with a full work day of charging.

 

[mgraziano1975]

Would be great if Rivian sold a NEMA 6-50p adapter in addition to the 14-50R adapter for the portable charger. I called the service desk, and they had literally no idea what I was talking about. Since my outlet at home is 6-50P, going to have to use an adapter....

 

[Paradigm_Shift]

Installation of our Rivian charger has been delayed so we are using the portable charger until the electrician shows up. I tried to unplug the 120V adapter from the charger but it will not release....? The manual says to "pull the connector out of the controller port ". Well, I've tried pulling but it feels like it is locked in there. Have others found this to be the case with theirs or is mine defective? TIA

 

[mczouav]

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.

You could use an openevse L1/L2 charger with tt30 adapter set to L1 and 24 amp. Fully customizable.

 

[Dark-Fx]

You could use an openevse L1/L2 charger with tt30 adapter set to L1 and 24 amp. Fully customizable.

Thanks for quoting my post from over two years ago. I am already doing this. My OpenEVSE has a 40' J1772 cable as well so I don't have to make any considerations in where I park on a particular site, specifications be damned.

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