R1S not charging from a dryer plug

[fishtacos]

Hi, I have an old school dryer plug (3 prong 220v 10-30p plug). I got an adapter from amazon to connect it to the rivian portable charger. I set amps to 32 (24 didn't work for some reason) and this worked for a few hours (car was charging at 7.2kw), but I eventually got a "Vehicle error" and the charging stopped. I restarted the car, and unplugged/replugged the connector (and plug) but my car wouldn't charge.

Why doesn't the car "just charge" when the dryer works just fine with the 220v. Thanks!

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[Mobius1]

Could be a faulty adapter, since the plug works works for the dryer.

 

[VSG]

Stop that right now.

First, you need the correct adapter. You didn't say what adapter you are using, so it may be entirely the wrong thing. But an adapter is NOT a good solution for anything other than a temporary situation.

Second, a 30A circuit can provide AT MOST 24A continuous. Don't even try to get anything more.

You don't seem to know what you're doing here. I don't care if you burn your own house down, but you're endangering your neighbors by doing this.

 

[RabidRat]

^ harsh.

@OP, did you check to see if your breaker was tripped? That's probably why it stopped charging, your breaker protecting you as it should.

What happened when you set the charging to lower current?

 

[HaveBlue]

Hi, I have an old school dryer plug (3 prong 220v 14-30p plug). I got an adapter from amazon to connect it to the rivian portable charger. I set amps to 32 (24 didn't work for some reason) and this worked for a few hours (car was charging at 7.2kw), but I eventually got a "Vehicle error" and the charging stopped. I restarted the car, and unplugged/replugged the connector (and plug) but my car wouldn't charge.

Why doesn't the car "just charge" when the dryer works just fine with the 220v. Thanks!

14-30 has four prongs so you might want to start there. Has your mobile charger errored out?

 

[BeanEW]

My old charger had a 10-30 plug so I installed a 10-30 receptacle in my garage for my first EV back in 2017. When that charger burnt out, I purchased a newer charger but with a 14-50 plug. I had been using an adaptor cable for many years without any problems. I had used this setup (with the non-Rivian home charger) for three different EVs including my R1S. However, when I plugged the Rivian charger (that came with the car) into the adaptor, I would get an error.

 

[Supratachophobia]

^ harsh.

@OP, did you check to see if your breaker was tripped? That's probably why it stopped charging, your breaker protecting you as it should.

What happened when you set the charging to lower current?

Sometimes you got to be stern with the children lest they burn the house down.

 

[fishtacos]

- This is temporary (for a couple nights)
- There's a 40amp breaker on this circuit. It has not tripped. The charger lights up and the dryer works when I plug that in
- None of the other amp settings works, tried 16 and 24 as well
- The charger works when I plug into a regular 110v outlet
- I have a basic adapter like this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09P3HWK1F. This is only rated for 30amps. Point taken. Will stay under 24 amps.

I guess my question is if there's a way to view the actual charger error.

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

- This is temporary (for a couple nights)
- There's a 40amp breaker on this circuit. It has not tripped. The charger lights up and the dryer works when I plug that in
- None of the other amp settings works, tried 16 and 24 as well
- The charger works when I plug into a regular 110v outlet
- I have a basic adapter like this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09P3HWK1F. This is only rated for 30amps. Point taken. Will stay under 24 amps.

I guess my question is if there's a way to view the actual charger error.

There are a couple things going on here. Running a 10-30 outlet on a 40 amp circuit is against code. Needs to be protected by a 30 amp breaker instead. Even if the ampacity of the conductor is rated for 40 amps.

The 2nd is the adapter is also not rated for more than 30 amps.

Lastly, if it's protected by a 40 amp breaker it shouldn't have tripped unless something is overheating.... Like from an undersized conductor.

Honestly I wouldn't use it until you have a qualified electrician check it out.

 

[fishtacos]

There are a couple things going on here. Running a 10-30 outlet on a 40 amp circuit is against code. Needs to be protected by a 30 amp breaker instead. Even if the ampacity of the conductor is rated for 40 amps.

The 2nd is the adapter is also not rated for more than 30 amps.

Lastly, if it's protected by a 40 amp breaker it shouldn't have tripped unless something is overheating.... Like from an undersized conductor.

Honestly I wouldn't use it until you have a qualified electrician check it out.

The breaker did not trip btw. The other points make sense, thank you for the info.

 

[PepperoniBall]

I don’t know if this matters, but I’ve read that—when doing this—you need to buy adapters that specifically state they’re for EVs versus appliances. Your linked adapter does not appear to be for EVs. Again, no clue why it’d matter, but worth some research.

That said, get an appropriate 30 amp breaker on that circuit before you try plugging a car into it again. Your car easily has the capacity to pull more than 30, especially with user error (like you’ve already intentionally done). Maybe you’ve got beefy wiring that can handle 40A, but the outlet itself almost certainly isn’t rated for more than 30A and needs a breaker to shut it down before the outlet itself catches fire when you throw more than 24 continuous through it one day.

Also, if this is your house, they sell special boxes that will split your dryer into a dryer plug and an EV charger with safe, appropriate charging ports. Maybe look into one of those if this isn’t temporary.

EDIT: An electrician can probably correct me, but my quick googling suggests that the non-EV specific adapters are only 120V (since a 10-30 plug is 120v vs 240v), but the EV-specific adapters have some shenanigans inside that double the voltage such that it’ll convert to a 14-50 plug (which is 240v). That said, as heavily noted above, you need to manually set the amperage of your car to 24A so you don‘t burn your house down, as the car will try to pull more than the outlet is rated for.

EDIT 2: If the wrong adapter is the issue, you're probably looking for this instead: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097M95SWY?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

 

[racekarl]

Old 10-30 dryer outlets have no ground. In a house old enough to have a 10-30 (especially mis-wired on 40 amp breaker) it’s possible that the EVSE is seeing a changing or bad ground potential and interrupting charging.

Heed your car‘s warning and stop charging on this outlet. In addition to risking burning your house, you risk electrocution when messing about with this ungrounded set up.

 

[Proxy]

So, 10-30 does not have a ground. It has two “hot” wires and neutral. The Rivian EVSE is doing its job correctly. It is probably sensing that this is not a proper ground sometimes and sends an error. There are EVSE’s that are approved to use neutral instead of ground and will not have errors if the neutral is wired properly. Note that @BeanEW is having the same issue using a 10-30 receptacle and a 14-50 adapter with the Rivian EVSE but another EVSE designed for 10-30 worked.

 

[KBabione]

Stupid suggestion here...Plug into a normal 120V outlet and see if the charger works. That, at least, should point you to the source of the problem. You can add a lot of miles overnight from the humble 15A 120V outlet, especially if you're there for multiple days.

 

[fishtacos]

Stupid suggestion here...Plug into a normal 120V outlet and see if the charger works. That, at least, should point you to the source of the problem. You can add a lot of miles overnight from the humble 15A 120V outlet, especially if you're there for multiple days.

Yeah, the charger works with a 110v outlet. That's what I've been doing. It charges at about 1%/hour

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