Gen 1 Vampire Drain (Possibly) Solved (or Hacked)

[NY_Rob]

looks like you have dual 12V batteries. did you hook it up to both? (passenger side has a negative terminal).

Yes, I purchased the dual bank Noco charger, I connected both batts to the charger.

Sponsored

 

[NY_Rob]

Thank you!

I guess my only remaining question is whether we can just trickle charge one of the batteries and have the other second one charge too.

First, for jump starting using the leads in the hitch area (mentioned in the manual), only one pair of cables is provided. Second, when switching to Lithium batteries, Ohmmu instructional video mentions that if you replace one battery at a time, the car won't need a full reset.

So, I am wondering if the two batteries are somehow linked anyways and we could just trickle charge one battery and effectively trickle charge the remaining one too.

The two batts are electrically isolated, you need to charge both, charging just one will not charge the other battery.

The above fact is the reason that "jump starting" from the rear pigtail leads often does not revive the vehicle as it only connects to one of the batts.

 

[HighVoltOverland]

Now that it seems like we’ve more or less confirmed that a battery tender will solve the vampire drain issue, I’m even more interested in the Lensun hood solar panel. I’m mostly concerned about battery drain when in places where plugging in just isn’t an option (my R1T is in an airport parking lot right now, for example). I don’t know anything about this company, but having a panel that’s more permanently installed seems like it would be better than one that you have to remember to connect and disconnect each time (plus someone could walk off with). I don’t know that I’d bother with their charge controller, though, seeing as you could get a higher capacity one from Victron for less, and I definitely trust Victron’s quality more than some unknown company with fairly generic looking hardware.

https://lensunsolar.com/products/ri...d-flexible-solar-panel-charge-for-12v-battery

Man, I navigated here just to ask if anyone had tried to fit any of the cascadia 4x4 panels

anyone know what the weight limit/ rating is for the struts?

 

[shrink]

Brief update. I briefly check my vehicle status, which was a steady 68% SOC, but then I somehow accidentally changed the charge limit to 73%. The car woke up from sleep and charged for 3 minutes @ 40 amps before I stopped it and lowered the charge limit back down to 50%.

So there will be a small footnote in the final observations.

I did notice about 30 minutes later the car was prompting me to install the update, which I didn’t think was possible in shipping mode. However, I really do think the download over LTE caused the 1% SOC drop in the first week.

 

[NY_Rob]

... I really do think the download over LTE caused the 1% SOC drop in the first week.

Owners would be super happy with just 1% loss over a week's time! People are seeing crazy high 2% loss per day after the last update!

I have 3h40min till I complete the first 48hr period of undisturbed time on my trickle charger. Anxious to go check results at 4pm today

 

[JeremyMKE]

What is this thing you call, winter?

GFY ?

 

[NY_Rob]

Okay.. the 48 hr wait is over.. drum roll please....

Just 1 mi range lost after sitting 48 hours undisturbed with the trickle charger connected to both batts as detailed in my post above! Started with 143mi range at 4pm Monday, today (Wed) at 4pm I had 142mi range.

I'd call that a win in the fight against VD

Notes:
1) I neglected to have my R1T "forget" my home WiFi network before starting the 48 hr test, so it could have connected to the internet during the 48hr test, I have no way to know. I have now made my truck forget my home WiFi.
2) I have no idea what the state of the 12V batts was when I started the 48 hour test on Monday afternoon so there is a chance that the truck was still partially charging them before the trickle charger topped them off and took over the charging duties. That may account for the 1 mile range lost over 48 hours. It will be interesting to see over time if the half mi/day loss stops now that the truck has no cause to charge the 12V batts.
3) The 1 mile lost over 48 hours could just be a rounding issue, no way to know over a short 48 hour test period, but I'm going to try to avoid using the truck for at least another day if not longer to see what happens.

Bonus:
At 4pm today, I connected my Kill-A-Watt meter to the trickle charger. It has an instantaneous mode to give you a "live" real-time reading which was 0.03 Amps (or 3.6 watts) once the trickle charger booted up and stabilized. It's also got a cumulative function that starts a timer as soon as you plug it in so you can track energy draw over time for non-constant load devices like refrigerators, wall air conditioners, etc.. or anything that's not a constant load like possibly charging batteries. So, I'll check back in another 24 hrs to see what the cumulative energy usage for the trickle charger is over a full 24hr period.

 

[josh0]

Huh. I might actually order that for my Jeep Cherokee, which often lives at the airport!

I‘ve got a Gobi rack on my KL, that I had been planning on mounting a solar battery tender to, as soon as I get around to finding a good solution to routing the cables for. This is probably better.

 

[josh0]

I don't agree. The OP confirmed it worked for him, but we need more than one data point to determine it is a solution. There are others testing that may or may not confirm what the OP has experienced. If they do, then maybe you are correct. As of right now, don't assume one vehicle represents all. IMO.

And I agree it does look promising. But seriously. This is ridiculous.

You have to connect a 12V tender to eliminate vampire drain? Really? This is a big reason I waited for Gen2. I really hope they delivered on their promise to provide best in class vampire drain. It seems they have, but the data so far is limited. More posts please from Gen2 owners!!!

I did say ‘more or less’… I’m not about to shell out for this solution without at least testing out that it should work on my R1T first. I’ve got a solar battery tender that should allow me to test it out.

 

[CBRacerX]

All great data and work! I think the approach for two battery R1s should be removing the frunk and running a separate fused SAE connection from the towhook area to each battery. I use these all the time and they allow connection of any battery maintainer (even the NICO with an SAE adapter). This keeps the charger(s) external to vehicle and the fuse handles the positive lines crossing over the chassis under the frunk. https://www.amazon.com/SPARKING-Motorcycle-Disconnect-Extension-Accessory/dp/B07KS2GCXJ/

If you want a MagSafe Version use the cool connection linked above.

For the single battery R1s I am going to do a test with feeding the charge into the 7 Pin Trailer plug. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CMDJRBDB/

Thanks everyone for all the efforts so far. Yes, this is a shame that such measures have to be taken to prevent significant HV battery loss, but at least we can prove options are possible.

 

[josh0]

All great data and work! I think the approach for two battery R1s should be removing the frunk and running a separate fused SAE connection from the towhook area to each battery. I use these all the time and they allow connection of any battery maintainer (even the NICO with an SAE adapter). This keeps the charger(s) external to vehicle and the fuse handles the positive lines crossing over the chassis under the frunk. https://www.amazon.com/SPARKING-Motorcycle-Disconnect-Extension-Accessory/dp/B07KS2GCXJ/

If you want a MagSafe Version use the cool connection linked above.

For the single battery R1s I am going to do a test with feeding the charge into the 7 Pin Trailer plug. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CMDJRBDB/

Thanks everyone for all the efforts so far. Yes, this is a shame that such measures have to be taken to prevent significant HV battery loss, but at least we can prove options are possible.

If it works from the 7-pin, I could see attaching a solar panel to the last segment of a manual tonneau cover for this. That could be a pretty great solution.

I assume it would also be almost guaranteed to work from the jump pigtails, right? In order to use them as designed, they’d have to just be connected directly to the battery, wouldn’t they?

 

[NY_Rob]

^ on dual 12V battery Rivian's the rear jumper pigtail only connects to one of the two 12V batts

 

[josh0]

^ on dual 12V battery Rivian's the rear jumper pigtail only connects to one of the two 12V batts

I wonder if installing a charge equalizer could solve that.

Edit: actually, I guess that doesn’t make any sense. It would require the two battery vehicles to be running a 24V system…

 

[NY_Rob]

Okay.. the 48 hr wait is over.. drum roll please....

Just 1 mi range lost after sitting 48 hours undisturbed with the trickle charger connected to both batts as detailed in my post above! Started with 143mi range at 4pm Monday, today (Wed) at 4pm I had 142mi range.

I'd call that a win in the fight against VD

Notes:
1) I neglected to have my R1T "forget" my home WiFi network before starting the 48 hr test, so it could have connected to the internet during the 48hr test, I have no way to know. I have now made my truck forget my home WiFi.
2) I have no idea what the state of the 12V batts was when I started the 48 hour test on Monday afternoon so there is a chance that the truck was still partially charging them before the trickle charger topped them off and took over the charging duties. That may account for the 1 mile range lost over 48 hours. It will be interesting to see over time if the half mi/day loss stops now that the truck has no cause to charge the 12V batts.
3) The 1 mile lost over 48 hours could just be a rounding issue, no way to know over a short 48 hour test period, but I'm going to try to avoid using the truck for at least another day if not longer to see what happens.

Bonus:
At 4pm today, I connected my Kill-A-Watt meter to the trickle charger. It has an instantaneous mode to give you a "live" real-time reading which was 0.03 Amps (or 3.6 watts) once the trickle charger booted up and stabilized. It's also got a cumulative function that starts a timer as soon as you plug it in so you can track energy draw over time for non-constant load devices like refrigerators, wall air conditioners, etc.. or anything that's not a constant load like possibly charging batteries. So, I'll check back in another 24 hrs to see what the cumulative energy usage for the trickle charger is over a full 24hr period.

72 hour test check in...
Range unchanged from 24hrs ago, holding steady at 142miles (143mi range when test was started 72hrs ago).

Kill-A-Watt meter 24 hour runtime results (running my NOCO trickle charger connected to both 12V batts): Trickle Charger consumed 0.23kWh over 24hrs. Over one month's time that works out to 7kWh/month, and even at high NY electric rates that only comes to $1.75 worth of electricity. For reference, a common 7 watt night light bulb burns 5.2kWh (or $1.28 worth) of electricity per month.

Takeaways:
-Without the trickle charger I was losing about 1.7kWh/day from vampire loss. Over the 72hr test period without the trickle charger I would have lost 5.1kWh of energy at a cost of $1.27
-Over the same 72 hour period using the trickle charger I lost only 1 mile of range which would need approx .5kWh to recoup at a cost of about $0.13 to me. Also, the charger consumed 0.23kWh of electricity at a cost of about $0.06. Add the two together an it cost about $0.19 to run the trickle charger and also recharge the 1 mile in range the truck lost during the first 48 hrs.

Right now I don't anticipate having to use my R1T tomorrow, so I'll keep the kill-A-Watt meter connected and run the test/results out to 96hrs if plans hold.

 

[NY_Rob]

TLDR:
I hooked up a battery charger/maintainer to the 12V battery in my R1S...

1-week update (8/9/2024 to 8/16/2024):
1% loss from the high voltage battery
(69% to 68%)

2-week update 8/16/2024 to 8/23/2024
0% loss from the high voltage battery
SOC remains at 68%

Cumulative over 14 Days: 8/9/2024 to 8/23/2024
1% loss
69% to 68% SOC

Amazing results and I've seen only 1 mile loss of range over 72hrs in my tests above. Others in this thread have also seen excellent results using 12V battery maintainers.

Looks like we can finally point the finger at the culprit robbing all the battery energy day... it's the 12V battery charging system and the other systems that need to be/or just by poor design power on to maintain the 12V batts. Obviously an extremely wasteful way of doing things as shown by results above.

Sponsored