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

[MacO512]

Annoying, was hoping the 120v did not require the entire vehicle to wake - but guess it does. There must be some way to power a trickle charger from the HV pack...

I believe the vehicle must be away to use the HV pack. When it goes to sleep it opens the contactors for safety.

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[josh0]

I’m installing a Cascadia 4x4 solar panel on my hood (Gen 1 R1T). The plan is to use it to charge an auxiliary LiFePO4 battery in the frunk, then use that to keep the AGM topped up with a DC to DC charger as well as providing auxiliary power for things like a powered cooler without hitting the 12V system too hard. I got the panel installed, but when I opened up the trim to expose the battery, I think it turns out that I have a dual battery system, instead of the single battery plus capacitor that I’d assumed based on my later delivery date (November ‘23). I didn’t want to fully disassemble everything yet, so was just trying to get a look, but it sure looks like there’s two batteries in there, under the two red boxes. Unless the capacitors they use are nearly an identical form factor to the batteries?

It’s been a while since has been a topic of discussion, so I guess I’m a little rusty in the differences in the wiring. Does anyone have a good diagram of the two kinds of systems, and what the best way to wire up a charger would be for either setup?

 

[MacO512]

Capacitor is identical size to battery. That picture is a single battery with capacitor.

The difference is the passenger side one on the rear passenger corner with the red rubber. The dual battery model has black there instead of red.

So the unit on your passenger side is a capacitor and your single battery is on the driver side.

 

[josh0]

Capacitor is identical size to battery. That picture is a single battery with capacitor.

The difference is the passenger side one on the rear passenger corner with the red rubber. The dual battery model has black there instead of red.

So the unit on your passenger side is a capacitor and your single battery is on the driver side.

Oh good! I don’t know why, I just assumed the capacitor would look noticeably different…

 

[josh0]

Well, I’ve got the Cascadia panel on my hood, and have run the wiring into the frunk. I’ve successfully used it to charge a secondary lithium battery, so now just need to get it wired to the truck battery!

 

[Yossarian]

Keep us apprised of how things work out @josh0.

A couple of questions. It doesn't look like Cascadia makes a Rivian-specific panel - which one is yours? Also, I understand that the solar panel is advertised as being for the hood, but could you have itl do double duty by placing it on the glass roof instead? Understand that makes running the wiring a bit more tricky.

 

[josh0]

Keep us apprised of how things work out @josh0.

A couple of questions. It doesn't look like Cascadia makes a Rivian-specific panel - which one is yours? Also, I understand that the solar panel is advertised as being for the hood, but could you have itl do double duty by placing it on the glass roof instead? Understand that makes running the wiring a bit more tricky.

The panel I have is one they’re developing for the Rivian. Don’t know if it’s on the site yet. It’s a 92W panel, and seems to work well (I didn’t pay attention when I was screenshotting the app, that low current is not representative of performance…)

I suppose you could mount it to the glass roof. The install process involves putting on a vinyl decal that has cutouts where you use adhesive to mount their ‘SolarClasp’ attachment points, that are kinda like a super heavy-duty Velcro. I think that if I wanted to install a panel on the roof, I’d probably instead go with a rigid panel mounted to the crossbars. From there it would be pretty easy to run the wiring either into the cavity where the power tonneau goes if you don’t have one, or even straight into the gear tunnel, which gives you easy access to the cabin. Not sure how the 12V outlet in the gear tunnel is wired, but probably wouldn‘t be too hard to re-wire it to go straight to the battery so you could use it for charging. Since I’m planning on having a secondary 12V battery in the frunk, I’m thinking of attempting to rewire all the accessory outlets to that battery, so they can be always on without worrying about killing the main 12V battery.

 

[poldim]

So you have a Plus Uni as well.
Wish we had have had this convo a few days ago... Not very intuitive. I ended up doing exactly what you said last weekend. FWIW, I ended up getting more precision (two decimal places) using Analog Input mode and Javascript to convert percentage to voltage (with the offset you mentioned).

Any chance you can share your wiring/JavaScript? I've got a spare plus uni I'd like to dedicate to this. And are you just connect +12 to pins 1/3 and 2 to GND?

 

[godfodder0901]

Any chance you can share your wiring/JavaScript? I've got a spare plus uni I'd like to dedicate to this. And are you just connect +12 to pins 1/3 and 2 to GND?

 

[an-thu-knee]

I have been using the OBDII port battery tender method on occasion with success, but had some disappointing results yesterday. I was out backpacking and left my car at the trailhead for a little over 24 hours. I put it in camp mode stay off, and connected the battery tender, which was powered by a portable power station with 550 wh. When I came back the next day the power station was fully drained, and I still lost 2 miles of range.

 

[MacO512]

I have been using the OBDII port battery tender method on occasion with success, but had some disappointing results yesterday. I was out backpacking and left my car at the trailhead for a little over 24 hours. I put it in camp mode stay off, and connected the battery tender, which was powered by a portable power station with 550 wh. When I came back the next day the power station was fully drained, and I still lost 2 miles of range.

I think this is about what I experienced with my R1. Power stations also have phantom drain themselves just by having the inverter on so between that and DC>AC>DC conversion it might have only been 350Wh that went into the R1 or such.

 

[mkhuffman]

Before I got my R1T, I thought this issue was a deal breaker. It is definitely a problem if I leave the car unplugged for a couple of weeks. Which will happen a few times a year if I take the truck to the airport instead of using my wife's ICEV. But based on how I have bene using it the last four months, it has not been a problem at all. I want it resolved, though. Gen2 is supposed to be "best in class". So far, mine is significantly worse than my Mach-e was.

My truck is losing about the same as you guys are seeing: 1-2% per 24 hours (no battery tender). But this has varied dramatically. One 24-hour period it lost close to 2%, and other, much less than 1%. Gear Guard off in both cases.

I have a theory. I think when the truck is around a lot of Bluetooth signals, it does minor wake cycles to confirm it is not me walking up to the truck. The two times I got vastly different results the truck was parked in different places.

The one with the most loss was in a garage surrounded by charging Telsas, and people coming and going to their cars. The other was more sparsely populated and no Telsas, so no Bluetooth emitting cars nearby.

Also, even though I have proximity lock turned off and it is unlocked in my garage at home, the car wakes up when my phone moves close to it. Consistently. But it is not a full wake with light presentation. It is a silent wake that I can only observe on Electrifi.

 

[Yossarian]

Before I got my R1T, I thought this issue was a deal breaker. It is definitely a problem if I leave the car unplugged for a couple of weeks. Which will happen a few times a year if I take the truck to the airport instead of using my wife's ICEV. But based on how I have bene using it the last four months, it has not been a problem at all. I want it resolved, though. Gen2 is supposed to be "best in class". So far, mine is significantly worse than my Mach-e was.

My truck is losing about the same as you guys are seeing: 1-2% per 24 hours (no battery tender). But this has varied dramatically. One 24-hour period it lost close to 2%, and other, much less than 1%. Gear Guard off in both cases.

I have a theory. I think when the truck is around a lot of Bluetooth signals, it does minor wake cycles to confirm it is not me walking up to the truck. The two times I got vastly different results the truck was parked in different places.

The one with the most loss was in a garage surrounded by charging Telsas, and people coming and going to their cars. The other was more sparsely populated and no Telsas, so no Bluetooth emitting cars nearby.

Also, even though I have proximity lock turned off and it is unlocked in my garage at home, the car wakes up when my phone moves close to it. Consistently. But it is not a full wake with light presentation. It is a silent wake that I can only observe on Electrifi.

I'm seeing pretty much the same thing in my G1 R1T; daily variability in the 1 to 2 per cent range, Gear Guard almost never enabled. This represents a considerable improvement from what I first experienced when I took delivery, in June of last year when the loss was always over 2% and often double that. The improvement has been gradual and uneven, varying with the updates over the course of the year. Will have to try and test your hypothesis on the cause.

 

[HyperionMark]

Noticed a huge bump in VD in the last 48 hrs or so even with a tender attached. Seems like there must have been some change in the app. Waking up all the time. Have disallowed Bluetooth on my phone for a while to see if it helps.

 

[mudito]

Noticed a huge bump in VD in the last 48 hrs or so even with a tender attached. Seems like there must have been some change in the app. Waking up all the time. Have disallowed Bluetooth on my phone for a while to see if it helps.

You might wanna check this thread
https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/tail-lights-keep-blinking.47840/

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