Got Electrician - What do I need to know?

[CrazyOne]

When I did mine, I didn't use conduit / armored cable. Granted, my install is only this far away from the garage sub-panel:

But now you've got me wanting to pull my wall board down and add it, LOL.

One of these days!

I am not an electrician, but armored cable is THHN wire encased in a flex metal(afaik) conduit. It should be fine. The key is to encase wire in metal, so that any fires are contained. If the conduit is plastic, I would not trust it. Metal may be required by code, I don't know.THHN wire is better than Romex because of better heat dissipation.

I asked my electrician to do whatever is needed to keep fire risk low. Breaker location and oversizing the wire was my idea. Electrician suggested THHN wire, which is slightly more expensive. Sometimes, breakers are known to get hot and trip while charging EVs. There have been a few reports of homes burning down because of charging, not the EV itself. I also mounted it close to the garage door to address any Chevy Volt like fire issues. If there is even a hint of fires while charging for my EV, it will stay outside and charge outside

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[Time2Roll]

Thae max crrent that the AWG 6 Romex will support is 55A...as you stated. 80% of 55A is 44A.

With my Wallbox, I can set it from my app. Not that I am promoting wallbox, I hate it.

From the car's control panel, you can also limit it to 44A.

Far better to change the dip switch to limit to 40 amps. The set up leaves open for a person to forget to adjust down the power or simply does not know. 10% slower charging will have virtually no impact on usage.

Same as in stalling a 40 amp electric range on a 30 amp circuit with the excuse that only one burner at a time will be used.

Take the high road, the view is better.

 

[CampfireWisdom]

I gave the Rivian charger specs to my electrician, and he took it from there.

You guys are all amazing! Thank you. I now feel super confident about what I need.

Big thanks for the Rivian recommendations @Rade because it made me think about one more thing. The portable charger will only do 32a max, so I really only need a 40a breaker installed in the panel. Right? Or will the portable charger auto-regulate itself? If so, then I would go with a 50a. I plan on sticking with Rivian OEM charging gear just to keep it safe… but am I missing anything?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Greg

 

[SANZC02]

You guys are all amazing! Thank you. I now feel super confident about what I need.

Big thanks for the Rivian recommendations @Rade because it made me think about one more thing. The portable charger will only do 32a max, so I really only need a 40a breaker installed in the panel. Right? Or will the portable charger auto-regulate itself? If so, then I would go with a 50a. I plan on sticking with Rivian OEM charging gear just to keep it safe… but am I missing anything?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Greg

Do the 50 amp. The 32 amp charger will only draw what it needs and you will be set for an upgrade to a 40 amp charger anytime in the future.

 

[Time2Roll]

50A #6 wire is fine but I would leave the breaker at 40 if the charger is to be set at 32 amps.

 

[Rade]

I have a 50amp dedicated circuit for the charger. We actually have two chargers and I am using a Lectron NEMA splitter. The 50amp circuit and the 32amp L2 chargers are more than ample to keep both the Rivian and the Tesla appropriately charged.

 

[CampfireWisdom]

So, my landlord said, “he needs to think about it.” Like I said, he’s an old-timer. I’m adding value …

Have any of you guys used the Nema 14-30 to charge? Is this a safe and viable option? I know it’s slower… but any experience charging at 24a? Luckily, we have a gas dryer so if I had to use the 14-30 I could use it reliably without a splitter.

Some people…

Thanks in advance.

Greg

 

[Kaiju]

If all you have is a NEMA 14-30, I'd tell you most failures with plugs are associated with the plug itself, in particular cheap ones aren't made for the temperature cycles. What tends to happen is the heat/cooling cycles loosen the connectors on the wires and eventually it arcs out, melting the plug if it doesn't trip the breaker. You can actually be vigilant about that and retorque the wire connections every so often.

It'd be worth getting a high-end plug from a manufacturer like Hubbell or Bryant (which is also Hubbell) and just putting that in there though. There's an obvious difference between a Hubbell 9450A and a typical big box hardware 14-50 plug. Hubbell also makes a 9430A 14-30 that has that EV Charger icon on it.

Charging at 20A and 240V actually works fine, assuming you don't go through 50% of your battery daily. If you do then you need around 30A. I've noticed mine takes 16 hours charging at 20A when it's got to do 40-50%.

The only problem is that you're going to have to buy a charger specific to a 14-30 plug or be very vigilant about setting the amperage through the truck. The Rivian portable charger is a 14-50 and it'll be too dumb to know the difference if you use some sort of adapter. Ideally you'd get a charger that can be hardwired or use a NEMA plug at various amperages. I'd tell you that if you do that (so you don't have to buy another charger after you get off a 14-30 plug) to make sure it has physical switches for amperage instead of software controls. The Grizzl-e classic is a good one for that with physical DIP switches all the way down to 16A, but it doesn't come with a 14-30 plug.

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