Lights flickering when charging R1T

[BigginsCH]

Based on your initial description "some of my light bulbs in the house flicker while the truck is charging. What is strange is it is only some of the LED lightbulbs." it's probably not a bad connection, wiring problem, etc. I repeat - based on your initial description.

My gut feeling is that this is Harmonic Distortion caused by the EVSE and the inverter in the vehicle. Not that the EVSE does not 'change' the electricity - the EVSE is essentially a smart switch, nothing more. It's highly unlikely that replacing the EVSE would have any impact.

The inverter in the vehicle converts the AC voltage to DC battery charging voltage using specialized power transistors. This process causes noise on the power line known as harmonic distortion. This can affect other electronic devices. LED bulbs ALSO have an electronic circuit that reduces the voltage from 120 AC to a lower voltage. To varying degrees, these circuits rely on a clean power line to work properly. Cheap or older design bulbs are notorious for not working with dimmers because they cannot adjust/compensate/tolerate a modified voltage waveform. This is why some bulbs do it, some don't. Figure 1 is a clean/optimal AC waveform. Figure 2 is what the AC waveform looks like with harmonic distortion. In very simple terms, the LED bulb circuit is designed to turn on and off at certain voltage values dependent on the waveform. That's easy in Figure 1. In Figure 2, the LED buld circuit may turn on and off multiple times due to the spikes in the waveform, causing what we see as flickering.

A good test would be to charge a DIFFERENT non-Rivian vehicle and see if the problem changes.

Read this article for more information.

Since my original post I did end up swapping out the offending LED bulbs and have chalked it up to cheap LED bulbs being the problem as I have not noticed this behavior since I changed the bulbs out.

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[AMaier]

@AMaier Can you describe the flicker in more detail? Is it a fast flicker where the lights dim and brighten many times per second? Or a slow flicker where it takes several seconds between different levels of brightness? If the latter, approximately how many seconds does it take to change?

It is a fast flicker with maybe 10-15% drop in light level multiple times per second (I'm just guessing here). Very occasionally it will get in a mode where the flicker is closer to fully on / off multiple times a second (maybe a handful of charge sessions total).

 

[DrBunk03]

Wanted to reply to this thread as it was very useful to me as I have been trying to troubleshoot the same problem. I had dimmable LEDs flickering on two different circuits, neither of which were on the same circuits I was using for my EVSE. The LED dimmers and the LEDs are all high quality (Lutron, Phillips), installed in the last couple of years.

Tried multiple EVSEs on different circuits (120 and 240 on sub and main panel) with my R1T but flickering persisted any time I initiated charging on the Rivian. I checked all the outlets, then had electrician come to check for problems (loose neutrals etc), same with power company, nothing amiss.

I tried charging a couple other EVs (Ford Lightning, Kia EV6) and the flickering never occurred. I had seen the possibility of RF interference, so to test that I moved the lightning and the Rivian into the garage directly underneath one of the rooms where the flickering occurred. Charging the R1T from “shore power” of my house caused flickering on both 120V and 240V circuits (worse on 120 at similar amperages), whereas plugging the mobile charger in to the lightning’s pro-power and charging did not cause the flickering.

This led me to investigate the hypothesis offered by Zoidz, that the onboard charger was causing harmonic distortion at the LED dimmer. I tried changing out the dimmer to another LED-compatible dimmer, problem persisted. Changed the dimmer switch to a regular binary on/off switch, and the flickering is gone. I have an appointment with Rivian to look at whether there is anything amiss with the onbard charger (because I would like to have the ability to dim those lights), but I am not optimistic they will find anything.

Based on your initial description "some of my light bulbs in the house flicker while the truck is charging. What is strange is it is only some of the LED lightbulbs." it's probably not a bad connection, wiring problem, etc. I repeat - based on your initial description.

My gut feeling is that this is Harmonic Distortion caused by the EVSE and the inverter in the vehicle. Not that the EVSE does not 'change' the electricity - the EVSE is essentially a smart switch, nothing more. It's highly unlikely that replacing the EVSE would have any impact.

The inverter in the vehicle converts the AC voltage to DC battery charging voltage using specialized power transistors. This process causes noise on the power line known as harmonic distortion. This can affect other electronic devices. LED bulbs ALSO have an electronic circuit that reduces the voltage from 120 AC to a lower voltage. To varying degrees, these circuits rely on a clean power line to work properly. Cheap or older design bulbs are notorious for not working with dimmers because they cannot adjust/compensate/tolerate a modified voltage waveform. Modern dimmers modify the waveform, they do NOT reduce the voltage. This is why some bulbs do it, some don't. Figure 1 is a clean/optimal AC waveform. Figure 2 is what the AC waveform looks like with harmonic distortion. In very simple terms, the LED bulb circuit is designed to turn on and off at certain voltage values dependent on the waveform. That's easy in Figure 1. In Figure 2, the LED buld circuit may turn on and off multiple times due to the spikes in the waveform, causing what we see as flickering.

A good test would be to charge a DIFFERENT non-Rivian vehicle and see if the problem changes.

Read this article for more information.

 

[tg_cid]

FWIW, I have had this problem since bring home my R1T last year. My electrician confirmed that while a nuisance it didn’t appear to be any kind of major issue. Most likely noise from the Rivian onboard charger.

this is the same with gen 2 R1S as well.

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