Small Refrigerator Blew the Inverter

[Owner]

I hope you didn't have to pay for that repair? They have a $1 fuse that is supposed to protect the inverter and associated wiring and as long as your device puled less then the outlets were spec'd for you didn't abuse or cause the equipment damage.

No, the repair itself was at no charge.

Took a fair amount of time/hassle to figure out what was going on while on the road and having plans altered without any cold food storage, starlink or the ability to make coffee (I heat up water in a kettle). Then a wait for the service and a week in the shop.

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[NY_Rob]

You might be onto something. The Rivian person who I spoke to was one of the mechanics, but he may or may not have been one of their electrical people. From what I understood at the service center they only have two people who work on any electrical problems. One who works during the day and one who works at night. So the simple solution could perhaps be to just plug in the refrigerator (its not a cooler technically) into the 12V DC outlet.

As a lifelong boater I can 100% guarantee that all these appliances internally run on 12V DC power, some do include an internal 120VAC to 12VDC rectifier/transformer as a convenience so you can run the cooler at your house or in your hotel room, but it draws more current to do that vs. running it on straight 12DC power skipping all the conversions. You will also save a good deal of your main 400 volt battery power if you don't fire up that 120VAC inverter to begin with.

Regarding advice from Rivian technicians (or Tesla or Jeep or BMW, etc.. technicians) if you ask them something that's not covered on their laptop service app... you're basically asking a "man in the street" type question where their answer could be completely wrong.

 

[Owner]

Regarding advice from Rivian technicians (or Tesla or Jeep or BMW, etc.. technicians) if you ask them something that's not covered on their laptop service app... you're basically asking a "man in the street" type question where their answer could be completely wrong.

I completely agree with you on the standard question thing. I often ask complicated questions about things, and I get the 'standard' answer that isn't really the question I asked. It can be a bit frustrating particularly when texting.

The service technician was the first person I talked to in person who was not a service advisor and actually worked on the cars! So I was valuing his words more seriously than those in the front of the counter, who are generally doing the best they can. But it doesn't mean a mechanic knows everything either.

 

[SwampNut]

It is very unlikely that any portable refrigerators could actually damage the system. Now, I run my onboard fridge from 12v, since it natively is a 12v compressor. But I've run large things from the inverter including air conditioners.

As a lifelong boater I can 100% guarantee that all these appliances internally run on 12V DC power

As a lifelong boater who has had two onboard fridges that internally run on 24v....ummmm....

 

[NY_Rob]

As a lifelong boater who has had two onboard fridges that internally run on 24v....ummmm....

I'm referring to carry-on gear capt., all single battery stuff.

 

[NY_Rob]

I completely agree with you on the standard question thing. I often ask complicated questions about things, and I get the 'standard' answer that isn't really the question I asked. It can be a bit frustrating particularly when texting.

The service technician was the first person I talked to in person who was not a service advisor and actually worked on the cars! So I was valuing his words more seriously than those in the front of the counter, who are generally doing the best they can. But it doesn't mean a mechanic knows everything either.

Old time Mechanics were pretty much proficient in all systems excepting maybe automatic transmissions. The "technicians" we have now read off a computer screen, every step is detailed for them which is why Rivian sometimes has to fly one of their factory engineers to various SC's to troubleshoot because the "technicians" ran out of computer screens to read

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